the good and the hard

I was awake in bed last night, thinking that despite my book knowledge and the wisdom of friends, there are some things that I just never knew about being pregnant. I don't know if "they" told me, and I just didn't listen, or if I just never knew.

1. Pregnancy hurts. Okay, it may be a no-brainer, and I knew it wouldn't be comfortable, and yes I believed my friends when they had various complaints during their pregnancies. But for some reason, I wasn't expecting *everything* to hurt. My hips, my butt, my feet, my abdomen, my back... It's not severe pain most of the time (round ligaments kill when I cough sometimes, and sciatica is not fun), and it's totally bearable at this point. I just didn't expect it.


2. Sleep depravation starts long before baby arrives. And it makes you mean. Between the heartburn and the joint pain and the restless legs and having to pee, I'm fortunate if I get three hours in a row every night. Some people call it "practice" for when the baby comes, but wouldn't it make more sense for Mother Nature to let me sleep now, since I'll never ever be able to sleep again once the baby gets here?


3. The pain of IF does not magically go away. This one is probably the biggest surprise. I thought - and many people told me - that it wouldn't matter anymore once I was pregnant. That *how* I got pregnant, and the months of tears, and the pain of being infertile, would be healed once I was pregnant. Bologna. Yes, pregnancy goes a LONG way towards healing all of that. And maybe once I hold my baby it will heal even more. But I am still bitter over the fact that it took us so long. That it seems to come so easy for others. That conception took place after a catheter of sperm and a sterile examining table, instead of a romantic dinner and candle light. Okay, okay, so it wasn't all romance and candles even at the beginning. But it was an option. And I had no trouble feeling like a woman. It became a struggle and a conscious effort to keep reminding myself that my womanhood was not based on my fertility. And I am still dealing with the ramifications of that, and probably will in one form or another for the rest of my life. Especially if I have daughters who have to deal with this same thing. Or my son, even - science still doesn't know how what causes PCOS affects males. How ironic, to pass infertility down to my children...


4. I am now one of "them." For the most part, those who know me know what I've gone through to get here, and are able to celebrate with me. But I remember seeing random pregnant women out there, and hurting. I remember hating some of them for no better reason than they were pregnant and I wasn't. I remember the tears streaming down my face as I typed a congratulatory message to someone on the board - genuinely happy for them, heart broken that it still wasn't my turn yet. I remember politely asking someone how it was going, and being subjected to her going on and on and on about how great and wonderful and miraculous it was. Or worse, hearing a long list of complaints, when all I could think to myself was, "I'd change places with you in a heartbeat, you ungrateful woman." And yes, I had my favorites who could complain or gush without end, and I was right there with them, and it didn't bother me. Real friends, those who struggled themselves and somehow, in my mind, "earned" the right to be pregnant. But yes, sometimes I was just being polite. And now... I'm afraid of becoming one of them. In a lot of ways, I already am. I can't help it - I'm out of the TTC club and into the Mommy club. And that's wonderful, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. But I don't want to lose that part of me who understands. Who gets it. Who knows that, when a friend who's TTC just can't deal with talking to me or hanging out with me, it has NOTHING to do with me. It has EVERYTHING to do with just how much a prolonged TTC process can hurt, and take its toll on the strongest of us. But I also don't want to forget that there are those still on the other side who genuinely care about what happens to me, and want to know what's going on. It's a fine line between sharing enough, and sharing too much. And I want to learn how to walk that line, out of respect for those who still are where I was for so long.


5. You never really feel "safe" in pregnancy. There is no magic cutoff date when everything is guaranteed to go perfectly from then on. I'll read a story of someone who lost her baby at 10 weeks, and when I pass 10 weeks I feel a sense of relief. Until I read about the woman who lost her baby at 16 weeks. And so on. I have had a sense from the beginning that this baby is here to stay. I didn't worry when the doctor kept saying, "Let's not get excited just yet, we have to see what happens..." I knew that this was my baby, and it was here to stay, and God wouldn't let me go through all of that to get to where I am now, only to take it all away from me. Then, I follow a friend through even more invasive measures to get pregnant, with even more at stake, and have to watch her lose her joy just a few days later. And I realize, there are no guarantees. This is precious, and it could be lost at any moment. I still don't believe it will be - I can't let myself believe that. But in a realistic world, it is always a possiblity. So it's hard sometimes to just relax and enjoy it all. The only way I can think to describe it is like someone who lived through the Great Depression. My grandfather survived the Depression, and ended up having quite a bit of money later in life. But he never stopped hoarding essentials, or pinching pennies. He never seemed completely comfortable that those times wouldn't return. He usually seemed to enjoy his life, and was very generous and giving to all of us, but I'd see glimpses of what that time did to him. It left its mark. In a way, that's what this is like.

There are wonderful things I didn't expect, either. How much I'd fall in love with someone who was barely 2" big. How I'd cry the first time I heard the heart beat. How protective I'd become, willing to do anything to protect this little person inside me. The wonder of feeling him move for the first time, the joy of picking out colors and decor for his room, the way I just can't seem to stop smiling whenever I catch a glimpse of myself in profile in a store front window. Despite the aches and pains and issues I'm dealing with, I love being pregnant, and I'll do it again given the chance. What they DID tell me was that it was all worth it, and they were right on that one. Everything is worth it. No question about it. And the good FAR outweighs the difficult. But both the good and the hard make up pregnancy. And that's something I keep learning day by day.