Hormones, Pregnancy, wanting to bone after the job is done.
So, since falling pregnant, I have fallen more and more in love with my partner. Sometimes I find myself staring at him, starry-eyed, like he's Hugh Jackman sitting on my couch. He's been working out lately so his arms have gotten bigger. He wears Bonds shirts and well-fitting pants. His arse is like two well-grown honeydew melons, but not green. He has shaggy brown hair and green eyes and light, light freckles. He loves my cats and talks to the baby through the tummy, reporting to her the goings on of the day. He wants to teach the baby martial arts, whether they are a boy or a girl.
Now, I have a hard time resisting that shit at the best of times. With a baby bearing down on my sex-bits, plus hormones and emotional whirlwinds of impending motherhood? I want to ride him like a pony multiple times a day. But I can't cause he's not my toy to do with as I please. So I have weird dreams where I can't reach him on the phone or he can't get to me or he doesn't WANT to get to me and we can't bone, and I cry hysterically in the dreams because sex isn't happening.
Of all the things that would happen to me during pregnancy, this was the least expected. I thought, yeah, I might get a bit randy. But becoming a clingy, cuddling, smoochy, sighing, swooning fuck-bunny was not in my scope for weird pregnancy behaviours.
The more you fucking know. LOL!
I have an inner animal self. I'm not talking a 50 Shades of Turd Inner Goddess or anything. I am that fucking goddess. No, I'm talking an instinctual animal self that is a part of a whole but often ignores logic and propriety and laws.
When ovulation time comes, that inner animal self starts eyeing off every attractive male within a twenty metre radius. At least, it did until I found D. Now, whenever I ovulate, my hands are glued to his butt and my lips to his ear. I am the most horrible girlfriend ever. I have the libido of a 16 year old boy. There's a reason I'm becoming an adult fiction writer, is what I'm saying.
All the years I was sexually active, it never occurred to me that that animal, limbic part of my self could be directed towards OTHER things. That it would ever be awakened by something else. I am a very maternal woman by nature, but often I would get tired of other people's children and was glad I could hand them back. I would do anything for my nieces and nephews, absolutely anything. But I hadn't experienced what was yet to come. I never anticipated the wild, deep, sacred well of emotion that burst forth once I was touched with pregnancy. Once my first pregnancy was over, and no baby to show for it, that inner limbic consciousness was bereft beyond all reason or logic.
She-Beast: Want behbeh now.
Me: Sorry, no can do. D isn't ready and I'm still healing after the D&C.
She-Beast: Want behbeh NOW.
Me: I. CAN'T.
She-Beast: ... Fine.
And suddenly I am plunging head-first into a crushing depression beyond all understanding. That week I went to my regular psychologist appointment. I had been seeing her since a couple of months after my assault, so about six years now. She is awesome beyond comprehension, helpful, but guides me in figuring out how I can solve my own problems. One of the best psychologists I've ever had, really. I had been working through my miscarriage grief with her for some months now. It got bad that day.
I finally verbalised something I had not admitted to anyone - I was scared to bring up the baby thing, the trying again thing, with D. I built it up in my head as something that would break the relationship. I didn't imagine that he would want to give up his freedom and last two years of his 20s to me and a baby. I said to the psychologist that I needed to learn to trust D. Hard when sexual assault is in your past. Hard when losing the chance of having a baby is the WORST thing in the world to you in that emotional, grieving place.
D picked me up after the session. I felt better but I was still wound up. We chatted about the session and I suddenly started tearing up. I'd not opened up about my grief. I kept it away from him to protect him, as he's a sensitive guy. Pro-tip - if you're going through this situation? DO NOT lock it away from your partner. Major dumb-ass move on my part. Because what happened after my admission blew me out of the fucking water.
I finally admitted to him how sad I was over losing the pregnancy, and that I ached to try again some day down the track. He glanced at me briefly before looking back to the road (we were driving home) and said:
"Why don't we just try?"
I blinked. "... What?"
"Why wait? What's stopping us?"
It was at that point I burst into tears. Full, weepy, ugly crying.
"I'm sorry!" I said, "I just never thought there would be someone that WANTED to have a baby with me!"
The first time was an accident and I thought I'd cheated the system of life. But no - this beautiful, kind, wonderful human being wanted to procreate with me. He understood. Despite being scared, despite both of us knowing we weren't in the best situation financially, my fertility was something I could not take for granted. But it wasn't even just that. Fertility be damned - he wanted to make me happy. I fell in love with him all over again. That happens a lot with him, because he's that awesome.
So after that fateful car ride where I discovered good shit beyond your wildest dreams can happen if you open up and just TRUST your partner, my life focus changed.
All money earned through art was for Babby. I started taking pregnancy vitamins. The agreement was that after I'd done over my room and organised my life better, set up a studio in my living space to work in, we would try for a baby.
