3w4d: What's My Line, Anyway?

After a probable chemical last cycle and my heart-breaking miscarriage, it's hard not to be obsessed.

I'm sure you're all dying to know this, but my test this morning is as dark as my BFP=miscarriage test at 14DPO. And I'm only 11 DPO. And, see, I almost didn't even use my urine this morning because it was so pale (I'm thirsty and it finally got HOT here...), and also I don't know when I last peed in the night.

I'm sure you all know how it is.

I am trying to take this pregnancy with nothing but joy and hope. I'm trying to banish all doubts to the end of this world. I mean, want to know why I don't know when I peed? Because I woke my husband up for sex sometime in the middle of the night, peed afterwards, and went to bed.

That's right--I had sex. GASP!!! (Although, not to be too graphic, but when he made the move for oral I had to stop him in his tracks lest he end up with a mouthful of Crinone. Because I'm sexy and all, but that just might be a mood-killer.) I'm trying to increase my protein and iron in-take (I'm a vegetarian, and I sometimes get lax on this), but I'm not running to Google everything I put in my mouth. I'm exercising, walking outside on hot days, taking whatever temperature of shower I feel like, having sex, painting my toenails...living like a perfectly normal person.

A perfectly normal insanely busy person, but still.

I haven't really blogged about this, but I'm not talking to much of my family. I had another conversation with my mother following the sister-in-law-is-pregnant-but-it's-a-secret-from-you conversation. In it, I tried to explain to her why family gatherings are so difficult--primarily because everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is centered around my niece. And how that is never, ever going to end, with another baby on the way, and my older sister likely to be knocked up (she might already be, for all I know) soon, etc.

My mother said, in these exact words: "Of course everything is about [niece's name]. That's just how it is when there's a baby."

Well, no shit.

I asked her if maybe, just for one of the family gatherings, we could ask them to get a babysitter. Let me state that family gatherings are not rare. We have, in chronological order: January birthdays (my husband, my niece), grandparent's birthdays, Easter, May birthdays (step brother, step sister, brother-in-law), Mother's Day, Father's Day, July birthdays (sister, step-sister-in-law, brother's long-term girlfriend), August birthdays (mom), October birthdays (me, brother, sister, step-sister), Thanksgiving, step-father's birthday, Christmas-with-grandparents, Christmas Eve, Christmas. This does not include things like "sister is in town", "celebrate random thing", etc. I was asking for one grown-ups only holiday a year.

I was flatly turned down. I was told that, under no circumstances, would a member of our family be made to feel unwanted.

I hate to sound like a bitch, but...my step-brother and his wife have TWO other families (his mom's, hers). JimDear and I do not. We don't even really have his family (I haven't seen them since our wedding, he's seen them once. No hard feelings, just not close at all). I don't feel like asking for a single holiday where I felt welcomed and wanted and not shunned and isolated was unreasonable. Especially since it could have been any of them, including my own birthday.

My mother also informed me that I was "making this whole thing into a tragedy". This whole thing being our miscarriage and infertility.

I told her I needed some space before talking to her again.

And I haven't talked to her since. I also haven't spoken to my older sister. She never did answer my email, and she too was in on the whole secret-keeping thing. And I haven't spoken to my sister-in-law, because...she told me that she wanted to enjoy the happiness of her pregnancy and not worry about my feelings. I don't want her to not enjoy her pregnancy, but...seriously? I've never asked her for anything, and I thought she understood where I was at, but I guess not. Not if she thinks even telling me about her pregnancy would rob her of all the joy she could ever get out of it. And I sent my step-brother a congratulations text message and he never said thank you and hasn't spoken to me since, so...

Basically, I am only talking to my brother and my out-of-state sister. I am doing a Father's Day-ish dinner with my step-dad and husband next week. We'll see.

I don't know how I got onto all this.

I think I wanted to say something like, I haven't told any of my family and don't know when I will. They'll expect me to be "cured", and they have hurt my feelings so badly recently that I don't even want to deal with them. It's petty, but I know my mom wants to go to all my ultrasounds with me, and I don't want to share ANY of that with her. I feel like saying, "Go with [sister-in-law], since her feelings are more important to you than mine," or "go with [sister] when she gets pregnant, neither of you will know what you're looking at anyway".

I am selfish about this pregnancy. I have told a friend, just one. I'm going to keep it that way.

And in the meantime, I'm trying to live like a normal person. Not over-analyzing anything. Just being happy. Enjoying all the time I get with this baby.