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2007-04-05 - 11.45pm��previous entry��next entry
Chemical pregnancy #3 for me
I'm so sorry that I didn't chart or update till this late in the evening! I haven't really known how to write an entry today, and I also haven't had time or energy. And most of my evening got used up, so this is my first chance. I still don't know how to write what's in my head so I'll just start and see where I get to.
My temp dropped below my coverline this morning and I started my period shortly after I got up. Yesterday, three things were "different" that make me think, "Hmmm...." One was the fact that I was eating sweet foods again and they were sitting okay in my stomach, and another was that I was SUPER hungry. I charted it as increased appetite yesterday, thinking it might be pregnant of me, but in hindsight (I've been crazy-ravenous today, every hour or so) I wonder if maybe I had been off my food pregnancy-wise with the queasiness and food aversions, and then those hormones lifted as the pregnancy was not working out, and so my appetite came back. BUT, I had still been exerting myself over that time and breastfeeding two little ones, and chasing after them, etc, so perhaps when my appetite came back, I was super hungry so that I could eat more to make up for it? I don't know. I just wondered.
And the other thing that made me go "hmmm..." yesterday was that breastfeeding was not painful. Well, it was a little sore here and there with Matthew's new front teeth (I'll get used to that - I just need tougher nipples, hehe!), but otherwise none of that searing pins-in-my-nipples pain every second of their nursing sessions.
I didn't think, "Ohhh that's it then, I'll get my period now!" just because it didn't hurt to breastfeed, or I ate a Cadbury's Creme Egg without wanting to hurl. I know things can change in early pregnancy and the very thing that made you puke one week is your biggest craving the next! But it did make me wonder. Allll the other symptoms were still there loud and clear, so my hunch was still waaay over on the pregnancy side of the fence. When I temped upon waking this morning, I lay there with the thermometer in my mouth, not sure what to expect. I didn't particularly feel like my period was coming, but it didn't overly shock me to see the low temp. The first thing I felt was a pang of disappointment, not relief! Which was a surprise! Last time I had a chemical pregnancy (the cycle before Matthew), my instant reaction was relief and THAT surprised me at the time too! I did then think all rationally about it and agreed with my rational side over how it wasn't the right time, it's better for it to end this early, more milk for Matthew this way, etc. But none of it made me feel light and relieved still. I really really was surprised about that.
I never got a positive pregnancy test. But I AM calling it a chemical pregnancy. I don't care that I don't have the official confirmation of a + HPT (I know I need one to REALLY call it a chemical pregnancy, but phooey). I know I was pregnant and that either my cycle wasn't up to supporting it, or the beanlet was not up to the journey it started out on. I have had two healthy pregnancies and two other genuine chemical pregnancies, and I know a pregnancy cycle when I feel one! I'm SO glad that I took photos of my chloasma, silly though that little detail is. It's like my visual evidence of the fact that it DID happen, this time round, where the + HPTs were the last two times. I had saved them on my computer in a new folder which I named "Third Pregnancy". Which makes me feel a tiny bit sad, now.
Today has been reeeeeeeally hard, physically. I have bad cramps, but that's not so bad because I have been dosing myself with painkillers every time a new dose can be taken, all day. That keeps them as manageable as possible! But I have been just GREY in the face and weak and shaky, and the room did a lot of spinning this morning. The boys have not had the best day (Arthur has been soooo bored, poor love) because I have just had to sit or lie and do nothing much at all. They did eat sandwiches and get their naps (I managed to get an hour's sleep with them too, thankfully!), and didn't get left toooo horribly long in wet nappies. The afternoon was a little better because I had managed the nap, and I managed to thaw some spaghetti bolognese sauce that I made last week and do some pasta with it for the family meal. We had ice cream for dessert and the boys had apple slices and banana too. So it wasn't too hard to do that. Arthur and I did a little bit of tidying (toys and clothes) too, which he LOVES to do, so I'm glad I was able to do something with him that he likes, and get the place a little tidier while I was at it.