I was elated. My endometriosis made it hard for me to work on the bedroom as I'd have liked, so I fell behind on those plans. I became despondent, wondering if I'd ever get to the place I wanted to. I had health issues (multiple bladder problems) and illnesses that I didn't usually have. It created tensions in both D and I. That depression started to creep back, that I would screw everything up, my chance at a baby.
But often biology has different ideas. Admittedly, D and I aren't the most careful of people when it comes to sex. But again, I assumed that I was not all that fertile. In three years that we had been together, I had fallen pregnant only once. Most of that time together, we didn't use condoms or any protection during the "less fertile" periods. We flirted closer and closer with those "safe" times, but I had this assumption that pregnancy was the Ultimate Good Thing, and due to the previous years of Utter Shit, those good things didn't happen to *me*.
It was ten days into my cycle when the transaction of genetic material was made. (Stuff that in a romance novel, why don't you?) I half-knew it was a danger day, but I'd read somewhere that the chances of conception with a woman my age on that day were something like thirteen percent or something. I was jaded about my age and statistical rates of fertility. I assumed that, like my older sister H, I would take two years of constant during-ovulation fucking to get the Pee Stick of Joy.
I was so very, utterly, completely wrong. Twice. Guess who's a numpty? Me. Me me me. (NB. Numpty: Scottish slang for a stupid person. Picture me.)
I felt terrible for assuring D that I probably wouldn't fall pregnant. I assured him I probably wasn't the week following, despite glowing and feeling happy and floaty and having this feeling, deep down, something was different this time.
I felt bad when, after getting some McDonalds and the chips suddenly tasting utterly RANK to me, and having the urge to vomit it all back up again, I told him that it *might* have been pregnancy, but it probably was just car sickness. I was on day 22 or something. There was no way I could be ill that soon.
But there was a mounting feeling in my gut that something, SOMETHING was different in me. It was like a shift on a molecular level. My endo wasn't acting the way it usually does in the week leading up to my period. I wasn't cramping uncontrollably. I didn't get aggressive and weepy a few days after ovulation. I felt puffy and bleh. I was tired. I yawned excessively on our usual walk around the lake near my house. I even had to stop a couple of times. I hadn't had to stop since I first started walking around the lake four years ago! And God, I was SO HUNGRY.
Deep in my gut I knew. And I had to wait those wretched days till I could test it.
"Don't test early," many, including my mother, said to me. "Wait until you miss your period."
No. The packet says "Up to five days before your next prediction menstrual cycle" and by God, that's what I fucking paid for. So many times in the past few months, I felt off and bought a pregnancy test "just to be sure". Desperate checking of a woman who wanted that line more than anything. This time, I was SURE it would be different. It felt completely unlike any of the other months I tested, even the month where I fell pregnant the year before.
It was a Tuesday, early September. A couple of weeks before the anniversary of discovering my first pregnancy. I took the test in the morning. I watched the wee get drawn up the fibrous stick. I watched it sweep past the window, and unlike the last time I was pregnant, nothing was in the window. My heart sank. I thought I would react with more emotion than I did at the negative. After a minute or two I started to clean up, sighing heavily. I guess my "woo-woo" feelings were wrong this time. Back to the planning.
I picked up the stick again to check, just in case.
And fuck me flat with a box of dicks - there was a faint line!
I had planned all sorts of fun ways of letting my Mum know the next time around. It all went out the window as I rushed out of the toilet, grabbed my Mum and showed her the pee stick.
"Do you see it?" I asked her.
"See what?"
"The line! Right there! Hold it up to the light!"
"Oh... it's there. It's kind of faint..."
"But I read - a line is a line! False positives are *really* rare!"
Mum hugged me but urged me to be cautious and get a new test in a couple of days.
I showed the faint line to my sister H, and she hugged me and cooed and laughed. She had had a feeling, she had seen me and said, "You look pregnant." She does energy healings, and the week previous I'd asked her to heal my sore shoulder. She had tried, but she felt my energies were closed off. She had no problem healing and feeling the energies of my sisters.
"I don't know what is going on," she had said. And had joked that maybe I was pregnant. She didn't want to get my hopes up, and I understood. But she was right. My gut was right. At least it seemed to be.
A couple of days later, I bought two more boxes of tests. A couple of cheaper pee sticks, and a you-beaut expensive one called Discovery.
I had a fun time trying to figure out the pee sticks. I pulled one to pieces before I realised I *wasn't* supposed to peel anything off of it. Thankfully there were two of them in the box, and I tested that one. Like the last one (also a pregnosis) it was a faint line. Not as faint as the last one though.
The Discovery one? Oh boy. Oh LAWDY. That shit came out CLEAR as a friggin' BELL:
See how faint that first line was? It was an act of faith practically to see that I was pregnant. But that was the brand. The dip stick had the same chemicals from the same company. A day later, darker.
