I know it has been ages since I posted. I've felt oddly caught between my good fortune and my on-going worries and just haven't figured out how to post what I want to say without sounding like I'm whining or spoiled or something unpleasant.
Today I'm drawn back here because I need the support of this community and hope that writing it down can help ease my fears. Okay, my irrational fears.

I'm 16 weeks pregnant, isn't that wonderful? I even had a few weeks where my worrying got much better- from the first week of November until Thanksgiving, I was doing pretty well! On Thanksgiving afternoon I had a bit of blood tinged mucus and have been thrown back into the anxiety pit ever since. I called my doctor that day and she thought it was probably due to over-exertion (I'd been standing and rolling out pie crusts and hosting 14 people for the holiday). It didn't get worse or return and I've been fine ever since. Yesterday I had a prenatal visit and a quick ultrasound and all was well. I've been able to hear the heart beat with my doppler and it's a wonderful, if totally unreal, feeling! However, since Thursday, I've been completely, irrationally terrified that I might have cervical insufficiency or otherwise go into extremely pre-term labor and lose the baby and I don't know how to stop worrying!

My doctor at the visit yesterday said that they'd check my cervical length at my ultrasound at 19 weeks (only 20 days from now!) and that there was no reason to suspect that I had any problem. I know she knows what she's doing, but I'm still not convinced. I'm pretty sure I'm just being irrational and nervous due to my history and extensive knowledge of what can go wrong. Nonetheless, I'm really struggling with how to get this fear under control, so I thought putting it out there might help.

I have so much to say and there's lots I've been thinking about with regards to this blog and to the blogging community. I'm not sure I'll be able to articulate it properly today, but the infertilty & loss blogging community is full of such incredibly supportive, caring, smart and funny people. I feel so attached to it in many, many ways. However, as I'm moving into a new stage of my life, while certainly not leaving my experiences of loss and infertility behind, leaves me pondering how I will use this space and how I can offer support and receive support from people going through so many different experiences.
At times, the sadness of the stories I've read in the blogosphere has overwhelmed me and in the past months I've realized that I have to limit my exposure somewhat or else the sad stories begin to encroach on my mind and send me to very dark places and I know for my own mental and physical health that I have to distance myself a little. That's really, really hard because I don't want to distance myself from all of you very real people and your stories. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I will try to be there as much as I can for all of you who I value so much and that I hope you know that I'm deeply grateful for the support I've received from you over the course of this very difficult year.

Knowledge is Power?

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much the IF community knows about what could go wrong. There is so much that could go wrong and even though I knew some of that in theory, I don't think it really hit me until my chemical pregnancy last winter. The day I got the positive test I thought my struggles were over! Two days later my grief was literally pouring out of me as I sobbed for hours.

But now. Now I know that all kinds of things can happen. Babies born too early, miscarriages, babies with problems, pregnant women who are in accidents, who have serious non-pregnancy related medical problems, babies born right on time, but born without taking a breath. Heartbeats heard at one ultrasound and then nothing at the next. All this can and does happen. And it happens to all kinds of families on every continent.

Somehow, though, we find a way to hope even amidst such knowledge. My hope is certainly alive, even though I know that good betas don't mean I'm in the clear and that it is still two full weeks til the first ultrasound and everything can change in that time. The human spirit is really quite tremendous. Last fall as I struggled through the reality of losing my tube and having not conceived in our first 6 months of trying I was as depressed as I've ever been. I felt like a failure, a disaster. I hated that I wasn't managing my struggles with the kind of grace I thought I should and that I thought would be more flattering. I don't know if I've developed grace over the last year or not, but I don't care quite so much. It is okay to feel sad and destroyed. However, the important part is that each day you get back up and do the best you can. The blogging IF community is full of such incredible examples of women doing just that, even if it doesn't always feel that way.