Monday, June 20, 2011

The first week in this strange new world


I’ll admit it – I am woefully ignorant when it comes down to what to do next.  I honestly never really thought this far ahead!  So today the clinic called me, which was a sweet moment (I always imagined hearing my nurse practitioner call me and say “congratulations!” – she didn’t actually say this, but said what a nice message mine was to get on a Monday morning, so that’s close enough).  They don’t need/want to see me; all they said was to make an appointment with an ob and tell them I’m on progesterone because they may want to take me off it.  After some rooting around in the Kaiser system I saw that unless it’s an emergency I can’t get an appointment for at least two weeks.  So now I’m wondering how urgent this progesterone thing is – I mean, I know it can’t hurt to stay on it (and I probably would anyway even if they told me I don’t need it), and it’s affordable.  But should I be more urgent about seeing someone right now?  There’s no reason to see me right now.  Of course I’d love to get blood tests and ultrasounds to ease my mind, but it’s certainly not necessary, and I’d have to pay through the nose for all that.  So, as a friend told me, I guess all I have to do for the next few weeks is just “be pregnant”.  I think I can do that!

Had a horrible moment last night when I felt some discharge during a movie; after suffering through the last half of it wondering what the heck was going on I ran to the bathroom and saw some very light brown spotting.  I also had been having more twingy/tugging feelings in my right side, so you know what I was thinking – this is it; it’s over before it even began!!!  But of course when I got home I obsessively googled (and wiped) and it appears this is totally normal and is in fact the embryo burrowing into my lining.  It is considered “old blood”.  As long as it’s not bright red and a large amount and isn’t accompanied by lots of cramping, apparently you’re ok.  The clinic confirmed this for me.  And I haven’t had anything since, so huge sigh of relief there.  I imagine I’ll have several episodes like this until I’m out of my first trimester and (hopefully) can relax a little.  Sigh!

I keep wanting to take more pregnancy tests but I know this is stupid – as long as I’m not bleeding, I’m still pregnant.  I keep thinking of this creepy story I read in a Hollywood starlet’s autobiography about how she was pregnant and the baby died but never came out (this was the 50s) and so she carried around a dead fetus for months and nobody knew; apparently this sent her into a psychotic episode.  This haunts me.  What if it dies and doesn’t come out and I sit around thinking I’m pregnant when I’m not?  Does that happen at this stage, or does it definitely come out (eventually)?  Is it true that as long as I’m not copiously bleeding that the baby is still alive & progressing?  I think I have a lot of googling to do!

So my “bitch!” moment didn’t go exactly as I had planned last night at dinner with my friend.  I brought out the pregnancy test after saying “I have something to tell you,” but my friend immediately launched into a long story about this friend she just saw a couple of nights ago who also announced she’s pregnant after she and her husband had been trying for a long time, and then several other people in her life who recently announced pregnancies, etc etc, while I sat there not saying a word.  So for about five minutes I got to hear about everyone else’s pregnancies while I sat there silent.  Oh, don’t get me wrong – my friend was happy for me, and interested in the whole process – I guess I just like my reactions big; I want tears, hugs, congratulations, not just me bringing out my pregnancy test and the first words out of my friend’s mouth being, “that’s so weird, I just went on a double date with my friend and her husband and they told me…..”  Then the night ended weird because I was convinced I was having a miscarriage so I pretty much just said goodbye and then ran to my car.  So as far as reactions from friends, this has to rank about a 3 out of 10.


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