One Week Later (aka Nine Months Later)

So obviously, starting my blog didn't turn out as planned.   I had a much harder time adjusting to the miscarriage than expected, then work got in the way, and then I found myself with a whole new set of horrifically wonderful distractions.  More on that later.

I promise, I did try to write more after my long introductory post.  Here is the draft that I never came back to, and never published:

It's been a week since I started miscarrying little Bean. I'm finding it hard to do all the things I'm supposed to do. I'm in pain, and I don't really feel like eating, which is bad when you're supposed to be eating "every 2 hours of your waking day, no exceptions!" I went to pack myself food to take to work for my 8 hour day, and all I could bring myself to do was pick up an apple & throw it in my bag, unwashed. It's a shame really, because my dear husband slaved over eggplant parm & pumpkin pie this morning. He's been cooking like a fiend, as usual, but I just keep ignoring all the food in the fridge.

I wonder if I should even be back at work yet... I don't know what the typical "leave" is for miscarriage. I'm still in tons of pain, but, like a typical megalomaniac, I fear my entire program would fall apart if I weren't there, so I do my best to plug away through the pain and the sadness. I guess it's good to go back to routine in a sense, as long as I'm not pushing myself physically before I should be.

That's as far as I got.  But it sums up my life pretty well through the holiday season.  I ended up eating all sorts of cheat foods, and of course paying dearly for it.  I indulged in all the holiday cookies and breads and processed foods I came across, with self-loathing and depression leading the decision making process at every social function.  By January, my toxicity was through the roof and my autonomic nervous system was actually communicating fear - of "not finding food", of feeling guilty about food choices, of completely backsliding into all of my old habits and symptoms.  My insomnia came back, as did my irritability and digestive problems.  I just couldn't seem to dig myself out of my emotional hole.

But that month I made a decision.  I wanted a baby more than ever.  And if that was going to happen, I needed to get myself back on track and healthy to carry this new little one to the best of my ability.  And so, I began again.  I didn't eliminate anything I'd added back into my diet (which included eggs, tomatoes, and dairy - all successfully non-symptom inducing!), but I did get back to strict no gluten, sugar, processed foods, and sugar substitutes.  I occasionally still cheated with corn (which does upset my stomach a bit), soy (haven't noticed symptoms, but not actively checking either), caffeine (totally wrecks my sleep no matter what time of day) and alcohol (only occasionally, and not for a while now!) but I got a lot better about eating carefully again.  I still found it difficult to stay motivated for myself alone, which has been a wonderful topic for my therapy sessions, but I was doing a lot better than the train wreck I had been during the holidays.

Life trudged on that way for pretty much the rest of the winter and into the spring.  I found my job(s) were growing increasingly stressful and less satisfying, which made things that much harder, but minding my foods kept my emotional outbursts (mostly) in check.

Then came Easter.  Well, the week after Easter really.  I started to feel remarkably like I had when I was first pregnant with Bean.  I told Matt (my rock of a husband), but he sort of thought I was crazy, since it was so early in my cycle.  I secretly took a pregnancy test a day starting about 3 days later until I saw what was an almost imperceptible pink line.  Then I admitted my obsession and Matt made me stop and wait until a more reasonable date for testing in the interest of preserving my sanity - ha!

Low and behold, when the time finally came to "officially" test, I got a definite positive.  Two weeks later, we saw our little Squirt on his or her first ultrasound:

Squirt had a heartbeat and arm-buds!  It was so exciting, and such a relief to see our living little love.   Two weeks later, we told our families, and two weeks after that, we had our next ultrasound:

Yet another heartbeat, actual arms, and a nasal bone!  I couldn't contain my joy!  Or, it turns out, my meals.  I started with morning all-day-and-night sickness around week 8 and it didn't let up until about week 15.  Super unpleasant - I spent many a day laying down for hours because sitting up made me want to toss my cookies dry gluten-free toast.  After about 3 weeks of Matt looking down at me with a pitiful face while I sat on the bathroom floor, I began responding with, "I wanted this."  It was a good reminder that, despite the misery I was feeling, it was, in fact, exactly what I had been hoping and praying for during the previous five months.  And, as everyone was so quick to remind me, being really sick is a sign of a really healthy pregnancy, right?  ... Thanks.

In order to make a really long story a little less so, that is, in essence, what has kept me from posting since that first really long story in November.  I am now a little over 19 weeks pregnant (approaching the 5 month mark for you non-week-counters) and excitedly looking forward to our final ultrasound this coming Friday!  I'm also excited to attempt this blogging thing again as I work to regain control of my health for both me and Squirt, and as I see how pregnancy and delivery affect my body and my food relationships now that I can (pretty much) eat again.  If you've stuck around for my nine month hiatus to see what happened, I cannot thank you enough!  If you're just joining in, thanks for reading two incredibly long posts, and I promise they'll be more succinct in the future!

Here's to all of our health!