The good one at the bottom. So very, definitely, absolutely pregnant.
I was finally there. I was in the Two Lines Club.
~~*~~
Addendum: D did not freak out when I broke the news. He half-expected it, and after a minute or two of reeling shock, slowly came 'round to the fact that he was going to be a daddy. Some pragmatic anxieties and stressful nights later, and he's doing okay. Daddying it all up like a champ. Talking to baby through belly, planning on absurd names he wants to call it, helping me get my life in order - the whole nine yards. He's a good man.
My sister H told me to get a pregnancy test. She was sure, absolutely sure. She said she had a gut feeling. I had often said to Lenny the cat over the course of his life, "If you ever want to come back after your time as a cat and be my baby, you can if you like." It was a wild, silly whim.
I did the pee, I did the dip, I watched the wee crawl up the fibre stick slowly.
A line appeared.
No. This had to be a mistake. I had not had unprotected sex during my fertile period. What the hell? I had endometriosis, I am supposed to be HARD to get pregnant, right? Isn't that what all the books and websites said?
My sister started badgering me from the other side of the door.
"What is it? What is it?" she called, "Is there a line?"
I was in shock. "The- there's... something."
I unlocked the toilet door and she opened it in a flash, grabbing the test and letting out a cry of delight.
"You're PREGNANT!"
I burst into tears. I was still living at home. I had no money. I had D, but we were both on what amounted to minimum wage. I was scared he'd run away. It was all a mess. I never thought I'd be SAD to find out I was pregnant but for some reason, this was the worst news in the world.
I cleaned myself up and Helen dragged me into the kitchen. I was hugged and congratulated and I even started tentatively to feel happy about it. For some reason, my Mum wasn't excited. Mum was always excited about babies, but she didn't tell me - she had a bad feeling.
My older sister H is what some call sensitive. She dismisses her abilities, but they come when they come and sometimes they're creepily accurate. She felt my Mum's Auntie Nan come through, and I am her namesake. Auntie Nan never had her own kids. She said for me to crochet, and the message from the spirits was that they would all be there for me, no matter what. An odd message, I thought, but I accepted it.
Later that night I went to Lenny's grave. I said to him, "Look, I know I said you could come back, but you bloody could have waited a bit, couldn't you?" It had only been two weeks since he died.
As the days wore on I was buoyant, content, floating on a cloud. My partner D was terrified but he came to deal with it. I wasn't sick, I felt great. My endometriosis was a memory. I had bad cramps, though. No spotting to speak of. Little did I know, the lack of cramps and the lack of spotting was probably a warning sign.
I went on my merry way, a-glowing and beaming and feeling like after everything, I'd finally turned a corner. For the second time in my life, I felt like I had won the lottery. I felt like I would never be alone again. I felt like the nightmare of a childless life was behind me, and that the world could fall apart but as long as I had my baby, everything would be okay.
Time came for my six week ultrasound. It was early because my doctor at the time was cautious, and was my primary carer through my endo woes. I read up on the internet what to expect at this point: the foetal pole, the yolk sac, the cord.
I was blithely optimistic as Mum and Dad drove me to the ultrasound. D couldn't make it due to work. I was anxious about the place where I was getting scanned. It was the same place that had told me they detected an endometrioma on my ovary. I remember bawling my eyes out on the front step, wondering if I would ever be pregnant.
Mum sat with me as the ultrasound progressed. The technician did sweeps, this way and that. No matter what, she could not see a foetal pole, nor a yolk sac. She seemed unconcerned.
"We'll scan again in a week."
It could be a missing baby, or it could have been my retroverted uterus, or it could have been a late conception date (which was entirely possible). I didn't believe that anything could be wrong. I felt like God was telling me everything would be all right. I think he couldn't tell me the full truth of it - that I would be all right eventually.
A few days later, I went for a pee. During that week I'd finally felt morning sick, and I felt secure in that sickness. All security shattered and tumbled away as I brought the tissue forward and saw the brown spotting on it.
"OH no..." That was all I could say. I cradled my head in my hand, in shock. I knew this was a possibility. I STILL didn't let myself assume the worst. I'd read of ladies spotting and everything being okay in the end. Still, I needed to go to the emergency room at the local women's hosptial.
I called my Mum, and we rushed to the hospital. They did a blood test, but I was told that there was no ultrasound technician after office hours. They had me sit in one of the clinic rooms.
Some time later, a kind-faced, blonde woman in scrubs came in. She was the doctor that was in charge of the ward that night. She took my hands and took a tone that I didn't want to hear. I felt angry.
She told me things but I didn't really absorb them for a minute. After a moment the fog cleared and I finally heard her. My hGC levels were dropping. I was miscarrying.
