Monday 2 February 2015

The Invisible Fence

Recently, I ran into one of my patients at Starbucks. I recognised her right away, but I couldn't think of her name. She had a spontaneous conception at the age of 41, who was now the adorable 18 month old boy on her hip. "I'm going to be seeing you soon!" she announced. "I'm pregnant!" She went on to explain that she had recently messaged my colleague about trying for a pregnancy at the age of 43, and lo and behold, she was peeing on a stick a month later. I know cases like this are more of the exception rather than the norm, but why does it seem that I see so many of them? I decided I could be jealous of her ability to get pregnant so quickly, but I also know the risks of miscarriage that are present for her, so I can't be too envious. As I walked back to my car, I had to remind myself, you're pregnant too!  I made a conscious effort not to acknowledge my pregnancy in the early weeks when I was still going through scans with my RE, but even at sixteen weeks, it still is so easy to forget.

Actually, I should clarify that thoughts about my pregnancy only escape my mind during my working day. When I get home each night, Husband's first question is to inquire how Jate and I are doing. Both my parents send me a text message every Thursday, as I reach a new week, and I've been sharing my weekly bumpdate photos with them. The bump has become more apparent at the gym, and more people are taking notice. Myrtle recently described how when she announced her pregnancy and her bump became more prominent, it seemed to invite her co-workers to over share about their experience. She learned about everyone else's hemorrhoids, incontinence episodes, varicose veins, swollen ankles and delivery horror stories. I realised at that moment that I'm especially not ready for my patients to learn of my pregnancy as I don't want it to take any focus away from their visit.

So far, I've still managed to conceal myself at work. It's a great advantage to having a closet full of little black dresses, and best of all, no one really notices that you're repeating the same outfits each week. My clothes still fit, but some reveal the bump more than others. I wish someone would create a line of transitional clothing. 'Transitional Pregnancy Clothes: When you're not big enough for maternity clothes, but you don't want to stretch and ruin your regular clothes...' Sometimes, it's not as easy as just selecting a larger size. I'm reluctant to purchase maternity clothes for a few reasons. Firstly, anticipating that this will be my only pregnancy, I don't want to spend much money on things I will only wear for a few months, possibly less if I need to be delivered pre-term. Secondly, although I'm sure they're super comfortable, jeans with the large expandable panel have to be the unsexiest item ever. I am very grateful for a local blogger who offered some exercise clothes to me.

Nonetheless, I decided to do some research and started looking through a local parenting website to check out recommendations on where to shop. Husband was watching some strange movie on the Sy-Fy channel and I was bored. I typed my search into the google and clicked on the first interesting link. Then Safari suddenly crashed. I felt as if I had been zapped by an invisible fence. Icarus had flown too close to the sun. What are you doing Jane? You haven't even had your anatomy scan yet! You can look at this yet. 

I know it was merely a coincidence. It seems that whenever I install the updates on my iPad, programmes crash more frequently. Yet, I felt it was a reminder that I can't get ahead of myself. I decided to start searching something safer and began looking into garage storage units. "What do you think of this one?" I asked Husband, who could barely turn away from some alien attack. "We don't need to think about the storage unit until the dry wall is done." he replied. Apparently, there is also an order to planning for the garage as well. "This unit is 30% off now." I informed him. "The savings is over four hundred dollars. That's a pram or a car seat."

I smiled to myself. When I first met Husband, he compared the price of anything to how many pints of beer he could by for the same amount of money. When we first renovated our house, we calculated fees according to building materials. Most recently, we measured costs in terms of fertility medications and treatment procedures. This was the first time I was acknowledging a monetary value as it related to items for our baby. My actions may need to be contained within the invisible fence, but my imagination is free to wander.


13 comments:

  1. Hooray for you for thinking about the savings in terms of the baby! I, also, resisted allowing myself to start thinking and planning about my baby, and I kept pushing it off. "Not 'till the second trimester... NT scan... until I'm really showing... in the third trimester... once I start feeling regular kicks..." There's always another milestone. I did that partly because I was being superstitious about it, but also because every time I mentioned something (like the car seat! I was so excited to buy a car seat) my husband would say, "Let's not buy it yet." or "I'll think about that soon, I promise." I didn't want *him* to think that I was jumping the gun, and I interpreted all his hesitance about it to be him somehow having a more "rational" perspective on whether we should get excited yet. It was much more simple than that, though. He was excited, and he was interested in all the decisions, but he just didn't think about it as much as I did, even after all the infertility stuff and after talking about it so much. Also, I would do tons of research on every decision and then kind of spring the question on him, and he was caught completely unawares. Eventually he realized that and told me, and I learned to let him know when I was getting interested in some new topic so he could prepare himself at least a little, and then I'd bring up a question but give him time to formulate some thoughts before I demanded we settle on an answer. (Case in point: circumcision. Not a topic to just bring up on the drive home from work. Apparently.)

