One Child Left Behind

I have been very upset by the news of the Chinese earthquake, particularly the stories of the parents who, due to the one-child policy, have lost their only child. I keep walking into daycare with wet eyes from sitting in the parking lot and listening to the sad end of the NPR stories on failed rescues. I know I should stop listening, but I also want to let my soul send out its support to those devastated parents.

As I told a friend this week, I don't have the one-child gene. This is despite the fact that many, if not most, of my friends are happy with just having one child. I really feel like there is an empty space in our family and there is a little soul is trying very hard to reach us. I actually stole that quote from the intake worker at the West Coast Clinic we are looking into. And yes, despite being all matter of fact when we were talking before, when she said that, I started to cry.

We still haven't had our debriefing meeting with the clinic here, and Dave keeps saying that we're not leaving here until we see what they are going to offer us. Nonetheless, my faith in this clinic is severely shaken. I know the success rate at the other clinic and it's going to take a lot for me not to insist that that's where we go.

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Ok. That's the easy part. I feel like I need to address the brouhaha in the comments from the last post. Gabi? Honey? You might want to step off a little. I don't want to reprimand anyone and, certainly, I don't want to censor anyone. But I do want everyone to play nicely and name calling does not fall under what I deem "playing nicely."

Also, I am not going to defend my choices here. I'm just not going to do it. And as my poor mother can tell you, it's been years and years and years and years and years (and years) since anyone has successfully told me what to do. I appreciate the different opinions of the people around me. It's nice and it's often quite useful (Weick's requisite variety and all). But Dave and I get to determine what is appropriate for us and our family.

So I certainly don't want to stop people from commenting here. I do want to encourage respect for other's diversity of opinions and experiences. And I really do want to give a mini-lecture from my knowledge of computer-mediated communication (CMC), and hyperpseronsal communication and the flashbulb effect of flaming on CMC research. But instead, I'm going to go read an article I'm co-authoring on EQ and stress and then read my student's masters thesis proposal on entitativity and online technology, and wait for the rain.

Maynia

Yesterday was the annual M!dwood Maynia neighborhood festival. On the one hand, this is one of my favorite times to live where I live, what with the 5K race, the pet parade and the 6 hour festival in our park. On the other hand, this is the year anniversary of my running the 5K and losing my 11w5d daughter.

I think that miscarriage anniversary was less painful because we are right in the midst of the IVF cycle. So I have hope and excitement and not just waves of regret for losing our last pregnancy.

Plus, the pet parade is just so much fun! All the dogs and cats and gerbils and (fake) iquanas following behind the Charlotte Youth Organization Drum Corps is just a lot of fun!!!

So yes, the festival was fun. And the IVF is moving along. I think I mentioned that I wasn't quite sure if my estimates were correct about when everything would happen, and I was right in that I was wrong. It's *this* Friday not last Friday that they will collect the eggs. The good news is that so far, I'm doing great! In fact, the nurse used the word "perfect" so we have our fingers crossed that it will all go well. I'm not having any signs of Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS) so that is good news. Although we want tons of eggs, we don't need to have me get really sick in the process.

So Dave has finished up his Cipro and I remain on my drugs until until and we'll go through the monitoring as we need to next week. The estimated day of transfer back to me is May 14th and I'll be on bedrest that Weds-Friday. That's the status for right now.

Finals are this week and I still have quite a few papers to grade. But things are moving along and we're happily moving along with them.

I'm Supposed to be Having a Baby Right Now

The due date was actually November 20, but I thought it would have been earlier. Like right around now. Indeed, I'm supposed to be a almost 39 weeks pregnant.

What sucks is that except for a few weeks at the end of the summer, I've pretty much known how far along I was supposed to be each and every week since the miscarriage. And for the first time, I've had negative reactions to seeing other pregnant women. I have not been upset around my friends who are pregnant (although when I found out my closest mother friend here is pregnant, it felt like someone punched me in the gut). That, however, was a short lived negative reaction. She is a good friend and I'm thrilled for her growing family. (She is also the only mother friend of mine who gets that I may still have negative reactions. And she still cries with me over this miscarriage)

There are, however, other people that I simply cannot be around now that they are pregnant. The one woman who upsets me most is someone who had a lot of trouble getting pregnant the first time. I have no idea if she had problems getting pregnant this time, but now that she's pregnant with her second, I cannot stand to look at her or be near her.

I'm not walking around in a constant maudlin state bemoaning my circumstances and seething at the big bellies around me. However, out of the blue, I can sink into a weary, gray hole of baby-missing sadness. I ask myself and this universe "where is my baby??? Where is my healthy baby girl!? Where Is My Baby??"

I sometimes say "Where is my Healthy Baby?" but then I realize, my baby wasn't healthy. There was something wrong with her heart. Her heartbeat was really way too fast and it was a sign that something was wrong.

And then I feel guilty. I haven't told you something. I am pretty sure my baby died while I was running a 5K. I didn't plan to run fast, but I did run faster than I wanted to with another friend of mine (see dear friend above). I ran 2 half marathons with Conor. And I ran at a pretty good clip with him. So I am as honest as I can possibly be when I say I didn't think anything would go wrong.

But Conor's heartrate was not too fast. This baby's heartbeat (the baby whom I sometimes call Colleen) was. I should not have been running. If I hadn't run that race, the pregnancy probably would have lasted longer and we might have been able to do something to help her heart and she might have lived. Of course, I don't know that for sure and Dave doesn't like it when I think like this. But I believe with all my soul she would not have died that day if I hadn't run that race. And she didn't die because I ran: she died because something was wrong with her heart and I ran.

Maybe it would have been a lot worse if she hadn't have died then. We probably would have found out the problem at the level II ultrasound. Maybe they would have known then that it didn't look good and I would have had to have made some awful choices. However, I would have chosen to try every single thing that we could have to fix her heart. And maybe that would have left me so emotionally drained if it didn't work that I would not be able to try to have a baby again.

I don't know. All I do know is that I really believed I was going to have a healthy baby. And now I am not.