Not for the first time that year, I fell apart. The doctor was sweet to me, rubbing my arm and assuring me it was nothing I did, and that it didn't mean I couldn't go on to have a perfectly healthy baby in a later pregnancy. I looked down in my hand. At some point she'd put a little plush blue love heart in it. I squeezed it and continued to sob. No baby. My silly joke about Lenny coming back was a hollow merriment.
The trauma of delivering the empty sac a week later is something I won't go into. It was a blighted ovum, thank God, so there was no foetus for me to say goodbye to. I don't think I could have coped with that. The weeks that followed were a wash of agony and heartache. It took months and months to recover. I was by turns comforted and triggered by the company of my beautiful baby nephew. Thankfully it was comfort that won out. I cared for him and the ache within calmed into a sad melancholy.
I have a couple of memorials to the baby that never was. As time went on, the pain of loss was replaced with a panic, a deep, visceral NEED to be pregnant once again. I'd never felt such a thing before. I felt like another pregnancy would come and that I HAD to experience it. But I didn't know how it would ever happen, as D didn't seem to be ready and I was still recovering from the D&C which needed a few months to heal up.
Every period after the miscarriage was a kick in the teeth. I grieved every single time. I thought I would never get pregnant again, and that all my feelings of hope and certainty about motherhood were in error. I was at peace with the loss that I had had, but I was not at peace with the great hole in my life that I wanted to fill with baby. That was not a vagina euphemism. I didn't know how to tell D. I didn't know what lay ahead.
I should have remembered something my mother told me when I was in the emergency room after my Prozac misdosing.
"You never know, N, when something good will happen. Sometimes you're just going through terrible times and then out of the blue, something good can change everything."
I thought only BAD things came out of the blue and changed everything. It never occurred to me that the inverse was true, that sometimes, good things shake you to your core and change everything. Then I remembered that it had happened before - I had met D. I had gained a new nephew in the past year. Good things DID happen.
Good things were on the way.
I would say the worst years for me were from 2011 to 2013. 2013 was the absolute worst (and best in some ways). A wave of crap happened that made my already heightened anxiety levels go through the roof. It was one thing after the other and I was barely able to cope. I ended up in the Emergency room at one point, because it all became too much.
My little sister, who is basically my best friend in the whole world and is three years younger than me, had gotten married some years ago. She was settled with her lovely husband, contemplating parenthood. Her life seemed to be working out fairly well, and as happy as I was for her, it made it clear to me what a mess my own life was. I still lived with my parents because I was stuck on the Disability Pension due to my endometriosis. It had stabilised but it was still debilitating. I relied on the government and any money I could scrape together from my art. I felt constantly bad about the position I had ended up in. I felt like I wasn't much of a catch for D, that my 20s had been a complete waste of time and that I had done absolutely nothing with my life so far.
This was a lie. I had put in well over the 10,000 hours required to become a competent artist. It took half my life but I managed it. I was a talented writer, and I got good at that in my 20s too. I'd faced hurdles most people don't get piled onto them all at once - mental illness, chronic illness and constant bad luck. I finally pressed myself to believe I was doing okay. And I was a catch. I was amazing.
I had a nephew with cerebral palsy. He was in his 20s in the 2010s, and we'd nearly lost him to breathing complications in the past. He was bright, warm, kind, sweet, full of good humour and a constant reminder of how my own chronic issues did not have to define me or rob me of my joy and verve. I grew up with him, seeing him after school every day. He had been born when I was 8, so he felt like a brother to me rather than a nephew. I had sung and danced for him in my childhood, his laughter the greatest reward I could ever want or receive.
Over Christmas, he became ill. His lungs became infected. I tried not to let my anxiety get the best of me, but as time went on, it got worse. He had a brief reprieve around New Year, and we thought we had dodged death yet again. But on the 4th of January, after coming home from a swim at the beach, my little brother tearily informed me and my Dad that my nephew had had a massive seizure, and was now on his way out.
It was devastating. The family took a huge blow. We still miss him today, of course, and photos of him are up about the house. A little bit of magic left our lives when he died. He taught me how to laugh without a care of what I looked like or whether I was silly or not. He taught me joy.
Time went on, as it does. My relationship continued healthily. D and I would often talk about where the relationship was going. As it got more serious, I grew more anxious for reasons I couldn't identify. D wasn't in a rush to have kids, but my years were slipping away. I was terrified that we'd try and I wouldn't be able to conceive. But I didn't want to rush myself, or D. All I knew, deep in my gut, was that 35 years old was the age I would have my baby. I didn't know how or why or when, but I knew that's when it had to happen. It was one of those irrational woo-woo feelings I have from time to time.
In 2012, my little sister told us all the news we were waiting to hear in the family: She was pregnant. I was joyous, and I let the joy consume me. Some part of me often felt a pang, a yearning that I could go through this too. But it wasn't to be, not at that time. I watched her go through the journey and I knew, I knew I wanted this. That I couldn't live without experiencing what she was experiencing. It was terrifying, because I knew D was still frightened, still hesitant. I didn't know how he would ever change his mind. I knew I was the one person he wanted to share parenthood with, but the timing was everything.
