i obsess.

pricked.

I hate having my blood drawn.  The only time it was easy, the one, one time - THAT one time, was the day I held a several-months-old Jack, a wriggling, heavy babe, and I was so intent, so wrapt in minding him, so he wouldn't see what they were doing to my other arm that I forgot to be scared while they pulled the deep hued liquid from what is apparently a monster vein.

Today wasn't so bad.  It only stung for a moment.

And then in twelve days I hear from the doctor as to whether I have eggs enough to build-a-baby a second time.  Without IVF.  (I have nothing against IVF, aside from envying those with the duckets to incorporate it into their reproduction style.  Envying.  I don't only save my envy for them, though, rather, I envy all who can afford what I cannot.  It seems I am destined to forever play catch-up to my peers in this life.)

We're not giving up yet, though.  Until I hear the odds are slim, we're keeping on with this shot at kid number 2.

I have a fricking present for it, is the thing.  I bought it a few years ago.  It's a little hand-made elephant, sewn of quilt pieces (I think; I don't accurately recall because I hid it well away after I lost the baby last summer).

I can't have bought that present in vain (in vein?).  I believe in that future baby's blood as much as in the blood the man drew from my arm.  If I have monster veins, then I can have monster faith in my ovaries.

Where I Obsess Over My Body's Inability to Conceive.

I want a second baby.  No great secret.

The part that is a secret?  That I'm obsessed.  It's been over two years that we've been at this, only for a long time, it wasn't too serious.  We weren't TRYING, we were just not NOT trying.  

Now, we try.  And every month I watch my cycle with eyes and thoughts trained, intent.  Another period comes and I think maybe, maybe it's not my period.  Maybe I'm spotting.  Only, that night, I recognize that I've lost too much blood for it to be spotting.

This last one was the hardest yet.  It's so hard to not be there yet.  And after last summer's miscarriage I dread losing another baby if we do manage to achieve maximum pregnancy.

I'm tired of being sad about it.  I keep thinking, well, maybe this is my body's way of telling me, NO FUCKIN' WAY, bitch.  And maybe I should just let it be.  Get in shape.  Start running again.  Endeavor to find me a good hobby.  (I have the perfect one in mind, too.  I really want to start photographing the ins/outs of midcentury modern homes, and feature them on a portland-specific midcentury modern home-worshipfulness site, aka blog.  SHUTUPICANTOOWRITEYETANOTHERBLOGTHATIMAYINFACTCONTRIBUTETOONOCCASION.)

Uh.

I write, btw, for my living these days.  You're aware of that, most of you, but if you aren't -- well, now you are.  It's pretty kick-ass to write for my supper, but I hunger to write for fun, if I only could find the leftover supply.  And I even *dreamed* of the midcentury homes blog last night.  It was pretty insane.  I was really into the photographery.  (Why leave it at "photography" when I can throw in two extra letters and make it wrong and longer?  WHY, INDEED.) 

Thing is, just as I begin to see all of that as a good way to be, I realize I really miss that baby who isn't here yet.

Shit.

news.

So I'm pregnant, and I'm excited, but I'm also scared -- no, frightened.  Yes.  Frightened that just by saying it here I'm, no, it, the pregnancy, is doomed.  Actually, that's a lie.  I'm frightened it's doomed because I don't feel deserving of it, for all of the same reasons that I'm a negative nelly, that I'm not deserving of success or rewards or anything other than the abject failure liege I've convinced myself of being.  I'm only just the narrowest, sliverest slice of this side of conception which means it's a very gray area of being pregnant, it means I'm, for good reason, dubious it will last, harrowed by the thought of accepting/acknowledging/loving.  The room for pain and horror.

Pat Benetar had it all wrong; hell isn't for children.  Children are hell.  AND heaven. 

Maybe that's why they look like a yin/yang symbol in the initial stages of conception.

Huh.

******

Updated because somehow people are still reading this post and not the latest one, which I'm posting in its entirety below:

Jack got in bed with us at 3:30 this morning, which is when I became a captive audience to the fireworks of what I can only assume was a miscarriage.  The cramps, some of them like a white-hot poker through the abdomen, weren't as alarming as the blood.  The blood made me scared.

Now, after a few stolen half hours of sleep between sorrowful waking, I'm afraid to speak or move.  Maybe if I don't get up it won't be true.  Maybe I'll still be pregnant and I won't have to face my period or anyone who thinks I have a baby in my belly.  Namely, Jack. 

Caleb *really* didn't want to tell him.  Why don't I ever listen?

Sorry for the false alarm, folks.