The boys were so so so whiney and clingy today. I can't fathom it. I think Arthur was mainly bored, and he didn't get to go out today so that didn't help. Matthew is pretty snotty and coldy, though still a mild cold, so he was a bit miserable too. They both seemed to want to nurse a lot, and in the end, the easiest, least-hasslesome way to cope this morning was for me to lie on the carpet in the living room with my top up and my nursing bra open on both sides (!) and let the boys come and go as they pleased! Sounds a little crazy but I don't care. They were happy after that! It was such a relief to just lie down, and not have them whine and whine and whine. Arthur pretty much lay with me and nursed for ages, but Matthew came for little power snacks between exploring and activities! ;) I even reached up for the camera at one point and held it above us, and snapped a few photos! I don't think I can share them because there's probably faaar too much of me exposed, hehe! But it was a good coping method this morning when I feel like carp.
I still have lots of the pregnancy symptoms. My skin is still pregnantly soft, but that should clear up by tomorrow I reckon. I had heartburn today, and my breasts are still tender. It was the same way with my other chemical pregnancies - most of my symptoms remained for the first 2 or 3 days of my period, and then ALL HELL broke loose once the hormones responsible for them dropped. I have never in my life been so out-of-control emotionally in an irritable, hormonal way, as when I have been on the back end of a chemical pregnancy. I mean, obviously after actually giving birth you get the real biggie! But for irritability, the chemical pregnancies topped the bill. The first one, it was CD3 on the new cycle (3 days into my period) that I had the smash-the-printer episode. And it was CD2 on the second chemical pregnancy. While I've been waiting and wondering this past week or so, I have actually started to get anxious about it being a chemical pregnancy, because of the Big Hormone that follows. I usually feel so out-of-control, and I actually scared myself with that printer. I was anxious about losing it with the kids or something, seriously. Thank goodness Neil is home now for the Easter Weekend! But I am still anxious about the hormones when they hit.
My blood loss is the other confirming factor for me. It's the same as last time (I can't remember the first time), which I noted here in my diary as brown/grey/pink instead of my usual red. There's a little "matter" to it as well, just like last time. If last time is anything to go by, it will be my normal red flow by tomorrow. But it is comforting to see that obvious difference, as it's more visual evidence that I DID conceive, and a bean DID attach itself to me and communicate its presence enough to make me feel queasy and have my chloasma come back and so on.
The last two chemical pregnancies I didn't have much issue at all with the idea of it. I just went, "Hooray, I can conceive!" and moved onto the next cycle, whereupon I conceived one of my little boys! But this time I feel weird about it. Weird as in, silly? Unexpected? I don't know. Maybe I'd got too attached to the idea that it was definitely a bean, and also this is the first chemical pregnancy where I've really looked at the bigger picture and had my eyes on the due date and so on. I REALLY don't like to have a barely-there pregnancy and get all sad about it, because a) it seems pointless, and b) I have a LOT of readers here who have really been through it with miscarriage. I mean, REAL miscarriage, much later on than my puny 10 days! I think if I were the person who had real experience of miscarriage, I'd find it practically insulting to read about someone who hadn't even got a positive test but was sure they were pregnant, and whose "pregnancy" lasted all of ten days, being all mournful over losing a bean. It rather takes the tiddle, no?
