What's Wrong With You

I keep waiting to post until I have downloaded all the pictures from Addy's fourth birthday party, but then it turns out the batteries are dead in the camera, and the rechargeable ones aren't holding charge, and I don't have any regular double A batteries anywhere in the house and...

Anyways. I figured I'd better throw something up in the meantime. But unfortunately, all that comes to mind to write about it a little on the, eh, woe is me side. So feel free to skip, but here it is:

I am so. tired. of this miscarriage. At least with the others, I had a d and c, and it was over and done with. The brief hospital stay was a kind of physical and mental closure, and within a few days, the bleeding was completely over. My cycle resumed normally, and I got back to thinking about trying again, or at least about things other than, "When oh when will my stupid hcg levels go down to zero so I can be done with blood draws and waiting, waiting, waiting?"

I took a cheapy pregnancy test on Friday, expecting and hoping for a positive result since that would mean that yes, there was still an elevated hcg level present and therefore yes, it was normal that my cycle hadn't started again. I was getting a little nervous about that, and testing seemed easier than going in again for a blood draw. Of course, it was positive, and while this was the expected result, taking that test was just the dumbest thing I could have done. It was so frustrating to see a positive pregnancy test and feel my emotions zing right to elated, automatically, even though my brain knew that NO, the appropriate reaction would be frustration that this miscarriage isn't complete yet. I had to keep talking and talking to myself, repeating the biological facts of why yes, it was a positive pregnancy test, but no, it did not at all mean that I was pregnant again.

And I'm not, for the record. I went again for a blood draw Monday just to make ABSOLUTELY SURE, and my hcg has dropped to fifteen. Since it has to be at twenty five to show up positive on a pregnancy test, that would mean it's dropping at... what, maybe about four or five points a day? So we're getting close here. Almost over.

Another ouchy thing this weekend happened at the fall festival we took the kids to on Sunday. It was really fun, actually, but then I ran into a friend I hadn't seen for quite a while, and she eyeballed my baggy sweatshirt conspiratorially and asked, "So, is there a little baby in there yet?" When I told that there had been, but that it didn't work out, she exclaimed, "Again? Oh no! But... I thought they had figured out what was wrong with you when they found out about that blood clotting thing?"

I know there's no right reaction when you hear other people's bad news. You're always shocked and sad for them, and you just want to say something to make sense of it, to try to figure it out.

But I just don't like being reminded that there is, indeed, something wrong with me.

*You may (or, more likely, may not) have noticed that at the bottom of my page, where I have tickers to track the kids' ages, I added a ticker for the last miscarriage. I fully realize that this may be slightly morbid, and I know that I won't want it there forever. But for some reason it just felt right to have it for awhile. A way to mark time, but also a way to memorialize, in some small way, the tiny life that was with us so briefly.