What is it with goats around here?

For some reason, when I decided to write about being mad, this is the first thing that came to my mind: Mad Sesame Street goat.

I can't help it, I get mad at pregnant women. And women with small babies. And women who are  gonna just pop that next one out, whenever they decide. Not all of them, mind you, and not all the time.

I can still be happy for a friend who is pregnant or has a new baby. I can even handle the gonna-poppers okay.

But not all the time. Not when I'm in my own little world, trying to think of other things in my day, and I get caught unawares. When I'm happily spinning some tale of meaningfulness of something I'm about to do, workwise, or otherwise, and I turn a corner and there they (or she) is. Whoever she is. Pregnant women I don't know, I stay away from. Pregnant women I do know, depends how much we have in common. I can have entire coffee or lunch dates in which my throat doesn't catch, and where I even hold a newborn. And it is nice. And I'm not spiraling down some dark slide.

Other times, I can't. I think it is mostly the caught-unawares times that get me verklempt. For a while I've been trying to stop feeling mad or sad (I'm guessing the mad is just a less powerless feeling to substitute for sad), trying to understand why I react that way. I try to feel more grateful for the one kid I do have. For the fact that I am amazingly privileged compared to so many women around the world.

But not only is that goat singing about being mad, he's saying me that it is okay to be maaaad. Today, I'm going to agree. It's okay. It is okay to just go away. It is okay not to stick around. It is okay for others to be happy and me to not be sometimes. It is okay to be mad (although not okay to throw a grown-up tantrum where cups and mean words go flying...I've never done this, I'm just checking in that this would, indeed, be in bad form).

You tell it, goat. Tell it.

There is another part of this, though, that is also hard to navigate. That when I actually tell people that I'm having a hard time getting pregnant, they often switch into fixing mode and start firing off questions about what I'm doing to change my situation. I know I do it to others, too. That doesn't help. Especially not from someone who has not been through this. I have not spoken up in order to ask for help fixing my problem - I have a husband and some doctors working hard with me on that front. We're set with the working on the fixing. I have spoken up because I'm not going to be able to smile the "yeah, I know, right?" smile along with the group on this one. It is okay just to say "Oh, I'm sorry" to me and we go on to some other topic of conversation. I don't do it because I want to make someone feel bad, but I also can't just sit with a half-smile and not nod. That shit just gets awkward after a while, and soon people think you're mad at them for something they did.

And technically I am, but it isn't something they did to me.

And there have been many times I've stuck my foot in my mouth in a similar situation, and just wish I'd known earlier that I was talking down a road the other person really didn't want to travel. And the further down that road I talked in the end, the worse I felt. Because there are so many other things to talk about on any given day.

I'm not really mad anymore. I'm not sad right now. I'm also not easily incorporable into some groups. And that's okay. 

At glacial speed

If I stay quiet, calm just long enough, I feel the motion. But it has to be a just-woke-up quiet, the kind where I am still pretty tired but not going to fall asleep again. The 6:53am kind, where 7am is so close that the best option is to roll around a bit, and just try to start waking up.

Usually, I will go for my iPhone to help my brain get started by a barrage of useless activities like Facebook and checking the weather. This morning, it is cold and rainy, what feel like the first day of fall just sneaking in, and even 6:53am seems a lot darker than it did yesterday. And I let myself be calm and feel it.

It is a slow motion, of something big, something heavy. It is the passing of time, the approach of my 40th year, the changing of the guard, the end of the summer I thought we might just get pregnant and without having to do all that soul searching just get thrown into the mess, and chaos and energy and fray of a new life. And I would put off thinking about my career a bit longer, or my age. We would have a few more years of not even having the time to notice that time is passing.

Mind you, this isn't really a sad feeling. It is slow, it is calm. There are probably still a few years in which, if I really want (or just accidentally end up there), I can hop on over to that glacier top. It isn't going anywhere fast. I could probably even just step a bit more vigorously and catch it, with its new baby and upheaval, and blinding in-the-momentness that a new child brings to a family. It wouldn't even require a jump. But where once that 40 years old mark was slowly approaching, it is now almost lined up with where I'm standing, and soon will be receding. It is the next stage of life. I will still enter it, sooner or later, and I realized yesterday afternoon that having another child will not make me 36 again. And many of those women around me that I've felt the second-child-having influence of so strongly, they are still in that 35-38 range.

So yes, of course I can still try for a child. I'm healthy, I've gotten pregnant at least twice now, it is likely possible. But it means something different to me approaching 40 than it did approaching 36. I'm not "too old" to have another child in the literal, can your ovaries and uterus do this sense. My husband is not 65, and on and on. But I did not realize that the cycle of having one child would last 6 years for us, starting with starting to try getting pregnant, through infertility and interventions, through a difficult beginning, a first ray of light and then through a miscarriage and then the recovery. When I started this baby having activity, I was 33 years old. I've woken up this morning and I'm 39.

And I have no certainty about another child or not. I know that this morning I was calm, I had time to lay in bed another 10 minutes and hear that slow movement of life. I had energy to make a nice breakfast and to not pull A to run to the bus. We had smiles and time to talk about how sometimes none of us wants to go to work or school. I had time to sit in the foyer, while she screamed about having her pacifier taken away, until she calmed down - I didn't have to wrap her in a jacket and carry her flailing with boots to the bus.

