Friday, August 20, 2010

Flashing between two worlds

Our first OB appointment was yesterday! I went in thinking that we would walk out having heard the heartbeat (check...162 BPM), get a beautiful new image (check...9 pics) and have an overload of information (check...not overload, but definitely a big folder full).

But, it was stranger than I thought it would be sitting in the waiting room. It was bright with big windows, there were small children playing on the floor, there was music and smiling women with big bellies and warm smiles from everyone from the receptionist to the nurses to the doctors. I couldn't help but compare it to the waiting room at my RE's office. I realized that there were no windows in that waiting room, there was no music, there was barely any eye contact, even from the receptionist and the tone of voice of the nurses was much more dry and flat.

Sitting in this new, foreign waiting room, I felt relieved and slightly uncomfortable. Like I finally got invited to the party, but I was still standing up against the wall. It also made me want to stand up in the middle of the room and ask if anyone else was an IF'er. If anyone else was like me, still feeling like I didn't quite fit in. Like I belonged back in the quiet waiting room, keeping my smiles to myself, waiting in the silence to hear my name being called while hiding behind a magazine.

When my name got called for this ultrasound, I jumped up and asked if we could wait a few more minutes for C, who left work early to meet me. They smiled and agreed right away (again, so different from the patient conveyor belt feel of the RE's office). It took less than a minute before C walked in and I jumped up like a little kid and said maybe a bit too loud, "He's here!" I felt like I was quickly informing the waiting room that it was my very first time.

We went in to the ultrasound room and it was warm and inviting. Beautiful hardwood floors and soft artwork on the walls. I immediately flashed back to the RE's ultrasound room, the stark walls with the florescent lighting, the "uplifting" poster hung half-heartedly from one of the ceiling tiles. The chine.se conception chart taped to the cabinet door, edges curling from age right next to the pricing list of fertility drugs from the local pharmacy.

C held my hand while I laid on the table, feet in the stirrups and lights dim. We saw legs and arms on a beautiful body and a sweet round head and there was a quick moment where we got a wave. A wave. From deep inside my uterus. This little baby, the size of a big green grape, waved its little arm and C grabbed my hand a little tighter. I flashed again, back to the other table and stirrups I spent so much time in, the times C held my hand while the RE looked for cysts and mature follicles and the times that he looked and my uterus was empty.

Finally, we met the doctor. She is short and bright, and came into the room like a light whose eyes and smile said, "You belong." She had read my file before she met me. I came in expecting to have to tell her my whole story, but all she did was confirm a few details and tell me that things were perfect. Perfect. That is a word I have waited 6 years to hear. Finally something was right. It wasn't a shrug, or a "it's different for everybody" or the guessing and trying new things game that is IF sometimes. We got past the unexplained infertility part of our diagnosis. The thing that has defined our family of two for almost as long as C and I have been together. I am a pregnant woman. But, I am still that wide-eyed patient that first walked into a fertility office 6 years ago, and one who walked into a new fertility office a year and a half ago, someone who should be an honorary cowgirl for all the time I have spent in stirrups.

I started blogging just before my first IVF. I was overwhelmed with the emotion of it all and needed an outlet that was more than my mom and friends who could only sympathize and not truly understand (no matter how much they tried). At certain points it was easy to be happy for the happy blogs, the ones who were getting BFPs and delivering babies. It was during the times when I felt hopeful and strong. But, sometimes it wasn't possible to even click over to a blog that might be happy, it was too hard to read and impossible to comment. Sometimes it was too much to even log on at all. The times the tears came down so hard that I couldn't see past my eyelashes.

I know this is starting to turn into a different blog, one that talks too much about food (I'll put up that BLT taco recipe in my next post I promise) and nausea. I won't be complaining about Crin.one suppositories anymore, now that today was my last one and the stories of REs and shots are slowing turning into stories about OBs and heartbeats. I'm treading lightly into this new world. I am thoroughly enjoying this new person I am becoming. I love her and I feel confident in my body and my mind for the first time in a long time.