    My point is, I look back and do have a little twinge of regret that I didn't let myself indulge in the excitement as much as *I* wanted to. Pregnancy feelings are complicated, and they're complicated further by infertility--try not to let your husband's reluctance or an overabundance of caution temper your happiness or kill the research bug entirely. Every day or so, do something incredibly cheesy (in private, of course) like hold your hands over your belly like every woman does in every picture in the pregnancy books. Talk to the fetus even if it feels incredibly embarrassing. I used to share my awkward moments aloud to my daughter. You know, like when you walk away from your boss in the middle of a conversation you thought was over and then fail to hold the door for her because you didn't know she was coming through, and you feel so weird and awkward you just have to go hide in your office and pretend to look for something until she walks past. I would tell her all about that. I would also tap my belly along to my favorite music in the hopes that it would help her be more musical. I'm not very good at bonding, and as much as I wanted kids, I never felt particularly maternal or had a strong feeling of my kids as people while I was pregnant, so I guess for me, in the absence of dreamy, magical moments, the vulnerability of acknowledging discomfort and uncertainty was a good substitute.

    Another good way to get into the baby mood carefully is to go to online room design sites and plan nurseries that you'd never build or build baby registries with only the frivolous stuff on them. It's a fun thing to do that doesn't feel like you're tempting fate by making it too specific to your baby.

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  2. They need transitional clothes for postpartum too. Maternity clothes don't give enough support for jello tummies.

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  3. I probably wouldn't have any maternity clothes except that a friend offered her hand-me-downs. I too hated the idea of paneled maternity pants, until one day my belly exploded and my regular pants were no longer an option.

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  4. I think I would have procrastinated shopping indefinitely if people in my life hadn't made me go. With a wingman(woman) I was able to brave the maternity stores and eventually get the baby stuff. You can always start researching options for stroller/carseat/crib etc. because it involves the rational part of one's mind, not the emotional. Then when you are ready to buy you will know what you want. Bella band works well for extending the life of regular clothes, although I found eventually it was annoying because took so long to arrange clothes when dressing/going to bathroom.

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  5. I can so relate!! When I was pregnant with J and B I often was still stung by pregnancy announcements/pregnant people-I had to constantly remind myself I was pregnant too!! Even now with the boys I still sometimes cringe at how easy pregnancy is for some people.

    In regards to the maternity clothes, I admire your strength. I was one of those annoying people that started wearing the jeans with the band at 8 weeks pregnant (with a total weight gain of 3 lbs) just because I had finally earned the right to pregnancy lol.

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  6. Where are you from? Where do you live? Wherever it is, I want to go! I just want to call a stroller a pram!!!

    Okay, now that that's out of my system... I definitely resonate with the idea of monetary things in comparison to infertility junk. For a year, I gave everything in increments of crinone... that's 1/5 of 1 dose of crinone or that's two days of crinone. Haha.

    I always thought I'd wait until 20 weeks to really start buying things if I was pregnant, but I might have pushed it to 24 to really get going. Soooo different from the person five years ago who would have had the whole nursery ready at 13 weeks. I'm struggling with that in my own way right now, as I feel like a complete idiot to even look at cribs and bedding and such. But things change in the blink of an eye in the adoption world... our last two phone calls were for babies that were already here. So with that in mind, I'm trying to loosen up and begin to plan. I'm getting there. Let that imagination run wild!

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  7. Well, at least the 43 year old didn't schedule her new OB appointment prior to peeing on a stick. I talk a lot about being pregnant at work--several close co-workers are about to have or have recently had babies. I like it on the one hand because I'm gathering a lot of information, but I still kind of feel like a fraud. Of this group, I'm also the only one of advanced maternal age, I can't count the number of times I've almost slipped and talked about my 21 year old eggs. I actually find the maternity jeans with the panel rather uncomfortable at this stage; maybe when my belly is bigger it will make more sense, but for now you're not missing out on anything.

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  8. I give you credit for doing your job and staying sane while dealing with infertility. I have a friend that works in child protection (and apprehended kids), while dealing with IF. If you want, give yourself permission to act like a preggo! ;)

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  9. Yes! Transitional clothes from regular to maternity would be amazing!!

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  10. The jeans with the panel may look horrid but they are suuuper comfy (said the girl who's no longer pregnant yet still wearing them!) hahaha

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  11. If we lived in the same city, I would give you my maternity clothes. For some reason, I can't bring myself to get rid of them yet. It's crazy. Target and Old navy have pretty cheap and cute options. The only thing I splurged on were some nicer maternity jeans because I really hated all the ones my SIL passed down to me. It was worth it. I felt so much less frumpy.

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  12. I can't wait to see a picture of your bump. With that lady's spontaneous pregnancy, not only would I worry about miscarriage at her age but also I think birth defects are another concern. But I'm so glad you were able to tell yourself "i'm pregnant too'!

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  13. Trying to catch up on where you are at! I was just like you and didn't want to spend money on maternity clothes that I would wear for such a short time and never again. I was lucky that I worked at a gym and was able to pretty much wear my sweatpants the whole pregnancy! I did have a few maternity items, but very few and most were given to me used.

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