I don't feel mournful, it just keeps popping into my thoughts and I feel a bit sad about it when it does. I wonder if this tiny-beginnings-of-a-bean would have been a boy. Because my symptoms were so exactly like Arthur and Matthew's very early pregnancies. My other two chemical pregnancies were very different. I had awful nausea from implantation day, easily as bad as when it REALLY kicked in for me with the boys at 6 weeks. I always wondered if that's how I would "do" girl pregnancies, since the boys' pregnancies were so identical with morning sickness (starting it to the same exact DAY, the same severity and time of day, etc). Then I wondered if maybe that's just how I "do" a pregnancy that isn't going to work out. But now I've had one with the same symptoms as I had with the boys, and not the more severe nausea of the other two chemical pregnancies. Because I haven't HAD a girl yet, I can't confirm this theory! But I do wonder now. I found myself thinking a pointless thought today, but which was comforting so I let myself: If my theory is right then I have conceived three boys and two girls in my child-bearing life so far! How precious! I'd LOVE to really have three boys and two girls. I also found myself wondering (another fairly pointless and unanswerable question/thought), you know when people have a proper miscarriage and they say (if they believe in this kind of thing) that they'll meet that baby in Heaven? How early can it be, for that to happen? I mean, their babies were little people with moving, formed bodies already. Mine were microscopic clusters of cells! Not "people" yet, as my mum always reminds me after a chemical pregnancy (sigh). I ALWAYS see a new bean as a person from conception, but that's easier to think of in hindsight when you HAVE got a wriggler kicking you in your second trimester, or when you're actually holding your new person in your arms. If the tiny person never GOT beyond the cluster of cells stage, does it count? Do I get to meet them as my own children one day in Heaven? It barely counts as a pregnancy, so I don't know. But my gut says they are people from conception really, because their unique blueprint is there right from that moment - personality, curly/straight hair, eye and hair colour, boy or girl, etc. It's all there, planned out, ready to build on.
I am waffling with no point.
Tonight I took a bath after the boys went to bed so that used up the first part of my evening. And then Neil and I talked about having more babies, in light of this last cycle, just like we have done before when I had a chemical pregnancy. Last time, when we had a chemical pregnancy when Arthur was 9 months old, we decided it was too early to have another baby, and it had been a scary prospect to be expecting another so soon! I remember coming here and going on about how we were so pleased to have come to the decision NOT to try next cycle, etc. Matthew was conceived just weeks later, haha! ;)
My history (which supports a theory that I've read about online) is that after a chemical pregnancy I have a fabulously fertile cycle and get pregnant :) Even when not planned and with lousy timing! So, we needed to talk about it. I have never had a chemical pregnancy without following it with a healthy pregnancy the next cycle. Now I've had another chemical pregnancy, and I sort of don't know what to DO with myself this next cycle! I mean, if we don't try (which is what we've decided on, since it feels a bit early yet) will my subsequent cycles be LESS fertile, or what? Will I have this Golden Chance, and we basically use it or miss it? Will I end up having another chemical pregnancy in a few cycles if I don't make use of this next cycle to have a baby? It seems odd to me that I always have to have a chemical pregnancy before I can have a healthy one. My mum thinks not. She thinks my body is just getting back into gear for pregnancy and has a "trial go" each time before getting on with it! Maybe. But then why don't loads of people have the same thing happen? Mummy said maybe they do, it's just that I'm so charting-obsessed and focused on my temps and symptoms that I notice a possible pregnancy where others wouldn't even know and would just get their period as normal without thinking anything of it. I don't know, maybe she's right?
Anyway. I want to try in July, for the now much-longed-for April 2008 baby! I really really LONG for that baby now, more than ever before. I'm a little worried that the way I feel about it will set me up for a huge-o disappointment if we don't conceive that month after all. I am VERY happy with May though, too! We're aiming for under 2 years. I don't know about TTC before July. I want Matthew to be one first. It just feels right, and Neil agreed. But then we've only got this tiny window between him being one and us getting the "under 2" gap! I hope it works out.