In September 2012 I noticed my cat, Lennon McCartney, wasn't looking too well. He wasn't young. I got him when I was 16 (1995) and he had seen me through my terrible 20s. He was beloved, my boy child, who I doted upon every day since I got him. I sung to him and he loved it.
I figured Lenny was just old and might have needed some kind of treatment from the vet. I was confident he was fine, probably just having his "thin summer condition" that he'd had before.
The vet was immediately worried upon looking at Lennon. She told me something serious was wrong. Lenny was my rock. He had been who I turned to when men treated me wrong. When life was too hard. I excused myself and went to the veterinary bathroom and had the anxiety shit of my LIFE. I composed myself and went back out again to face the storm.
Lenny had a major organ in trouble. Either the kidneys or something else. I could not cope. They took blood tests and would tell me the results. He may live four weeks, four months, four days - who knew with cats.
I fell apart. Waiting for the phone calls was hell. They were good natured at the vet about my badgering. The blood tests told us it was a liver problem.
After an expensive and traumatic ultrasound (it took two women to hold down a five kilo tomcat who did not want to be there) it was found to be cirrhosis of the liver. My cat was too rock and roll to live, apparently.
Another vet saw me this time when I took Lenny back, and they said that he was just old, and that his liver wasn't *that* big, and they weren't sure how long he had. They couldn't tell me anything for sure. They could do more invasive tests but I said no. He had had enough with the undignified ultrasound. Even if they did find out exactly what was wrong, the treatment would have been worse than the illness. I decided to let Lenny live out his days. I would spoil him, love him, give him everything in my heart. I would cherish him and never let him go through any discomfort again.
Easier said that done. Oh, the actual spoiling bit was fine, but my Generalised Anxiety problems went through the ROOF. Every day became a day Lenny Could Die. That month, I actually skipped a period because I was so stressed out. This is what I count as my First Pregnancy Scare. I went something like 40 days or so without a period. Perhaps it was a chemical pregnancy? Who knows. I kept getting negative pregnancy tests. It was enough to send the wind up me at the time. Every negative test was a heartbreak because to me it meant that a) my cycle was broken and b) there was no baby.
It was about this time that a niece and a nephew of mine, both in their late teens, were going through some pretty serious mental shit of their own. In our family mental illness marches through like a gay pride parade on a long weekend. God bless 'em, they were strong enough to survive it. Me, I'm Miss Come To Me With Your Problems, because I take my aunting duties VERY seriously. So while some serious crap went down in the ensuing months with those two, I was also dealing with Lenny, and the feelings from my aunt declining. I was a fucking mess.
2013 hit us like a bomb. First, Tina's son was born. I honestly think that he, like D, was a gift God sent us to help us through dark times. He was blond, bonny, with pale white skin, huge blue eyes, a tiny nose and and fat full lips. Healthy, hale and hilarious. He loves music, being with people, sci-fi and cars and trains. Many times I babysat him for my sister, and quietly, while he slept in my arms, I'd close my eyes and imagine that it wasn't my nephew, that it was my baby yet to come. I'd close my eyes and tell myself, "This is what motherhood might feel like." I needed those baby hugs SO badly at that point in my life. The ache to reproduce got greater and greater. Time was running out.
Soon after this, I got the news that my aunt had finally succumbed to cancer. It was a sudden death, which was a blessing, really, given what she had to face in the final months of her life. I had come to know her much better in the years she had lived with the disease, as she would visit once a week to catch up with Mum, or pop by after a doctor's appointment. She eagerly watched my relationship with D unfold, and always listened to me prattle on about him. She showed me how to crochet properly. She told me stories of driving muscle cars on dirt tracks in races in the 70s. She was an amazing woman, and losing her was a terrible blow to the family.
By this time, and after years of one bit of bad news after the other, I my anxiety issues got worse and worse. I didn't know how to deal with these huge moments of loss in my life. Every phone call ended up being a possible piece of devastating news. My Dad had some health concerns that needed testing for. I was convinced he had cancer (he didn't). Little problems with D and I that are a natural part of any relationship got blown up in my mind out of all proportion. After my aunt died, some switch in my head flipped. I was convinced, utterly convinced, that bad things would keep happening. I was on alert all the time.
D and I reached the point where we were facing the "Moving out" discussion. And I was terrified. It was the ultimate sign of trust and after my assault, I did not know how to give it. After this weighing on me, and family woes, I couldn't bear the anxiety anymore. A doctor I hadn't seen in some years had said to me, "If you're feeling like the Prozac isn't covering your depression or anxiety, you can up the dose if you need to." I'd ignored that advice for years. One night, in a moment of desperation I followed it.