It is the first day of fall, and I've decided to have a month of calmer, thoughtfulness. I will not be giving up on losing it sometimes, but I will be trying to find one thing per day to do or actively choose that connects me with others. That makes the world a bit better place and funnels some of my energy of not being pregnant with a second child back into the world that could definitely use it. I will slow down this month, for the next 3 weeks at least. I will notice this month passing.

I may not be able to move the glacier back (in my mind it is majestic, grand, solid and slow, its coldness is not really a feature, it is not a sad glacier, it is just ancient and bigger than me), but I can make this time before 40 fuller and honor it. 

What does Schroedinger's cat have to do with babies?

Fresh on the heels of the older fathers studies that I wrote about last time, out came a smaller, seemingly quieter piece of news about reproduction - a study that indicated multiple miscarriages may be caused by a woman's body's inability to reject unviable embyros. It hasn't shown up on the NYTimes Motherlode blog, where all the hottest topics and reports make a visit these days, but I hope it slaps on its best party dress and sparkles and starts making the rounds, because I think it will cause a lot of tears for a lot of women and then perhaps a huge, forgiving sigh.

The researchers claim that their research showed that some women's uteruses (uteri? uteroes? whatever, you know what I mean but can't spell) aren't that good at distinguishing between a viable and unviable embryo, and just go implant the hell out of anything passing through. Including embryos that wouldn't have resulted in a successful pregnancy. So instead of a "why is my body broken and not providing a loving, nurturing space for these embryos" kind of situation, which I think can lead to extreme feelings of failure, really, it is just a "oh, my uterus is just a bit too accepting of all embryos, and what other women's uteruses (it is English, so just let's pretend I can pluralize that way, ok?) wouldn't have even given another glance at, mine just got all "oooh, let's take them all home, and raise them". Like some of the characters...well, all of the characters, on Sex and the City and bad choices with guys. Your miscarriages weren't because you failed to provide a healthy place for a baby to grow, those embryos wouldn't have become babies in anyone's uterus.

It isn't you. At least not in that way that I think many of us who had a miscarriage and we didn't know the cause were thinking. It isn't your fault, you're not broken. You're probably an overachiever in life, actually. More than a little over-enthusiastic, perhaps? Especially if you're willing to keep trying for pregnancies after the harrowing experience that is a miscarriage. Turns out, so is your uterus.

Well, who knows what effect this has on women, but for me, I found it to be a strongly emotional result. Sure, perhaps it meant that I'd been producing damaged eggs or something, but at least it wasn't the case that my body was rejecting the baby that my brain and heart had been hoping and wishing for.

And it comes at a good time for me because I think I was pregnant again. Just for a few weeks. I didn't actually have the chance to take a second pregnancy test to confirm what I was feeling or the results of the first one. And while we've been having such long discussions about whether or not we want another child, and kind of settled one the "only one" side of the tracks, I seemed to have become pregnant again, and now not.  Or maybe it was a false positive and I wasn't.

Who'd have thought that pregnancy and quantum mechanics seem so related? Not this guy. Turns out, I disagree, and I think women who have been possibly pregnant, know exactly what this is like. Quantum weirdness has nothing on us. In that time before you can test for pregnancy, but think you may be pregnant, if you are being harshly realistic, you know things can go either way. You can be both pregnant and not pregnant at the same time. Your thoughts switch between, "I am, and what will that be like" and "Nope, I'm not and this is all just hopeful", and until you do that measurement, the system doesn't collapse into just "yes" or just "no."

How old was your dad when you were born?

It is date night here at our house, which means the babysitter is coming and we're heading out to celebrate the end of M's exam week and almost-end of the work week with dinner in the Old City and a movie. Probably "What to Expect When You're Expecting."

Because it has that American-ness to it that we're both craving a bit right now. It doesn't have to be awesome to be comforting.

I keep calling it "What Did You Expect?" or "What Were We Thinking?".  I didn't much like the book of the same title when I was expecting because, as many before me have pointed out, it has that "sad you, who can't live off of no caffeine and fruitjuicesweetened-practically-everything when you are pregnant - you must not really love your unborn child" quality to some of its suggestions. It could be a playbook for out-earthmothering your fellow pregnant ladies. But I do expect some easy laughs from the movie.

And at just the right time. Because the hottest thing on the NYTimes right now is this article about increased risk of a child with autism or schizophrenia with advanced age of the father. This just days after I finished reading this book on a family whose autistic daughter has beaten a lot of odds to communicate with a computer with grace and eloquence, wit and insight, about autism itself, and the rest of the things a teenager thinks about. That is the life-afirming part of the book. The description of the exhaustion, sadness and burnout that the family lives with, and still uses respite care to help combat, is the part that prompted me to start talking with M about why we want another child.

Just to be a companion to A? We have enough crap of our own we're still working through that maybe we are better off teaching her to make close friends, spending some extra money on serious charity contributions that also leave a legacy (instead of looking for an embodied legacy in another child), and just keep working on our own issues.We could donate to places helping families who are already struggling. We could try to make a difference in this world in a different way.