I get it though. I know when a happy blog is impossible to read. I understand. I will never, ever forget what a BFN feels like, especially when it happens over and over again. I have peed on more than my share of sticks, taken my temperature when all I want to do is jump out of bed and go to the bathroom, sat across from doctors who shrugged, climbed into stirrups and waited. Waited. Waited. Waited. Cried. Felt hope that was dashed. Cried. Curled up next to my hubby and cried. Cried the tears of a lost dream and the path that felt impossible. I stood at the bottom of the mountain of drugs and needles and said, "I can't do this."

But, I did. I could. And I did. There are no words to describe how the support from this community pulled me up and pushed me through. I am forever a part of this community and I will continue to lift others up as I was lifted.

37 comments:

  1. :) smiling hugely for you right now.

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  2. I am all weepy :)

    I have been wondering what that first OB appt will be like :) are you going to post u/s pics???

    So, so happy for you.

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  3. I am crying here girl!!! What a BEAUTIFUL post.. and such a happy one! Enjoy every moment of this amazing journey you are on as I know you already are. Big Hugs and so so happy everything is excellent with your baby!

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  4. Wow what a moving post....I totally feel you and hear what you are saying...I am so happy your apt went so well:) Isnt it so much fun to see the little babe moving and grooving

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  5. Awwww, lovely lady! I'm so happy for you.

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  6. Thanks for your uplifting entry. I can't wait to finally set foot in an OB's office and see something other than dark round spots on the ultrasound machine.

    Good luck with your pregnancy!

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  7. Congratulations on making it to the other side! I hope all goes smoothly for you :)

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  8. congratulations!!! the first OB appointment was really surreal for me, too. praying for a smooth pregnancy!

    happy iclw!
    tina
    #172

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  9. What an incredibly beautiful post. Hope the pregnancy continues to be picture perfect.

    #28 ICLW

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  10. "It took less than a minute before C walked in and I jumped up like a little kid and said maybe a bit too loud, "He's here!" I felt like I was quickly informing the waiting room that it was my very first time."

    I am so happy for you and your wonderful experience! Here's to a lot LESS time in stirrups (other than delivery day, of course!)

    Happy ICLW! #171
    http://www.funnylittlepollywogs.com

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  11. Here via ICLW. What a lovely post. Congratulations!

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  12. I am so glad that you are beginning to feel comfortable as the new person you are--a pregnant one! I'm also glad that you got to climb in stirrups for something more than a follicle/lining check...it gives me something to look forward to :).

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  13. Hi there, I came across your blog yesterday. Believe it or not, I sat and ready every single post starting from your first post in March. Well I read this post first, then went back to March and proceeded one by one to the final post :) I am sooo happy for you!! I shed tears when I read about the disappointments, I shed tears of joy and smiled when i read about your happiness. Am so glad for you, and wish you a happy healthy 9 months.

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  14. First time here. Beautiful post. I can just imagine how different that waiting room was, I am glad you made it there.

    That is so funny that you googled stirrups while on the stirrups so long ago and found the Stirrup Queen. We do have a great community of support in all of this.

    Best of luck to you.

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  15. I know that at my RE's satellite office there are two waiting rooms. The initial waiting room is where you wait before they take you back. Then you move into teh waiting room that has much more seating, but you sit there alone before you move on to the ultrasounds.

    Then at my GYN's office the ultrasound waiting room is called the "Waiting Womb". The one time taht I was waiting there (becasue I needed an emergency ultrasound) I felt like a fish out of water.

    Michelle
    http://samide2001.blogspot.com/
    ICLW #11

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  16. Here from Creme de la Creme... love this post! Congrats on your pregnancy!

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  17. This post takes me back.
    Even with a three-year-old, I still sometimes experience that sense of not quite fitting in.

    Best of luck!

