Familiarity breeds numb

When I was pregnant with the cancer baby, I felt "off."  Definitely pregnant, once in a while during those 11 weeks, maybe a little queasy.  But I think I've mentioned in the past, I felt a sense of doom somewhere in my gut.  I knew enough pregnant chicks in my life to know that some will feel awful morning sickness, others none, and it would vary with each pregnancy.  But it never felt *right*

The second two losses were notable for my not feeling much at all.  Little if any nausea. Maybe I had to pee a little more.  But as for my daily routine, there was little indication I was knocked up.  And my HCG peaked to only around 6,000 during one of those losses (the trisomy baby).

This go around, well, I am something of a walking stereotype.  Given my high HCG levels, this isn't surprising. I am nauseous in the morning.  I am nauseous in the middle of the night.  I threw up twice yesterday, after eating what I thought was an innocuous bowl of cereal. 

Speaking of which, can I note how fucking hard it is to find cereal - or anything in the store for that matter - these days that isn't fortified with folic acid? 

This week has been reminiscent of my first trimester with Niblet.  I crave peaches and nectarines.  I crave bland foods (huge shout out here to the Dunkin' Donuts egg and cheese wake-up wrap -sans bacon - I seem to keep those puppies down).  Right now I am boiling potatoes on the stove like the good Polish Jew my ancestral DNA has made me.  I crave water over coffee.

And all of this familiar pregnant normalcy is precisely why this will be an anxiety-ridden experience.  Or perhaps, a strangely numb experience is more accurate....Should I lose this little bean, it will be the ultimate mind-fuck.  I am just hella pregnant right now, at only about 6 weeks along, and even my Husband is noting how similar this pregnancy is to the one successful one I carried to term.  But my own personal experiences, and my years on the boards, tell me that I can't feel complacent.  I certainly would be foolish to start imagining the future.  There will no thinking about decorating a nursery or baby names for me, not for some time.  Pregnancies can and do end in the blink of the eye.  Maybe not for most women.  But I am unfortunately in a sad little sisterhood that trusts in the cozy security blanket low expectations.  I keep hearing the ominous words of REs, telling me that my only chances for successfully carrying a healthy baby were with donated eggs of a much younger woman.  Nope, those words don't serve to stave off the anxiety.

However, the rational author of this blog understands that those REs are often selling women the fear that they will fail to ever carry natural pregnancy. The hefty price-tag of a donor egg cycle stands in stark relief to the price of vitamins and supplements.  High-tech reproduction is their bread and butter after all....Butter.  That's right.  I have to go soften some for the giant bowl of potatoes I am about to snarf down.