When Eggs Go Bad...

Ready

I admit it. I was freaking out about the hair thing. You guys are great for coming to my rescue with reassurance and even the odd tale of successful pregnancies that were accompanied by hair loss! I also admit to perhaps being a little over dramatic about the state of my hair loss. It's normal hair loss; I'm not going bald or anything. I just wanted to see it stop completely while pregnant.

Other symptoms are strong: sore boobs, a permanent hungover-like feeling (retching, but no actual spewing). And I make it only a bit over 4 weeks,* so I'm hoping that's a good sign.

In other news, we have sold out house! Not only that, but we made considerably more than we expected to. I have to laugh when I think that I have managed to get knocked up at exactly the same time as entering into the whole property sale and purchase game, a well known stressor. But I'm fairly relaxed about the property stuff. And to be honest, I'm not all that stressed over the pregnancy.

A few people in the comments to my last post asked why I didn't go to my OB for beta tests. And there are a couple of reasons. In the UK, you don't normally get referred to an OB unless you are a high risk pregnancy. Now technically, I am now in that category, so I could request a referral, but it's a hassle. And, frankly I don't want to know. Honestly, I'll find out soon enough whether I've managed to kill off yet another one. Knowing my betas are falling won't stop that and will just add another layer of despair to the whole sad tale. So, no, I am going to wait it out. Given the timing and gestational sac sizes of my past miscarriages, I would expect that by 8 weeks, if I still have a living foetus, I might just have a chance of a live baby. But even then there are no guarantees.

I got to thinking about that last night, that there are no guarantees. And there aren't. My baby could die before it even turns into something resembling a human being. It could survive pregnancy only to die near the due date, during birth, or hours after emerging from my womb: I 'know' women who have gone through each of those. A perfectly health newborn could die mysteriously in its cot. A toddler wanders off and drowns; a child gets leukaemia and dies; a teenager tries drugs and overdoses; an adult child is killed in a car wreck. There are no guarantees of life. In fact, the only guarantee is that we will lose at least some of those we love; the others will lose us.

And although that is a sad, tragic truth, it has actually helped me. I am not the only one to ever have experienced loss. I know that because I have 'met' all you amazing women who are struggling with your losses: babies, siblings, parents, grandparents. Innocence. If this baby dies, then at least I am spared from the possibility of what I feel must be a far greater pain of losing a living child.

I'm still mad at God. But not for being either unwilling or unable to save my babies (and it has to be one or the other); only for not making sure that we all know the truth about him, so that we're not surprised when grief ambushes us. And I guess eventually I'll even get over that. God is becoming part of my life again because I can accept that contrary to what we're taught, he is flawed.

So, heading towards 5 weeks of pregnancy, I am ready for the day I see the blood. It won't shock or surprise me. It will make me cry, but I'll never again be unprepared.

* According to my LMP, I should be 5w2d, but as we know, the OPK wizz stick didn't smile at me until CD18, which means CD19 or even 20 for the big O (no, the other one). So counting from CD19 for ovulation, that would make me 4w4d today.

Give Me a Head of Hair

Usually I lose hair like a middle-aged regional sales manager trying to unload the Koran in Texas. It comes out in great clumps when I wash it. And usually it doesn't worry me; I haven't gone bald yet.

However, losing hair and pregnancy normally don't go together. Go on, Google those two terms; I'll wait.... See what I mean? Pregnant women usually sport a head of full, lush hair because the normal shedding process stops until after the baby is born.

My hair, for about a week, stopped falling out. I'd get one strand per washing and that was it. Now, it has resumed regularly scheduled programming and is leaping to its demise like a head full of demented lemmings.

I am giving this pregnancy 2, 2.5 weeks tops.

Unless anyone can tell me that they had a live baby all the while shedding hair like a...well, you get the picture.

Wait...What Did the Computer Say?

At the risk of boring you by remaining on the theme of the last two posts, I have one further thing to tell you.

In one of the last programmes in the last series of Little Britain (from whence the Computer Says No thing came. Have you done your homework?), Carol the surly computer operator types something in on the keyboard, looks up at the customer and in complete astonshment says: Computer says yes! It was funny because in every sketch in the preceding couple of series, it had always been a bored "Computer says no" and the humour is as much to do with the turn of events as with the utter shock on Carol's face.

If you thought this post wasn't going anywhere, trust me. You see, the bewilderment experienced by Carol when computer said yes is exactly the same as I experienced when I saw two lines come up on today's wizz stick.

Yes, that's right, you heard me. Two lines. As in positive. As in: come 8 months from now there is a remote possibility that I may be giving birth.

The line was faint. Very faint. I do not hold out much hope for this pregnancy. But, it's there at the moment.

