The Middle Chapters

As of today, work is better. Many things resolved yesterday, meaning, hopefully only reasonably deadlines until early next year - hooray! Of course, in all the craziness of the past few months, organization went into the toilet. I spent the day angry and annoyed at the condition of things (what happened to all the systems I put in place before I left in March?), but now's our time to get everything straightened up. (Then if they want to mess it up after I leave, that's their issue.)

Through the stress of the last few weeks, I think we all cursed all the other team members. (On Monday, I was wondering if there was going to be a team by the end of the day.) I think we've survived mostly intact and may actually still get part of a person that we've been wanting.

As I've said before, it has been wonderful not being the person on the line. My 10 hours days have been chicken feed compared to what she's been doing, not to mention the crazy stress of trying to please an unpleasable client and a very demanding boss. For the moment, the client and the boss are -- satisfied-ish -- and we're moving on.

It has been amazing what the time off work has done with my perspective. I actually think I'm doing a better job because I'm not so worried about doing a bad job. For some reason, I think I had myself convinced that the client was one decision away from firing us based on my performance or my job was always in the balance. In hind-sight (with the exception of the unpleasable client who I can't figure out), that was never the case. My therapist has said for years that a job is about fit. But, although I heard her, it just didn't quite hit home.

Now, the fear of failure is just not there anymore. On black Monday, rather than fear was the thought that boy, they'd be screwed if I walked out right now. It's just a different perspective that I didn't have before. It sounds a bit strange to say, but I guess I really did define myself by my job and senior status. Giving it up and returning in a lower position gave me the tweak I needed - to see that it just doesn't matter and that, while a good salary is nice, it's nothing compared to peace of mind.

19 1/2 weeks - everything on schedule. Protein - negative; glucose - negative; 2 lb weight gain to 152 - reasonable; uterus - the right size; baby kicking - cool. My mantra - the fifth time is the charm.

Although I got the call a few weeks ago that my integrated screen was negative, I got to talk to my doctor about it today. I have a 1 in 1600 risk for Downs compared to the predicted risk at my age of 1 in 130. Neural tube defect risk was 1 in 1000 and trisomy 18 was simply stated as negative. That all works for me.

Work has gotten to the insane level, but its still okay (for me). I did go to bed at 7:30 last night, but at least I had a chance to. Team leader is slowly melting down. She's on track to bill 300 hours this month - basically two full time jobs. I'm so happy not to be her, but am wondering what we're going to do if she burns out. Another team leader has been promised 1/2 a person since March and hasn't gotten anyone. This may be interesting.

Nothing exciting is happening on the internal front. My next doctor's visit is next week. So work is on the top of my brain. The work level is still heavy. Of the team I'm on, I was the lowest biller last month, well over 100% billable, but the other team members beat me by 20 and 80 hours (yes 80 - the team leader basically billed two weeks worth more than me in the same 31 days).

Unfortunately, we're all on track to do the same this month. Actually, unless something gives, next month will likely be worse.

But, with all that, I'm really not that stressed out. Yes, I'm grinding my teeth at night (had a good headache this morning). Yes, I'm thinking about work when I'm not there. But still, its not nearly as bad as before I left. And, although I'm stressed, I'm not also overwhelmed with guilt about work items I haven't gotten to. Its really much better. Not being in charge really has it's perks.

We have huge deadlines on Monday (just like last Monday). But, I left today at 5:00. (The teeth grinding did take a toll last night.) While I'd really like to avoid going into work this weekend, it looks inevitable. But, I have a cut and color and accupuncture scheduled for Saturday and a facial next Wednesday.

I was telling my story to an accupuncture student today and realized how strange some parts of it sound. One thing - for a long time I've been referring to my old RE as my "specialist." The thing is that he's an infertility specialist. So telling the story about going to an infertility specialist, she understandable interupts and asks, "So you were diagnosed as being infertile?" Well, no, see I can get pregnant, but they were treating me as if I couldn't.

I remember strongly the feelings I had after the first miscarriage and the year plus it took to get pregnant the second time. They sucked. I remember the desparation after the second and third miscarriages - I simply wanted to do anything that might increase my chances of (a) getting pregnant and (b) staying pregnant. (For me, the IUI may have helped with (a), but no luck with (b). I stopped on the eve of IVF with PGD.)

There also is the continued feeling of helplessness of being diagnosed as unknown. What finally helped me get to what appears to be a healthy continuing pregnancy? No idea. Maybe it was leaving work and "relaxing." Maybe it was the accupuncture and Chinese herbs. Maybe all the prior embryos had problems. Maybe fifth time was the charm.

I assume one similarity between recurrent miscarriage and infertility is the helplessness and hopelessness. The willingness to do anything that might help, but with no idea whether it actually will. I had gallons of blood taken and the hyso-whatever (the dye test to check tubes and uterus). Luckily I got to stop before having any surgeries. Dear husband go through all this with minimal blood letting and finding out that he had a slightly wonky motility count.

During the last few years I have heard so many times, "Well, at least you know you can get pregnant." What someone who hasn't dealt with recurrent miscarriage doesn't seem to realize is that without the baby on the other end, its really not such a prize. I understand that some women have miscarriage that are very similar (physical symptom-wise) to a period. I wasn't so lucky. Even the early ones were around 24 hours of what I assume were contractions. Even discounting the evil physical symptoms, the significance of a miscarriage has always been huge for me (and I assume every other woman who is losing a wanted pregnancy.)

Recurrent miscarriage and infertility seem like two suck-ass problems that are different but result in the same thing -- not getting your heart's desire.

I've been thinking about lots of things to post recently, but just haven't sat down to do it. I just reserved tickets to fly across the country to visit my husband's family for Thanksgiving. Typically we visit for Christmas, but this year we're hoping to be too far along to be comfortable about traveling. It's very strange to make plans like this - not the visiting family part, but the changing plans over what may then exist. I was more than willing to do this during the first pregnancy and even after the first miscarriage. The next three miscarriages taught us that plans were meant to be broken and planning too far ahead was just silly.

After getting the good ultrasound results last week, I made my husband call his mother and share them with her. He told me that he called her on the way home from work late last week. I asked if she was excited and he gave me a non-answer. When pressed, he said that he thought his mom was taking her lead from him. This gave me pause then and has continued to do so. He's always been my rock. He was always the one that was sure that this would all work out. It feels strange to realize that he may have had some doubts and may continue to have doubts. On one hand, I love and appreciate the fact that he's never expressed any doubts to me. There have been so many times that I've depended on his undying confidence (even when I knew it had no actual affect on reality), but part of me also felt that he was unrealistic and in a dream world. It also seems strange that now that things are going the best that they've even gone, he has some qualms.

I love him. I'm so hopeful that we get to keep this one. I periodically flash back to past moments when everything went from being perfectly fine to perfectly horrible, but I'm trying not to.

Maybe tomorrow I can actually confirm the reservations I made for the Thanksgiving trip.