Bad idea.
The next day I woke and I didn't feel a thing. Not a damned thing. Suddenly, a wall of panic crashed over me. Over the course of the day I broke down, and I demanded to be taken to the ER. That weekend the dam walls burst and I needed help that a psychologist couldn't cover on their own.
I had stress I hadn't dealt with yet, Generalised Anxiety Disorder that had spiralled out of control, depression, and unbeknownst to me until I got some serious therapy and did some Dr. Googling, I was dealing with a later stage of healing from my assault that is apparently quite common and I totally wasn't expecting. I had rape trauma syndrome, and I'd never looked up the healing process properly.
But I grit my teeth and with the help of my D, I recovered. Slowly and surely the pieces came together again.
September came, and Lenny's condition had degenerated dramatically. He had survived a year, but after he stopped urinating and lost interest in eating, it became clear his journey on earth was closing. Calling the vet to my house to put Lenny to sleep in my arms was the hardest thing I'd done up to that point. I held him and told him everything would be okay, that his Mummy was there, that I would always be with him. I sang to him as the drugs went into his arm, the Mummy song I would always sing to him.... "You are the Sunshine of my Life" by Stevie Wonder. As his eyes closed I sang Pie Jesu, my voice cracking. He became limp, and I sat there in the loungeroom, grief flowing from me raw and intense, my heart practically bleeding. "My baby's gone!" I wailed.
My Dad built Lenny a coffin. I held Lenny for about an hour, weeping. Then I finally took him outside in his ailing box, covered him and kissed him one last time. I took a print of his paw, cut a tuft of fur. We put him in the coffin with a toy mousey, some cheese (His favourite), some chicken (his other favourite), and other little trinkets. Flowers. We wrapped him in an old towel. I bid him goodbye.
During the funeral, bagpipes wafted in on the breeze. They were playing Amazing Grace. My long-deceased Grandfather had headed a pipe band in his time, and Mum always said that Lenny reminded her of his cat Portnoy. I felt like he was telling me that he had received Lenny in heaven, and that he would look after him. My rational brain knew it was from the nearby high school having some function, but the timing was utterly uncanny.
All the things I had dreaded had happened. I felt empty, spent. Some part of me felt hopeful that maybe the storm of utter shit was over. I was so wrapped up in my pain that I didn't notice that my period was late. I figured it was a repeat of last year - that Lenny had staved off my period yet again.
I didn't even think about doing a pregnancy test until my sister insisted...
~~*~~
In 2010 I got a message from a guy on OKCupid. All of the dates and dalliances I'd had through online means had failed at that point, but all the men I knew in meatspace were dating or married or gay or not my type. It cost me nothing and sometimes it was actually fun.
About two weeks later, my attention deficit problem kicked me in the arse big time. I have a bad habit of thinking I've answered mail when I actually haven't. I did it when I was emailing BOTH these dudes at the same time. Like, I actually forgot to mail both of them. (Honestly, it's a fucking miracle I ever landed anyone!)
Days wore on and I grew more and more despondent as I thought, "Hell, they've both given up on me." Being forgotten by one dude is bad enough, but TWO? Then I checked my outbox and realised my mistake. Immediately I messaged the both of them. I girded my loins, preparing for drama to ensue. All the men I'd known had caused me SOME kind of problem. So many assholes on the internet, I was waiting for the guilt trips or the "sorry I've moved on" or something like that. I didn't hear from the Musketeer. But I heard from the Dad-Lookalike.
He said, "It's cool." That's it. No drama. No troubles. It was fine, he was busy with uni and didn't mind, and the conversation picked up where it left off. I was stunned, and that little niggle in the back of my mind that had kept me writing him in the first place flowered a little. It turned into an instinct that said, "Keep going."
Eventually we organised a date. He had been so patient with me (it took a month of wrangling through my 'meeting new people since assault' anxiety and he stuck with it). He didn't mind that I needed to have my sister and her husband there at the date. We had it at the zoo, a sort of double date kinda thing. I liked the sound of his voice on the phone (I was worried he'd have a weird voice) so I was optimistic.
Now, let me tell you before I go on one or two of the HUGEST fears I held back then, going to "meeting off the internet" dates.
I worried the chemistry would be off.
I worried they wouldn't look the same as their photos.
I worried that if they did and things went well, when I got then to the bedroom they would have an ugly dick. This was my biggest worry. You're that far into the relationship - there is NO kind way to say that their dick puts you off.
I messaged him I had arrived at our designated meeting place. He said that he had been listening to The Beatles in his car and he would be there in a moment. The dormant 15 year old hippie deep in my heart that listened to the Beatles INCESSANTLY leapt for joy and said it was a definite SIGN.