    (Arrived here from the Crème de la Crème list.)

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  18. Hi, I'm here from the Creme de la Creme list.

    This is an amazing post. I haven't been able to make that transition from RE to OB yet, but you make it seem so natural and clear. And congratulations on your pregnancy.

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  19. This is such a fantastic post to describe that transition. I still remember vividly the way that I felt the day that we "graduated" to our regular OB, and you put words to it so well.

    Congratulations on your pregnancy.

    Here from the Creme de la Creme. :)
    Aramelle
    http://the-wheeler-family.net/anewwheeler

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  20. I read this the first time around, less than a week after our BFP, still not believing, out of place...I still don't believe some days. And I still don't quite feel like I belong, but I have learned to fake it really well. Amazing to think back on that week! I loved coming back and redad this from the "safety" of 24 weeks, numerous ultrasounds later.

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  21. Thank you for this hope. I am currently at the bottom of mountain of injections and debt and not pregnant. Thank you for reminding me, It Will Happen.
    (Creme de la Creme)

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  22. You are a part of us. Always and forever. Mothers like you give me hope.

    (Creme de la Creme)

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  23. Beautiful beautiful beautiful. Crying with the happiest heart for you. The transition from the RE to the OB is the strangest thing ever and I love that I'm not the only one who felt that. xoxo (cdlc)

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  24. Here from Creme de la creme. Thank you so much for this beautiful post. It is an inspiration and a gift to us who are still waiting.

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  25. Great post.

    That place between blog worlds is awkward. I'm still trying to find a flow.

    (creme)

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  26. Thanks for giving the rest of us hope in that we can all be where you are right now. (creme)

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  27. Here from Creme de la Creme. You described exactly what I hope to be feeling some day! We really are a wonderful community, one that we never fully "graduate" from.

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  28. Now a follower from Creme de la Creme. Love this beautiful post - it give me hope.

    www.mrthompsonandme.blogspot.com

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  29. Huge congrats. I hope you enjoy the new world you're living in.

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  30. I'm a mom who conceived naturally twice right when I wanted to. I had been married 6 years when we first tried, and had a little fear about the ability to conceive, as I was a DES daughter. So in a fundamental way I am unable to relate to your experience. But I know the depth of my desire for children, can imagine the sorrow that would have come infertility had been my lot, and I REJOICE with you!

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  31. Beautiful post. From one who experienced 6 years of IF and knows exactly the first feeling of walking out the FS (RE) rooms and entering the OB's room. I too wanted to shout out to all the other PG bellies in there "are any of you post IFers?". Proud to be one.

    Here from the Creme (#111)

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  32. "I'm treading lightly into this new world." I loved this line. I remember feeling that way during my second pregnancy, after having lost my first. I was so tentative about feeling happy and becoming "the pregnant woman" that I had longed to be. I also remember the first time I was in the OB waiting room knowing that things were probably okay and being so thankful. I'm so glad you have also made it to this place, "the other side." I know it can feel like you're standing against the wall, but with every day it seems to get better. And when your belly gets big and you feel kicks from deep within - it's amazing.

    Congrats! And thanks for sharing!

    Creme de la Creme (#125)
    Creme de la Creme Iron Clad Comment Attempt

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  33. Thanks for sharing this post! I hope to someday be sitting, like you, in a different waiting room checking out all the difference! Congrats on your LO!

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  35. Although I have yet to be pregnant, I still see the contrast in the two offices. I once told my husband that with all the money we were spending at the RE's office you would think that the experience would be better. I sometimes feel bad because I am never happy to go there and never happy when I leave despite their posh waiting room.
    from creme de la creme

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  36. from CDLC. I cannot wait until I can experience the change for myself! Although I do count myself lucky. Our RE's office sounds more like your OBs. The OB I've been to down here sounds more like your conveyor belt metaphor. Moving this summer and hoping to find the same feeling from our new RE. I'm glad you get to experience these joys!

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