That Sinking Feeling

Last night my husband and I went to see a movie. We were going to see Farenheit 9/11, but friends wanted to see it with us, so instead we decided to go for the full-on schmaltz of The Notebook.

I've mentioned before about being half white-trash, right? OK. So I LOVED this movie. Admittedly, I'm a little emotional anyway, but it was wonderful. I haven't been in a movie theater so full of crying people I think since Steel Magnolias. Even my husband cried. Three teenage girls sitting next to us wept for the whole second half of the movie. It's completely and utterly cliched, and predictable, and silly as all get out, but MAN. Awesome.

It also allowed me to shed some tears and that seemed to help the knowledge of our positive BETA sink in. I woke up this morning knowing that I was pregnant.

So I got online to visit my little circle of friends (all local to my area, and a great bunch of women--we've actually gotten together in person twice) on the message boards of a fertility webpage, and was devasted to see that the first one of our group had lost her pregnancy at nineteen weeks.

I remember being at my doctor's office once and seeing a woman there with two children, a boy and a girl. I remember resenting her being at the RE's, as if there is only a certain number of babies available to infertile women and here she was trying to STEAL MINE.

I feel like by getting pregnant now, I've stolen my friend's baby.

My husband reminds me of the ridiculousness of this--that the population of the planet has grown by nearly 500% in the last 100 years, so that can't possibly be true. But I already feel guilty enough being pregnant on my first IVF cycle, when I know women who have tried much harder and have still not gotten pregnant. It feels like I'm going to be kicked out of the only cool club I've ever been a member of, and rightly so.

I don't know, of course, what's in store for us with this pregnancy. If my friend's loss taught me anything, it's that I have to take this pregnancy one day at a time--enjoy each day I'm actually pregnant, and not have any expectations of tomorrow. Thank god with sobriety I've had some practice with that.

____________________________

My neighbor loaned me her copies of What to Expect When You're Expecting and Your Pregnancy Week By Week. While the latter is better than the former, both of them were written for all those fucking baby dust people. I know almost everything in those books hands down. Tertia recommended the Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy, so I know there is hope, but MAN. What a bunch of condescending crap! If any of us actually acheive a successful pregnancy, we need to write a book about it. So that for those of us who know more about rising beta numbers and ectopic pregnancies etc etc etc there will something out there.

Comments

[Moxie]

Give back "What to Expect" right now. It just never gets any better. POS book. I liked the Pregnancy Journal by A. Christine Harris. Some of it was all baby-dustish, but I liked the day-by-day format and places for you to write things in.

The survivor's guilt has you in its grasp. I think there's a lot of that going around.

[Kathleen]

In my opinion, the Girlfriends guides are just a hipper version of the "What to expect". Plus, as a fat woman, I her emphasis on keeping your weigh gain down pre-birth and on lossing it post-birth more than a little insulting.

For more knowledgable women (or women who want to be), there's no better books than The Complete Book of Pregnancy & Childbirth by Sheila Kitzinger and The Thinking Womans Guide To a Better Birth by Henci Goer.

If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year by Anne Lamott. It's not a pregnancy or baby care book, but it's one of the best books on mothering I've ever read. Plus it's funny as hell.

[Julia]

Oh, man, I'm not sure I can do a tear-jerker right now! But I'm glad to hear your review.

I agree - a book on the truth about being pregnant after loss and infertility is in order. I have one, but it's pretty staid. We need something more honest and gritty - oh, and funny.

CONGRATS on the beta, chica!

[Jen P]

I reccomend Sheila Kitzinger's books, as a planner I started reading her books in cycle 1. Way. back. then. It was great and very informative. It even had pictures of episiotomies done improperly (holy scary fucking crap!) v good cutting.

Dh nearly threw up and vowed to never let some untrained student cut me.

There's a great book by a Swedish author (can't remember her name sorry!) called Becoming A Mother and it is just brilliant. I can't reccomend it enough and I feel bad I can't remember her name.

Can't wait for the movie to get here!

[Tammy]

The Well Pregnancy Book by Samuels and Samuels is awesome. I still have my copy, if you'd like me to send it to you. It came highly recommended by the midwives at the Bryn Mawr Birth Center, who have a great lending library if you're a patient. I also have oodles of natural childbirth and breastfeeding books if you're interested. If not, I should probably donate them to the Birth Center Library. The youngest turned six a few months ago. :/

[Liana Clark]

I admit that I have had bizarre thoughts like you had about our mutual friend's recent loss. There was a part of me that always felt a little jealous that though we were 1 day apart in the same IVF cycle, mine was cancelled but hers went on to a pregnancy. I know that is stupid but that was how I felt.

Now I feel guilty for even having had such ridiculous jealousy. I keep beating myself up for it.

Yet somehow it feels like there is only so much baby karma out there so you start to feel as though we are all vying for the same small pool. Oh she got some and now I get none. Utter nonsense, says my rational mind, but as this process goes on, I am less and less in my rational mind.

I hope you will join us in our sympathy gift.

L

[Robyn]

Congrats on your positive beta!! I didn't care for the What to Expect book either. A better choice IMO is "The Pregnancy Book" by William and Martha Sears.

[Elise]

Those books are a little Stepford-ish. The thing I hated the most was the "Best Odds" diet in What to Expect. First of all, it was so obnoxious -- like giving you a guilt trip for wanting to eat a potato chip because it meant that fundamentally, you didn't have your baby's best interests at heart. I skipped that whole section. I just liked seeing the picture of the belly and knowing a little better about what was going on in there. The week-by-week book was helpful because it gave me something to read each week, as opposed to What to Expect, which is only monthly.

[tee]

you might also want to try "pregnancy, childbirth & the newborn" by penny simkin. i was forewarned against "what to expect", and i really like the simkin book.