He had told me that his hair was longer than in his photos. I was worried I'd see him and he'd look so much like my Dad that I couldn't look at him. I walk up the ticket line, and there he is.
About six foot, pale skin kissed in pale freckles. Wide shoulders. Muscles. Pecs. Tight pants. And arse that could kill at ten paces. He turns around. Long hair past his shoulder of a warm, brown auburn hue. Greeeeeen fucking eyes and the most beautiful face I had ever seen. And he smiled at me. He looked like the lovechild between Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale.
He did NOT look like my Dad. It had been a dorky photo.
Silently thanking God and myself for buying the brand new tight jeans for the date even though I couldn't technically afford them, I ran to my sister.
"He's fucking GORGEOUS!" I hissed at her. "HE seems NICE!"
My sister gave me the thumbs up.
From there unfolded the best date I have ever been on. Ever. I wasn't nervous. I was purely excited. I was probably a bit awkward and overly chatty, but it didn't faze him at all. We were both hugely into nature, art, music, spirituality. He was a little quiet but I didn't mind. Quiet guys turn me on.
We got to lunch. He remembered that I am gluten intolerant - he brought along gluten-free muffins that he had baked himself, just for me. He had also brought me soda, which happened to be my favourite kind.
I wanted to drag him into a bush and have my way with him the whole time. The longer I spent with him, the more I liked him. Better yet, he wanted to see me again.
After the date was over (and after a fucking DYNAMITE first kiss), I was floating on air. On the way back to the car with my sister, I babbled about him incessantly.
"I think I've met my boyfriend!" I said to her. She cautioned me not to get too excited. What I didn't tell her?
I knew I'd met the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. What I didn't know?
I'd met the man that was going to be the father of my baby.
~~*~~
The relationship unfolded beautifully. We were both nervous, both frightened of the feelings that had taken hold, both quite flighty as people, but through the ups and downs of a regular relationship, we became inseparable. He made me a better person, he helped me exercise and improve myself. He did Occupational Therapy so he completely understood my issues with chronic pain. I also helped him with his life and his issues (which we all have). It worked.
I can honestly say that he has gotten me through some of the toughest moments in my life. With him, I felt I had won the lottery. I still feel that way. If I hadn't have remembered to check my outbox, if I had dismissed him because of that one silly photo (though he does remind me of my Dad sometimes but not at creepy levels), if I had not had the courage to meet him, it might never have happened. The best thing in my life might have been a path I never walked down. But I knew, deep in my heart, he was meant to come when he came. All those years of waiting, languishing, wishing on stars and blown dandelions and weeping to my cats, it wasn't because God didn't care or that I was unloveable. It's because sometimes, the wheels of fate have a long way to turn.
I was 31 when I met D, my partner. I still had the hardest times ahead.
To know what joy this pregnancy has brought me is to know the absolute shit of a year before I fell pregnant. Two years, really. Let's just say that the late 00s were not kind to me. But it was the final year that really broke me in two.
The downturn started in 2005. I was happily going to a music school here in my city, where I was learning to put on gigs, recording music in reasonably nice studios, making new friends, getting good marks, and generally rocking the hell out of my chosen field. I felt like Hermione going to Hogwarts. I was like, "Look at all this shit I can do! Finally, after years of feeling like I was never good at anything, (except in art school), here I am at a place where the teachers value me, where I am a TOP student, where I am nailing all the shits." I was 25.
Right at the height of my wave of awesome, I was dumped in suds of suckitude. I started to feel tired. My periods got worse (and they were already fucked). And then one month, late in the year, I was in so much abdominal pain that I could not go to school that day. I'd felt something like it before. The year previous when I was doing work-for-the-dole, I was in a retail job at a chain thrift store. I was on my feet all day, and I never got much rest. I could only have a drink a couple of times a day. It was tough.
The more I worked, the more pain I felt and I felt like I was operating on a dead battery as it were. I actually phoned home from work and said, "Mum, what do I do? I feel terrible."
Basically, by the time I got to 25 (and in music school) my body had decided that it couldn't deal with the shit that had been silently growing in my pelvic cavity anymore.
When this finally happened, I was terrified. I had just overcome five or so years of crippling depression, anxiety and figuring out my sexuality (I found out I am a raging bisexual). As someone with suspected ADD (never had the money to properly check but a psychiatrist I saw was rather convinced) I had an impossible time finishing any tertiary course. Music school was a godsend, as my attention problems seemed to not be bothered by the course structure I was faced with. Minimal paperwork, maximum musical activity.
But I got worse, quickly. All the migraines, all the ignored pain, all the issues I'd had over the years and thought nothing of, they ramped up and made it so that I could not continue with the course.
So I was out of a course that answered my prayers and lead me to my dream of being a working musician, and now I was walking blindfolded into the living purgatory that is Australia's public health system. I learnt to play the waiting game. Six months here, three months there. The years slowly crawled away from me. The pain increased.