Now all we do is wait.

What I Meant by 'Computer Says No'

Go to the following link and click on the photo next to the words 'TV Series Three'. Then click on 'Four: Carol' in the red box on the right.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/littlebritain/clips/

Still makes me chuckle...

Computer Says No

If by computer I mean wizz stick and by no I mean not pregnant. Which I do.

Still, the smiley face didn't grave the digital OPK stick until CD18, which means ovulation on CD19 at the earliest, which would mean that as of today (CD 31) I am maximum 12DPO. However, I did use one of the tests that is supposed to detect HCG as early as 10DPO, so I'm not holding my breath.

Sigh... Always with the sighing and not so much with the gestating....

Immunotherapy and Recurrent Miscarriage News Item

A recent Cochrane review of immunotherapy studies has concluded that there is no beneficial effect. The link to Cochrane (the very respected body that undertakes systematic reviews of medical treatments to promote evidence-based medicine) is at the end of the article.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/519406/?sc=rsmn

Live from the Wilds of Kent

Easter weekend...and in the UK that means a 4-day weekend. For a country that isn't, on the whole, that much of a churchgoing nation they sure do Easter right. We've come down to Kent to visit the in-laws, having spent the morning viewing a house that we think we're going to make an offer on. After nearly 4 years in a semi-detached (that's a duplex for my North American chums) that is way too small for our needs already, and high on the hope that possibly one day we'll actually manage to pop out a live baby instead of so much uterine sludge (sorry...), we think it may be time to move up.

The house we saw today needs work, and it's still not large (or even medium) on, say, a Midwestern scale (sorry, Mom), but it's got 4 bedrooms, a laundry room (compact and bijoux, but out of the way), and a lovely garden that gets lots and lots of sunshine. Moreover, it's totally within our budget, even with the work that needs to be done. I have to confess, I'm going on Mr Badeggs' word that the place has potential. I myself am still smitten with the place we saw yesterday that had 5 bedrooms, a sweet little garden room, and was way the hell out of our comfort range in terms of price.

Sigh (I spend a lot of time these days sighing...)

The mother-in-law and I have just managed to get through an entire bottle of white wine between us, and I wasn't even bogarting it. It must be that causing the funny metallic taste in my mouth, because it's WAY too soon for it to be a sign of anything else, right?

Anyway, have a very Happy (and for those for whom it has religious significance, a very blessed) Easter. And spare a thought for me. My mother-in-law sure does know how to talk...

What's that?!!...Yes, ma'am...I'm just finishing now. What was it you wanted to say?

And We Have Lift-off

CD 18 and I FINALLY got a smiley face. Who'd have thought it. And it kind of made sense, too, in terms of what my body was telling me. My boobs were sore and I felt sort of crampy, which in previous months I had put down either to having missed the target and getting ready to have a period OR as possible signs of pregnancy. Turns out it was likely they were signs of impending ovulation instead. Go figure.

Of course, now I'm worried that maybe I have a short luteal phase and that was what was causing my miscarriages.

Sigh. Anybody remember when getting pregnant was something to be excited and happy about?

Anyway, watch this space about a week and a half from now.

Big Fat ZERO

You know how much I love those digital OPKs, right? With their cute little smiley faces that coyly let you know when it's time to bump the boot-knocking up to twice a day? Yeah... the trouble with that is that the opposite of the smiley face is the big empty circle. The empty circle of doom. The one that mocks you by staring sullenly out of the little stick window, as if to say: "Uh huh, bitch. Take a look at me. I'm EMPTY. Like your uterus. And, by the way, your ovaries ain't exactly full of life, either."

I'm gonna level with you here. We've had so much sex we almost don't like it any more. I've developed a Robitussin habit that has me swigging directly from the bottle on crowded public transport. And when I have a pee?...I'm not ashamed to admit it...I do a cervical fluid inspection to see if it's eggy yet. (OK, maybe I am a little ashamed to admit that.) In short, I'm doing everything right and now my body is maybe, you know, taking a break from the whole ovulation thing, maybe to 'find itself'.

Sigh.

Tomorrow, we have friends coming over with their three kids. Badeggs the Younger and I met them 6 years ago during a trip to Lapland and although we don't see each other that often it is always fantastic fun when we do manage to meet up. So from 4.30 pm onwards I will have 8 people in a 2.5 bedroom house (the third bedroom is smaller than my parents' walk-in closet, so I just can't bring myself to count it as a whole room). I will have a dinner to cook, wine to drink, and much catching up to do. So, what do we reckon the smiley face'll show up at 4.35?

And I think if you look closely, you'll see that it's actually laughing.