Terra firma

I have now returned to the land of hot tea at regular intervals and no Wal-Mart, and not a moment too soon. There are only so many days one can spend in a country where having a bumper sticker reading Jesus was a Liberal* leads to much jeering by scruffy men with mullets and notes on the windshield encouraging the owner to "Repent before you find yourself faced with eternal damnation." Ah, God bless America indeed. At the very least, God bless Central Pennsylvania.

My sincerest apologies for all I let down by not attending the Infertile Luncheon that has been so blogged about in the past week. My dad's girlfriend threw him a surprise 60th birthday party in Philly and I was trying to fit in a DC diversion until the very last minute, to no avail. I'm annoyed that I missed meeting all of the fabulous women in attendence. I have yet to meet any bloggers, and the closest I've gotten is a couple of phone calls with Molly, who basically just breathes heavily and moans as soon as she hears my voice.

I have plenty to say about recent developments in my reproductive life, but at the moment I'm suffering from jet lag-induced ambivalence, so I will leave most of it for another time. The most important bit of info is this - I had a scan a couple of weeks ago at 6w2d, and Bertrand/Enid's heartbeat was both seen and heard. To see it was a marvel in itself, but to hear it was overwhelming. Of course I cried, primarily because I was so thrilled that something, up to that point anyway, was alive in there. To witness a beating heart aside from your own that belongs to another life inside of you, well...it's indescribable.

I also cried because I thought of the many of you who keep struggling, and I desperately want everyone to have at least a little bit of good news for once. I am acutely aware that I have many, many miles to go before this is considered successful, and I spend hours each day convincing myself that this is not going to end well. However, I have never been pregnant before, and for now, I am. It is one step further than I ever anticipated being. I don't consider this feeling guilt, as I put in 4 years of infertility, and as obnoxious as it sounds, it's about fucking time I benefit from the emotional, physical, and financial stress.

I don't know the name of what I'm feeling, but I do know it is odd to be on the other side for once. Prior to reading IF blogs I frequented an IF chatroom. It was usually filled with pregnant IFers or new moms after IF, and I hated it. The little mary sunshines of the group that were not pregnant and did not have children adored having pregnant/new moms in the room, because it gave them hope. I, on the other hand, found it offensive and annoying. Rather than being inspirational, I thought they only served as a reminder that my body was consistently failing me, and it was only other people who got pregnant. I wasn't concerned that they were once where I was.

The point to all this rambling is that I am very confused. Naturally I want this to all work out, but nor do I want to be pushed off the Island. I don't want to be that irritating pregnant woman that prattles on about how she never thought she would get pregnant, and how it will happen for you too, blah blah blah. I detest her, and I trust the rest of you do too. I feel ridiculous for even referring to myself as pregnant, because I neither feel pregnant, nor believe it is lasting. I guess that it is virtually impossible for me to convey my wish for everyone to be happy without being patronising anymore. Prior to the positive HPTs I could pass on whatever good wishes I pleased, but those HPTs changed everything.

The moral to this convoluted and ultimately baffling post is that I hope everyone finds happiness, in whatever form it manifests itself.


*My brother's bumper sticker. When I borrowed his car, The Dude, as my passenger, noticed the glares of passing drivers and it took us awhile to narrow it down to the oh-so-offensive bumper sticker rather than any bad driving on my part.