14 weeks with baby #3: Birth control

The genetic counselor hasn’t called back as I thought she was going to after my results last week. But I haven’t been in a hurry to call her back, I guess. My only other option for genetic screening isn’t until 16 weeks, but…do I want to go through all this again?

I feel like ever since last week when I heard I had an anterior placenta at the ultrasound, I haven’t been feeling the baby as much anymore. Which makes me wonder if it was a lot of gas pain and all in my head. But sometimes I do feel these movements that I swear are the baby. And when I had the ultrasound that day, I swear I felt a movement right when the baby was bucking around on screen.

Second, the vas deferens is no longer intact. That’s right. Wednesday was vasectomy day. No more pregnancies ever again. I thought my spectacularly shitty infertility was enough, but apparently not. I’m kicking myself for being the one holding back from this for so long. Sometimes I feel like I’m walking around like one big cliche. I want to roll my eyes at myself like, Self, you are one big giant pregnant infertile cliche. Of course you’d be the one to sprout off repeatedly on this blog, in real life, etc., that you’ll never get pregnant on your own.

So anyway, vasectomy. He got it.

And I needed to wear a mask in the waiting room and of course started feeling really dry-heevy waiting for him. When Chris got back in the car, I suggested getting Cane’s for lunch and he agreed and then suddenly from out of nowhere, I did a massive dry heave and peed all over the driver’s seat.

I had to walk into Cane’s like that, probably smelling like pee, since we thought it would be faster than the drive-thru and no one should ever let me out in public again.

I decided earlier this week to go off the Unisom and B6 for the second time, but I’ve been feeling so nauseous and gaggy again. After that debacle, I went back on them.

During therapy this week we talked about this constant feeling of being triggered over and over. I was reading through Emelia’s birth story earlier (procrastinating on an article) and realized that probably a lot of what I have been feeling is triggers from past medical trauma, especially with my pregnancy and delivery with Emelia. The thought of going through all that again and now combined with the blood pressure issues is just a lot to deal with. We talked about the next time these feelings come up, I’m supposed to stop and think: Are these feelings coming because I’m thinking about the past, or am I worried about the future?

One of the things I’ve surprisingly been dreading is the social media announcement of my pregnancy. Not dreading it, I don’t like to use that word, but for now, it’s all I can think of. Besides family and a few friends, I haven’t told anyone.

And that’s a really weird thing for me because both my other pregnancies were so public. So very, very public. Some of that was stressful in its own way, and I don’t regret it, but this was a very strange place to be in. Getting pregnant without medical intervention, without even trying, and suddenly, holding that pregnancy stick seven weeks ago to the day, not a single other person in the entire world knew but me. Not Chris, not a doctor, no one. After two very public IVF procedures and very public early pregnancies where even gobs of strangers were reading along, this was…strange.

And as time went on, I took comfort in the fact that hardly anyone knew. I wasn’t going to hide this for long because, third pregnancy, y’all. I think I was 8 weeks when I gave up fitting into my own clothes and needed maternity items. I had none. Zero. Sold off all of them. And thanks to my constant nausea combined with the state of my mental health, I found myself holed up for most of that time.

My therapist and I talked about announcing. Even the people in my life were asking more and more when I was going to announce. My therapist told me this was something I had to do only when I was ready. I knew I wasn’t ever going to be ready ready, but this week I did it.

As the comments, DMs, and texts starting coming in….ugh. Everyone was so excited. So happy for us. And here I was shaking, needing to put my phone down and step away. It was overwhelming, but at the same time, there was a…normalcy to it. That I wasn’t just the world’s hottest mess whose life was literally falling apart, but I was pregnant and everyone was happy for me.

This Wednesday and then again tonight, I went to the kids consignment sale I sell at and I got some baby stuff. Some real live baby stuff. I found the same car seat (that apparently got a facelift), base, and stroller that we had for both girls. They were all in amazing shape and came to $165. I also couldn’t resist getting some neutral baby clothes, burp cloths, and even found a Haakaa pump set. All of this is starting to feel a little more real but I also really wish I knew the sex of the baby by now.