Confession

First things first. As far as I know, there aren't any still-in-the-trenches infertiles who read this blog. But since there's no way to know who might happen by one day, let me give fair warning: if you are, in fact, still in IF hell, you should stop reading this post RIGHT NOW. Continuing to read will either make you sad or piss you off (and quite possibly both). So please, move along to one of the other lovely blogs out there and stop by to see me again some other day.

In fact, that may be good advice for anyone reading this post, currently IF or not. Because I'm warning you, this post is going to be chalk full of bitching and moaning and information no one really wants to hear.

Ok then. Back to my confession: I don't like being pregnant. Sometimes I even hate -- loathe -- being pregnant. Some women are such wonderful mothers to be. They feel great and they glow and are content with life as a whole. I am not one of them. I feel like shit. I've been vomiting nearly every day since about 6 1/2 weeks, and I'll be 13 weeks any day now, but it's still going strong. Yesterday I vomited so forcefully that it splashed back and hit me in the face. Three times. My legs and hips ache, I can't sleep even though I'm effing exhausted, my heart is constantly racing and pounding, and my skin is hideous. And then there's, er . . . the discharge. What is this shit and when will it go away? I was a master of analyzing cm in my actively ttc days, but I've never seen anything like this. I don't think it's an infection -- it's not oddly colored and doesn't have a particularly offensive odor -- but it is copious. My pregnancy books say oral sex is perfectly safe and wonderful when you're pregnant, but are you kidding me?? No way am I letting G's head anywhere in that vicinity while this is going on. Sorry for the TMI. But I did warn you.

And all that is just what's going on physically. My head is a mess, too. I worry all. the. time. About the baby, about my health, about caring for 3 such very young children, about money, about G & I, about global warming, about Iraq, about EVERYTHING. Granted, I am a worrier even at the best of the nonpregnant times, but it is so very magnified now. Especially since, having gone through a difficult pregnancy and preterm birth not even two years ago, I know firsthand exactly how much can go wrong, and how quickly.

Basically, this is a miserable time for me. I know, thanks to P & E, that it will all be well worth it in the end. A couple months after this one is born, I won't even remember most of this stuff. (I know this because I had nearly all of these same issues while pg the first time, but I'd blocked them all out and only now have they come rushing back to me). But that doesn't make it easy now. G is unsympathetic, for the most part. His take on the whole thing is, what are you complaining about? You wanted this. And he's right, to a point. I did/do want another baby. But does that mean I have to love all the not-so-wonderful stuff that comes along the way? And you know, it's easy for him to say anyway. He doesn't have to experience any of it. He just feels sorry for himself because the house isn't as tidy as he'd like it to be while I spend these days/weeks/months in a perpetual state of nausea and vomiting. Still, I do feel guilty. Horribly guilty. I'm pregnant, by surprise, the old fashioned way -- the infertile in me keeps telling me what a stupid, ungrateful bitch I am to complain for even one second.

Argh. I don't want to wish time away because I don't want P & E to grow up too quickly. But it's hard not to think ahead to next June, when all this will be behind me.