Now the real waiting starts

So... after all the times I've been pregnant and miscarried, this is the first time I've actually gotten pregnant while the doctor's office was paying attention and monitoring me, etc. And I just have to say, suddenly going to the fertility center is like visiting a whole different place. Now all the nurses know who I am and want to talk to me. It's like I turned into a rockstar overnight. Once the doctor said there were two embryos, even the receptionist and the scheduling lady out front knew who I was.

In a way, it's nice. In another way, it's extremely annoying. As someone who's been going to that office off and on since 2001, I find it insulting that it took a pregnancy for the nurses to take a personal interest in me. Not that they were horrible to me before, because they've never been mean or anything, but they just didn't seem to want to know more about me or who I was. It makes me feel like they thought I was a big loser up until now, or something, and that makes me pretty mad.

I told my husband that it was a good thing I had never noticed them acting that way with any other pregnant women in the office, because I would have been so pissed off. In fact, I'm pissed just thinking about it now. And you know, I can recognize the possibility that I could be back on the other side of the fence next month. You never know. Then how would they act?

My next visit is Wednesday, for another ultrasound. And right now I think everything is going okay. As far as I can tell, anyway. It's so frustrating not to know what's going on inside there. I just hope when we go back on Wednesday, it won't be too early to see the heartbeat(s). I will be so stressed if we don't see one, but I'll only be 6 weeks exactly so I'm not sure we'll get to.

And like Lisa said yesterday, I wish I could just skip to the end from here. Because thinking about the next 8 months is really stressing me out. Forget the 8 months -- even the next 8 weeks seem totally interminable. I've never made it out of the first trimester before, so I'm a little fixated on that right now. These next two months seem like a calendar year when I think about living through them. I just don't know how to be a pregnant person, despite all this practice I've had.

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I know every IF blogger who gets pregnant talks about this, but it's also strange to be pregnant when I consider myself part of the IF community. This last week has been so full of ups and downs on my list of favorite blogs. I felt so horrible for Jenn, who just had a miscarriage so similar to the one I had last summer. And I felt sad for Mellie, too, who was on the same Bravelle protocol as me, with an IUI on the same day, and tested the same day as me but got a negative. I was so hoping we'd both get lucky. But then there was the fantastic news of Lisa's incredible beta. Then Penelope got a positive, too. And now Day's been admitted to the hospital already, and although I know the Monkey Man will do fine if he comes out soon, I am so hoping she can keep him cooking for a couple more weeks. And there are so many more examples, good things and bad things happening every day.

I guess one thing I like about the IF blog circuit is that it helps me keep some perspective. I am reminded of the concept of the wheel of fortune (no, not that Wheel of Fortune), where you sometimes go up and you sometimes go down. And when you're up, you know it has to go down... but when you're down, you know it has to go up eventually. When I've been at my own low points, it's been good to read about other people's hard-won successes, even if it was bittersweet at times. And when I'm on the upswing, I know I still feel just as sorry when bad things happen to my friends.

I don't feel guilty for getting pregnant, but I do feel a bit uncomfortable accepting that I really am and just feeling okay with it.

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Now I am going to talk about my symptoms, so feel free to skip if that's not something you want to read about.

I am eating lots of raw fruits and veggies, but not much else is appealing to me right now. My sense of smell is very acute and things taste weird to me, a lot stronger than they normally do. I often end up not being able to finish things I order, but I polished off a big pile of raw carrots, celery, and cucumber last night. I am trying to eat an apple every day, because I don't find them disgusting. Chocolate makes me feel sick.

I also get lightheaded a lot of the time and not just when I'm walking; it often happens when I'm just sitting at my desk or driving the car. This has always been a symptom of pregnancy for me, since my first one, and often it's the first way I know I'm pregnant.

One nice thing is that I'm not having any bad progesterone side effects like I usually do. I'm speculating that my body is actually using the progesterone this time, so I'm not forcing it where it's not needed and making myself sick with an overabundance of it. But who the hell knows?

I'm extremely cranky, although I'm mostly controlling myself at work. At home I don't worry about it too much. My husband is being sweet, though. Nice honey.