Then later on Neil and I had a massive argument :( Over something stupid and petty. I was horrible. I think Neil did something innocent like say he was tired or so tired that his head felt spinny or something. Oh I remember! I felt down and crampy, and wanted something comforting. Cereal. Or pudding and custard! Yum! But the milk ran out (ONE day I'll figure out the right amount to buy on my shopping day!) and so I couldn't have those. I had bathed and was in pyjamas and I kind of wanted Neil to get me some milk from the shop. I feel bad writing it out here now! Maybe I was being too selfish? Anyway, Neil said he was too tired to go out (which was reasonable!). Then some crazy-woman switch flipped in me and I got all unreasonable with him about it. Urgh. He said this and I said that, and suddenly I was shouting at him in a deranged manner (seriously), eyes popping and all (!!) about how he had no idea about my day and how EXHAUSTED I was, etc. I am NEVER like that, even in arguments. Maybe it was the hormones? I just wanted someone to acknowledge that I'd had a hard day (which he hadn't done at all yet - he said, "Oh, right." when I told him I got my period this morning, and left for work instantly!), and see my need for comfort and make a little effort to do something special for me. That's all. I know Neil was tired, and I feel selfish for the whole thing. But I guarantee I was tireder, and feeling rougher, and more emotional. And thus more needy. But anyway. It was horrid of me all the same.
When I was shouting this endless sentence at Neil, barely stopping to breathe, that's when I actually realised it was bothering me to have had a chemical pregnancy. And maybe even the other two I'd had. Because some of the shouting was about losing beans, and I didn't really know I felt that way till I was shouting it. Neil took the shouting, got his coat and said he was going to get milk and if he died in a car accident it was my fault. How nice. I told him not to go but he said he did not want to stay anyway. His parting shot was, "I don't want a third child." I HATE (huge understatement) how Neil always ends arguments with the big "I'm in control of the one thing you want most, and I shall use it as my parting shot! Haha!" line - "No more kids for you then!" that kind of thing. I hate it. It hurts me so much. I hate him holding something so important to me over my head like that.
When he got back, we talked some more. He wanted to go to bed, but it was tough, I had put what I wanted to say into six easy steps while he'd been out, hahaha! ;) He did listen though. He said don't worry about the bit about not having a third child, because he just said it when he got angry. *sigh* He also said that he never felt sure about having kids because he just wants a simple life, and having kids is hard. Reasonable enough, but it still bugs me. Everyone finds raising kids hard work, but they're surely worth the effort?!
I want to make sure I do NOT push him into having more children when he doesn't want to. Which goes against everything else in me! I just WANT MORE CHILDREN regardless of anything! I feel Made To Breed, honestly! ;) But not to the point of going against my husband's wishes. If he really DID say no more, I don't know how on earth I'd handle it. So far, he isn't saying that, so I won't think about it for now! I am just hoping he'll keep saying yes! I think he will stop soon though.
When I asked him why he'd said he didn't want a third child, he gave me an answer that just made me feel.... I don't even know how to describe it. I mean, I listened for a long time and didn't butt in, and accepted his feelings as valid and reasonable, etc. But what he said was HARD for me to hear. I told him that afterwards. He had said he didn't want a third child because he didn't want to go through pregnancy again. What?! I asked why. He said it was too hard. I asked what about it was too hard, and he said that he couldn't be on with the hormones, that every time I am pregnant or have a chemical pregnancy or have recently given birth, etc, my hormones are just too hard to deal with.
My unspoken reaction was an angry one. I felt like, from his point of view - the one where Neil is the centre of the universe - I could see his point. A hormonal pregnant woman is not easy to live with at times (even most of the time!), and the swings involved with hormones after a baby is born are just off the darn scale. I tend to continue to find life difficult till my first period, so 5-6 months postpartum. And yes, I tend to smash things after a chemical pregnancy. Since I've been pregnant, suffering postpartum hormones, or having a chemical pregnancy for all but about six months (oh my gosh, is that all?!) out of the last THIRTY-NINE, I can see how he is probably feeling tired of such shenanigans.