The gynaecologist I saw at the hospital I was sent to did not take my illness seriously. The first laparoscopy I had, he did not even bother to prepare for any excisions or lasering. It was a complete waste of an operation that told me that yes, I was sick. I had endometriosis.
Until that point I thought myself lazy, a hypochondriac, that it was all in my head. The gynaecologist made me feel like I was wasting his time. I remember when I was still delirious, having only just come out of theatre, and the gynaecologist that had doubted me so came over to confirm my diagnosis. He sheepishly said, "Yes, you have endometriosis."
Part of me felt like bursting into tears. The greater part of my spirit laughed, and I pointed at him through the pethidine haze, grinned like a madman and slurred, "HAH! TOLD you!" And I passed out.
It wasn't an easy diagnosis to receive. Endo is incurable. It gets worse. The main treatment right now for endometriosis is hormone treatments. Hormone treatments it turns out I am completely unable to endure because my body has a hormone sensitivity.
At the time my main stress was that I was losing the career that I had worked hard to start and that this disease was completely destroying my social life, and by extension, my chance at a love life. I had some bad experiences in 2004-5, half of which was me hating myself and having bad self esteem. The endo did not improve that at all.
I got sicker and sicker, I exercised less, I was stuck at home more. The local geek community, and those that also dealt with chronic pain conditions, were my harbour and my saviour. But I didn't fall in with them properly until later.
Over the years, I did my best to cope. I had two further laparoscopies. I was assured my fertility was fine, but it didn't matter because all I'd had since my last relationship was a string of disappointing dates that either lead to nowhere or turned out to be utterly disastrous. At that point, I felt like I was never going to find anyone. The long list of must-have qualities I'd mentally compiled as a teenager (must be musical, must be gorgeous, must be kind, must understand my creative spirit, must be an amazing singer, etc) fell away to two qualities:
Must be kind. Must have symmetrical face.
I was just mentally getting my shit together in 2008 when a friend I had known for about three or four years decided to take liberties with me during a visit to my house. He sexually assaulted me. I fell apart. I had a relationship later that year (with a different guy of course) that I was very optimistic about at first, but it fell to pieces because I wasn't happy (the man was blameless in this and he was nothing but kind to me).
I realised that I couldn't settle for something that was only halfway there. I either had to find LOVE or I was going to be alone. I was also going to end the polyamorous lifestyle I had been indulging in previous. I couldn't cope anymore and I wasn't cut out for it. I wanted one thing and one thing only: A monogamous, loving, serious relationship. And I was absolutely convinced it was NEVER going to happen to me.
I was heading for thirty, I was single, I had a disease that was slowly eating away at my reproductive system. I felt I still had time but despair was slowly creeping in. Would I ever have kids? I didn't know. I doubted it.
The years that followed were difficult. Beloved 20 year old cat died. My aunt is diagnosed with terminal throat cancer. I am struggling through the hell of getting my head back together after an assault. It was really tough going, and while I was optimistic and working hard to bring my life into a semblance of normalcy and productivity, there were still dark days.
I have ten weeks of catching up to do. Bear with me, kind internet people.
I am a pregnant lady. Now, what most people don't tell you is that not all pregnant ladies are the same. A lot of us have soft sides. We dote and dream about our little fleshy human-buds in our wombs, yes. I do that incessantly. But what is generally not spoken of? What is a delicious secret to those that have never set foot in pregnant-lady and trying-to-get-pregnant-lady spaces on the internet?
We're all freaking out. We all have trench humour to challenge even the most wretched soldier on the frontline. We go through things that we're expected to shut up about and smile pleasantly through. We're meant to waft gauzily through this blessed time, despite the chaotic bullshit our bodies are playing on us on a daily basis. And there's so much sex education and dewy pink pregnancy books DON'T tell you, that you think you're going mad. It's not until you turn to your fellow pregnant people that you discover that the world just expects us to tough this shit out and work it out for ourselves.
Thank God we have each other.
There is a sisterhood involved in pregnancy, and experiencing that pregnancy with others. A bond beyond reckoning. Two pregnant people can just look at each other, and they know, man. They *know*. My sister with a 22 month old looks at me with the weary, pitying face of someone that has been into the hell of what I'm about to go through, and knows what I'll probably face. It drives me nuts because I want to be positive about all this, but I look at it as a good warning, too. I grit my teeth.
Of course my story doesn't just start with conception. Pregnancies have contexts, and mine was a difficult one to start with. I'm hoping it'll have a happy ending.
So here it is, my inaugural post. This will be my pregnancy journal, and I hope one day that the little nugget riding down below will grow into a reasonable human being that will read what I went through to bring them into the world. I also hope that other pregnant people will find something to relate to, or even a laugh or two, as I share the shit I'm going through.
To quote Carl Sagan: "Come with me."