And what if we were to have an autistic child? The book was already in the process of being read when this question came up and almost drowned me. What if all the things that have gone wrong with getting pregnant and giving birth and having a miscarriage, what if they all actually point to some reason we shouldn't try for another child? What if my body, which is almost 40 years old, is trying to tell me about my chances with the next child, and to just stop here?

Then the article came out. Well, gee, that sure helps the picture. Although, I have to say it is nice to hear anything that for once tells the menfolk they too are not untouched by reproductive aging. That it isn't just my biological clock ticking away, it is his, too. I mean to be gloating in a general, I-represent-all-womanhood sort of way, not to imply that I'm thrilled for M to have to think about all of this now. I mean, we're both old - double whammy.

And as a nightcap to all that, A had her first exorcist-level meltdown, which I only navigated with so much grace (heck, yeah, I'm proud) because of how much I've worked on myself, and the fact that a close friend's kid had a similar one a few weeks ago. I could chalk up 25 minutes of screaming, thrashing, running in random-including-the-street directions if I put her down, kicking and wailing to a developmental phase. I was one cool customer, even on the bus part of the program. I was exhausted afterwards (and A is now sleeping it off), and amazed at how randomly it passed. And feeling a profound sadness for lives where that continues to be a daily occurrence even for older children and adults. I could get through it because I knew it would pass (today, and in some months).

For tonight, though, we're going to go see What You Didn't Expect You'd Be Expecting, or something like that. And, hopefully, it will be good for a few laughs.

Not pregnant anymore.

Most people did not know I was pregnant. But I still think it is important for people to know that things like this happen, and not rarely. So here goes.

Tuesday, Feb 7th

At first I cried. M was there with me, thank god we had decided and I had asked that he come. It would have been...just not as comforting if I had been there with a doctor I’d never met, finding out that there was no heartbeat on the ultrasound. The doctor wasn’t particularly bad at the visit, but neither was she particularly comforting. She did her best, I suppose.

But when the situation got complicated, her English skills did not keep up with the question we had. After all, her specialty is live babies.

We both cried some more when we left the office, and headed home.

I’m not sure why I cried. Yes, of course, you are expected to cry, and I was emotional. For the first minutes, on the ultrasound table, I was feeling loss. Disappointment.

Maybe it is because we already have a daughter, who gives us a run for our money every day, and so life is already very full. Maybe because, just as when I was pregnant with A, I never felt I knew the baby while still pregnant. Sure I talked to both, while pregnant with them, but I had no chosen future or role in the family for this child yet. I mean, with A, we waited a day or two after her birth to even pick her name, because I still felt I had to get to know her.

Maybe it is because, now clear why, I’d been feeling so much less exhausted and nauseous the last 3 days.  I thought the pregnancy symptoms had just subsided earlier than with A. And they had. But not for the reason I thought. But feeling suddenly better, healthier, less sick, makes this time easier. That night I slept more soundly and deeply  than I have in the last 10 weeks.

Maybe it is because I’ve been not pregnant before, many times. 36 times in a row when we were trying for our first child. Those disappointments, month after month, were harder because there was no child yet. I had no idea what pregnancy would be like (tiring) or what mothering would be like (hard, tiring, clinically depressing and joyful - but nothing like the mostly joyful I’d imagined before A arrived). So I mourned the lost opportunity for joy.

Maybe it is because we thought it might take another 3 years to get pregnant, and we just happened to get pregnant at the first conceivable moment that we thought we might be ready to go through it all again. We were already hitting the bottom of our reserves of energy again, and prepared to put down our heads and just barrel through, but it was knowing that things would be hard.

Now I’m disappointed that I spent 3 exhausting, nauseating weeks that will not count towards the next pregnancy, should it happen someday. I feel confused about the coming choice I have to make, given no clear best choice, given my age and how far along the pregnancy was, between waiting for my body to naturally miscarry this baby, or using medical intervention. Either option could lead to the hospital in the end. Neither is without its risks for my health or chances for conceiving again.  There are some doctors I’d rather have perform a d&c than others, but I don’t know how to figure out which is which. I’d prefer a female doctor who has had this procedure herself to do it. But I’d also prefer a doctor with a realistic, not-too-cocky approach to my uterus. I want someone I can talk to about risks and choices who knows more than a few pat answers about statistics that may or may not be relevant. Someone who can say “I don’t know” when he or she doesn’t.

But then again, who of us doesn’t want that, in most of the people we interact with?

I guess I feel that, at the end of the day, of the consult, I am not willing to be told “you should really do this procedure, especially given that you are an elderly mother” (certain choices of words are, um, unfortunate, in non-native speakers), and then not be allowed  to ask extra questions that are important exactly because, as an “elderly” mother, my chances of getting pregnant are getting slimmer as the months go by.

I do feel very lucky that, if I cannot ask these questions, M will be there and will be able to. Just as at A’s birth, I asked him first and foremost to be the scientist, asking “why?” and “what are the consequences of not doing that?” when I couldn’t. Some doctors must hate us. Oh well.