But you know, I'm the woman actually HAVING the hormones and the other difficulties that go with pregnancy and such. And I could not belieeeeve he was saying how hard it was for HIM! It felt like a man saying how hard labour was for them, right in front of their dear wife who just agonised through a 24-hour labour and still managed to push out their baby in her own barely-there strength! I DO honestly see his point of view, but gosh darnit, it's got to be FAR harder to be the one going through the actual hormones than the bystander.
I did not voice this though. I asked him if he didn't think it was worth it, to get past that difficult stage and end up with the lovely children? He said it didn't seem like it at the time, but of course it was NOW. It's just that he knew it didn't feel worth it at the time and he didn't fancy going through that again. I didn't/don't know what to think. Part of me felt bad for him and guilty that I'm the source of his misery over having kids. But the rest of me wanted to kick him in the shins - the shins you understand, never the valuable parts, haha! ;) Because, it's bloody hard for me going through those hormones. I'd like to give Neil a healthy dose of Day 3 post-birth hormones and see how much more he appreciates the term "hard" after he's cried his heart out for four hours straight over the functioning of one of his nipples, until he was gagging and exhausted. It's bloody hard going through morning sickness, and never mind the pregnancy side of things - it's actually no picnic going through the womanly joy of monthly mood swings, cramps and bouts of lonesome tearfulness! Yet because we're women and that's what women DO, you just get on with it, and very few people stop to say, "Oh poor you, that can't be much fun!" Tsk. And despite all the above, I will WILLINGLY and JOYFULLY go through it all again and again, just for the precious reward of bringing another baby into our lives.
The other thing about the hormones is, I can't help it. And that made me feel very sad, that my hormones are SO off-putting to my husband that he thinks maybe he can't be on with having any more kids because of it. Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but I just feel like that is so selfish. Understandable, yes, but it's like he only cares about what he's going through, and if he doesn't like it then to heck with anyone else, and what they might be going through. Just so long as he gets his simple life. URGH! If I could change the way I am under the influence of such HUGE hormones, so that Neil would be happier with it and feel like doing it again, I WOULD. But I can't help it. It's not fair to put that on me.
After I listened to everything Neil had to say, I told him how I felt about it, but I was so careful not to get angry and I chose my words carefully too. It was NOT easy because I felt all prickly inside but I didn't want to rock the boat further so I tried. When I told him I couldn't help my hormones, I just started to cry and I couldn't stop for the LONGEST time. I wanted to be all sensible and talk clearly about it so that he could take it in, but the crying came from nowhere and I couldn't do a thing once it started. I think it just all came out because it means SO much to me to have more children. I feel hurt that he's using something that I can't control to complain about, something which I have a WAY harder time with than he ever could. And something which he is considering using to put an end to something that means everything to me. And he knows it. I feel hurt and just.... other stuff that I can't find words for. But at least we communicated about it all.
And I AM hormonal. Which is, again, not my fault. My hormones will settle after my body goes back to not-pregnant mode, which will be quick as I was hardly anywhere into a pregnancy yet. I am just hurt at the timing of his comments, given that he knows I struggle with emotional stuff and am extra sensitive when I'm having a darn early miscarriage, for goodness sake. I felt like he was being SO insensitive. But then, maybe I'm just being hopelessly unreasonable, not to mention blowing the chemical pregnancy waaaay out of proportion.
Maybe today isn't the day to be writing about it all, in light of the hormones involved? That's sort of why I took till now to write. I knew my head was full of hormonal soup and I would write more sane stuff in a couple of days. But I wanted to update.
Oh, and wouldn't you know it? My cheapy internet pregnancy tests arrived in the post this morning. Tsk!
Make of this entry what you will! I'm sorry it's so long and waffly. If you've a mind to get annoyed with me, please kindly refrain from sharing that with me. I am not up to hearing about it. Hugs and prayers MUCHLY appreciated though! I'm sorry if anything I have said here offends or upsets anybody. I am just being honest about the way I feel today.
I promise a way more upbeat and sensible entry next time! :)
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