“6 wks from Last Menstrual Period – Length of embryo measures 4 mm.”

Here’s my weekend.

I went home at lunch on Friday because I couldn’t deal with work. I was still bleeding lightly, and was crazy emotionally. (By crazy, I most definitely wasn’t feeling like me.) My appetite had become moderate; I had no desire to eat more than a small portion of anything. (For instance, I ate half a burrito on Thursday, and the second half of it on Friday. I never do that, I wolf the entire thing in one sitting.)

Saturday, my lower abdomen felt tight. Really tight. I couldn’t do those exercises (Kegels?) if I’d wanted because everything was already as tight as it would get. There was continuous cramping on the right side of my uterus, like a day-long charlie horse. I did some mildly physical stuff, walking around the farm (went to the triangle pond with the dogs) and housework and stuff. I bled heavily for a pregnant woman, but if it were a normal period I would have called it quite light; less than half of a normal period flow. My breasts hurt and there were occasional sharp pains in them.
Continue reading 6w+0d →

“A first trimester ultrasound is considered an essential part of pregnancy care.”

So yesterday was WEIRD. Brett called me at a bit before noon ask me to meet him at Jim & Joy’s. I’d been a little insane in the morning, in the sense of my ‘no no no no’ fit when Gerri came in and asked me to deal with a customer, but I thought I had it all together. Right before I left for lunch, I went to the bathroom… and there was blood. Not a lot, in retrospect, but at the time I thought that my period was starting, that I was miscarrying. So I went and got in the Jeep and drove circuitiously to Revelations, where I thought to get some soup. While parking, the Jeep started going THUNK!THUNK!THUNK!THUNK! I thought, ‘Great, now the fucking car’s going to break, I’m bleeding, I feel like crying, and I NEED SOME SOUP.’ I started walking to Revelations but turned around and got back in the Jeep and drove sort of toward Jim & Joy’s… but ended up going home. I had chills so I ran the heat at max the whole drive home.

When I got home, Joe was there for some reason, but that’s another story. I sniffled myself to sleep after getting into bed, and woke at 1:00 when Brett called my cell phone. I didn’t answer it, but I got up and went downstairs and worked up the nerve to call him back and tell him that I was home, spotting, and freaking out. I’ve never been so weird in all my life as I was to him on the phone, but I really couldn’t help it. I wanted him to come home — well, I did after he offered to — but I was too embarassed to actually HAVE him come home. He said he loved me at the end of the call and I nearly lost my mind. I was having a bonafide psychological episode. Ack! It’s so weird to be insane!
Continue reading 5w+4d →

“Vaginal bleeding during pregnancy may be the first warning sign of a miscarriage. However, about 20 percent of women have vaginal bleeding during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and less than half of them miscarry.”t

Oh, let’s hope I’m in the right percentage.

I started spotting yesterday before I left work. It continued, lightly, throughout the evening. (Most of which I spent sleeping.) I’m still spotting slightly. I’m SO nervous I’m going to lose this one too… I’ve had too many miscarriages to want to have another. I don’t want to feel like that again.
Continue reading 5w+3d →

“During the third embryonal week, it’s not unusual to experience spotting, or light vaginal bleeding.”

Well, that’s good to know. I spotted one spot last night. I laid there in my bed reading, certain that my period was about to start. Then I realized, “This doesn’t feel like my period about to start at all. It’s too high up.” I think this one might actually stick, the little bastard.

My observation is that attitude does affect physicality. I feel happy and excited this time (because I’m married and ‘stable,’ whatever that means). If I wasn’t, I feel confident I’d probably miscarry again. I am getting reacquainted with the fact that my attitude is the main part of my fertility… I’d forgotten that over so many years of not taking responsibility for it, of being vicim to it.

I told Chloe this morning in front of the coffee shop that we’re pregnant. She was so happy. She immediately told Elisabeth, who just instant messaged me. The whole town will know by evening! We’re telling Barb tonight; Brett bought a “Happy Mother’s Day, Grandma” card last night to give to her with the headboard. I’m feeling weird now that it isn’t just our secret, now that everybody knows!
Continue reading 5w+2d →

“The embryonic heart begins beating, though it can’t yet be seen on ultrasound.”

Holy shit! It has a HEART BEAT ALREADY?

Today I started surfing Amazon.com for baby books. They preview the first 42 pages of many of their books, so I can just look right in there and read the intros. Most of the books start with “now you’re pregnant, you might feel like (a), (b), or (c).” They’re all the same… happy, disbelieving, ambivalent, or freaked out. Buh! Are these people idiots? Don’t they read their competition? Maybe those books would do better to dispense with the entire first chapter altogether and simply say, “You’re knocked up! It’s so normal! Everything you might be feeling is perfectly okay.”

I’d like to buy a book for new dads, but I don’t know if Mr. Brett would even read it…? Maybe he would, if it were funny enough. And I guess I’m supposed to become completely psycho next week so he might like something that explains to him what he already knows: if your predominantly rational and loving wife starts being otherwise, don’t take her seriously.

I don’t feel at all queasy. I don’t feel PMSed. I feel, um, pregnant. I don’t feel psychotic, I’m not pissed off or yelling at people… the main difference is the pressure in the belly, and the strange body chemical keeping me from getting a horrific headache due to my messed up neck. (I slept funny the night before last, so my neck is a disaster.)
Continue reading 5w+1d →

“Five weeks menstrual age (3 weeks after fertilization), the embryonic period begins.”

There’s a pregnancy calendar at Yahoo.com. The thing will be 7mm long by next Thursday! My due date is sometime during the first week of December, although I guess first babies are always late.

I suspected Saturday that I might be pregnant. Sunday, when Brett and I were at Wal-mart and I said I wanted to buy a test, he said, “Yeah, since we both already know that you are, we might as well!” He was so gleeful that it made me giggle. I think he’s really happy, really into it. Strange. When we got home I had to pee, so I took the test immediately. It was a really, really, really, REALLY faint positive after two or three minutes.

When I looked again about 30 minutes later, it was a perfectly respectable, VERY positive. Which either means I’m about to miscarry, or simply that I’m at the absolute very beginning of the insane hormone wash and I?m testing a few days too early.
Continue reading 5w+0d →

In July 1999, Farmer Doug made us go to the birthday party of a ten-year-old in Batavia. The party was at a place that turned out to be for sale and Brett & I fell in love with it. Twenty-seven acres, two ponds, fruit trees, a thousand row feet of established asparagus, a stand of lovely old white oaks, and a funky old house with an interesting history and badly in need of a remodel.

For the first six months we lived here, I kept this little diary and it’s still fun to re-read every now and then. But over the years I’ve discovered that living in an old, run-down farm house under construction is both a never-ending list of minor problems and not all that terribly unique. I do love it here, though. (Check the gallery for visual aids.) It’s quiet, the closest neighbors can’t even be seen from our house, and it’s dark at night.

Anyway, enjoy the Farm Diary.
Continue reading Farm Diary →