There’s
a certain calmness in this time – this in between time, after the
doctor-mandated-sex but before the two-week-wait sets in, in earnest. The
proverbial calm before the storm. Truthfully, I’ve never felt it before – not
in the last two cycles and certainly not when I was trying unassisted, futile
though it was.
But
just yesterday, a kind of calm has settled over me. I want, with every fiber of my
being, for this to be it – to be pregnant, to hold on to the gaggle of cells
this time, to give birth to a healthy, gurgling babe. And at the same time, I
feel almost liberated in my awareness and my (tacit, halting) acceptance that
this very well might not be the one.
That I could just as plausibly be again un-pregnant.
The
last two rounds, the two-week-wait just felt like I was interminably holding my
breath – I don’t think I exhaled until the blood work was in, and even then, only
with great hesitation. By
contrast, today at least – and that’s to say nothing of tomorrow or the days
ahead, during which I’m sure I will descend into the anxiety-ridden crevasse of
usual – feels calm and accepting, a very unfamiliar peace. I’m not inventorying
my stockpile of pregnancy tests or browsing through the designer nurseries on
Apartment Therapy – or at least not as furiously. I know that I’ll be
heartbroken if this cycle doesn’t work – it’s the one year mark of trying, it’s
the last cycle of Clomid before we kick it up a notch and move to IUI, it’s one
step closer to – on bad days – big conversations about how far we’ll take this,
whether adoption is a possibility and all kinds of other overwhelming Big
Questions.
But
for today, I am – how, I’m not sure – calm.
(So
that’s it. An entire post without a footnote, a strikethrough or a hyperlink –
just me, getting kind of real, without sarcasm as my cover. But I’m not one for
saccharine sentimentality. So let’s not make a habit of it.)
