Flashbacks

Today, three years ago, my beta had more than doubled in the required 48 hours: from 568 to 1354.

In case you couldn't tell, it's been a rough week.

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I tried, again, to read some of Alexa's (from Flotsam) book, and it's just all too familiar. I just realized my body went into similar, familiar...places.

There's a spot in my chest that just...aches. Like it's been...pierced, or stabbed, by something small but sharp. Just a few inches deep. I feel it when I breathe.

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Her description of her reaction, of her experience with the doctors when things start to go really wrong, just getting through bedrest...

My entire body is clenched. It's all so familiar. I'm up to chapter 7 or 17 or something, but I don't think I can go on. Not for now, anyway.

Have I mentioned how similar our experiences were? our reactions, feelings -- even the same jokes. Our anatomy scan was scheduled for the same day, too, I think.

It's great writing, but I think I need to be done for a while.

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Things here have been relatively good. I'm functioning, mostly. I'm teaching a nice group of kids. I'm planning to take comps at the end of October -- nothing like waiting til the last minute, huh? At any rate, decent functioning. Laughter.

Some things bother me. I get up and I'm fine and then something whacks me in the face. I deal, it's okay. But, damn, it's tiring.

So, yeah, some things are difficult. Just being social, worrying about stuff. Getting work done...yeah, well, not doing great. I'm missing my two dear friends who moved out of town. But I'm taking Stella to the dog park. I'm doing laundry. Teaching. Even some mentoring or just helping out with a few of the new instructors for my course. It feels good.

I have a colleague who is also IF, and we talk about it -- quite a bit actually. Sometimes I just want to talk about something else. Which is weird for me.

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I've been thinking about being pregnant again. Not that I expect it to happen, with or without help, but what it might be like. I've looked at some old emails from that time, lo these many years ago.

It seems to me that there needs to be *some* denial that something could go wrong. Vigilance, but hope? Alexa mentions this in her book, about how the lows were SO low, but the highs were just SO high. Those moments she describes are like moments I had, too. Not many, but enough. And so good.

But I don't know that I could do it again now. C has begun the process of applying for a tenure-track job, and there are several opportunities that could land us in a state where insurance covers all of IVF costs. There is no telling, of course, but given the opportunity to try again, given stability on all fronts, is sooo attractive.

But how do you do it? Many of my friends in this terrible club, including my own sister, have gone on to have a living child (or two). I have followed the accounts of panic and denial and the whole "mind-fucked"-ness of it all. How do you bear it?

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I may post a couple of emails I sent from that time. Just to share some of that time. I don't even know why it seems like I should, why I want to. I don't know.

I hope some of you are still around. I have been quiet and a terrible commenter. I am not even keeping up with friends who do not live in the computer. I think about you folks a lot. Hope you are well.

I'm going to try to write more. I need to for school, and it just feels good to post, even when it's like this. The stabby pain has retreated some.

What are you up to these days?