It’s time to write

Well we’ve been trying to conceive for two cycles now, since my cycles have been pretty much bang on since losing our baby girl in October and we’ve been given the all clear by the docs. Of course my mind goes to the wrong places after 2 cycles with no positive pregnancy test, which is totally not necessary but hey, when in health care you can easily obsess because of too much knowledge of what can go wrong. I’m trying to comfort myself that if my cycles are exactly 26-28 days long, then its not like my previous gyne procedures have suddenly rotted my insides preventing me entirely from being able to have children naturally someday, but of course in my dark fleeting (thank goodness they are fleeting) thoughts I do worry that I’ve been rendered sterile (yes, I realize this is also an insane thought as two cycles is nothing in terms of trying to conceive and yes, I have conceived in the past so there is also contextual evidence as to why I should not be concerned) which is nothing short of a worst fear that I voice here not for sympathy, or really empathy but because frankly, I use this space to utter the fears and things that I am not always comfortable airing aloud in the real world- it is a safe place, where I can explore the more complicated feelings that confuse me with the hope that through this kind of self examination I can learn more about why I think/feel the way I do and hopefully get to a ‘better’ place with these less than happy/ideal sorts of thoughts as a result of delving into the deeper stuff in some reflective process. Maybe I did learn a thing or two from nursing school after all, haha! (This is very similar to the ad nauseum reflective journals that UofT used to ‘teach’ nursing thought processes to students… which helped in the sense of being more in touch with myself but I don’t necessarily think it is the most useful skill in the real world timeframe or clinical scenarios- if there is too much ‘me’ in the room, how can there be room for the patient? is how I feel about it somewhat, now).

I worry too that maybe my husband’s swimmers aren’t the best? He isn’t an alcoholic by any stretch, but I’d say he has 2-4 drinks on the weekends about 50% of the time and during the holidays he had a beer daily with dinner. I ask about his swimmers because really, the first m/c and the genetic issue with our little girl (2/3 of the time from the paternal side) makes me wonder if he might be part of the puzzle of difficulty conceiving too. I of course, have little evidence to back this up but I have asked him to decrease his alcohol intake to nil for the next cycle which he happily agreed to… I didn’t want to ask him as I didn’t want him to think I’m blaming him for our not having started a family successfully yet (as I’m not) but I told him I thought it might optimize our chances. We haven’t really optimized our chances in these past two cycles in any case (new job angst and not having a renter for our house out west had me quite stressed  and not in the mood for babymaking, then in December Jack had norovirus that put him out of commission during my fertile window, poor guy) but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t expect at least some hope that our dozen or so introductions of swimmers might have taken hold.

I guess the best way to deal with these feelings and still be able to move forward is to see the good in the current timing. For one, I will have more time to put the loss of the last pregnancy behind me (not sure if this will really serve to do much to diminish the strength of those feelings or the fact that I think about her/being pregnant the last time almost daily but there you have it) two, I will have better financial footing for when we are due to move to our next city in June requiring me to be hired into a new job (easier to get if only a few months preggo instead of bursting at the seams preggo) three, I have been able to go back to the gym since mid November medically speaking, and have been able to meet my December fitness goals (1 hour per session, every other day, mix cardio and weight training) and am hoping to ramp up my January goals above the December regime to include returning to the pool 1x per week (which we haven’t done since the base pool was closed for renos from Oct-Dec). While I’d obviously choose pregnancy over fitness achievements there is no harm in reaching some self care and personal goals for me in the interim. Professionally speaking, I accepted the new clinic job and have been doing a lot of clinical planning, which I’m new to but enjoying as we set up a new clinic and am looking forward to my own client appointments booked for next week (new patient intake/well child exams). The hours are fabulous, I get to be paid for 8 hours a day and sleep in my own bed every night after having dinner with my husband more than twice a week like before. Good gawd why do I ever work shift work, it is so not for me!! Socially people here are as friendly as the license plates say and thank goodness, as it has been feeling like minus 30 for the past two weeks and we’ve been able to actually get out and play this winter (albeit for 1 hour blocks with warmup in between!) So in all, things are going rather well if not exactly where *I* would like to be in life.

We can’t have all of our dreams all of the time, but of course, there’s nothing stopping me from striving for them and so it goes, with each passing day a hope to let myself off of the blame hook, not blame my husband and just attempt to fully enjoy this rollercoaster called Life.

You’d better believe when I do get pregnant I’m going to do my best enjoy every minute of it. I have a few friends who are due around my previous due date that I keep in touch with, and to hear their news helps me realize that someday it will be my turn to share happy times in a similar way- even if it isn’t my time just yet I still have great hope.

FGirl