I’ve never been a good journey-woman. The quicker I can get to my final destination the better. In college I dated this guy who was one of those professional road-trippers. He was all about taking the road less travelled. One summer in an effort to bond a bit more I suggested a road trip from Colorado to Ocean City, Maryland, one of my favorite places in the world. We took my Honda Civic hatchback and were off. Needless to say, the trip did not turn me into a road-tripper. We stopped a few places along the way, but never took anything but the interstate. I just wanted to get there. As a result the trip back loomed before us for days and was a race to the finish: home.
It wasn’t until after I graduated and was dumped by said boyfriend that I took another road trip. Still in the Honda, but this time by myself. I drove from Colorado to Santa Cruz to be a camp counselor for the summer. By the time I hit Wyoming I was already panicking. This was a time before I had a cell phone and fear overwhelmed me. What if my car broke down? What if I was assaulted at a rest stop? Who would come help me? I felt utterly alone. I had no choice, but to keep going. As the trip moved on I felt more and more confident. I hit the Great Salt Lake at dusk and I remember being in awe of the landscape I drove through. My windows were down, I had Indigo Girls blaring. Fear shifted into euphoria and I was suddenly so excited that it was just me in this moment seeing this sight. I checked into a hotel that night for the first time on my own and felt totally free. I could sleep as long as I wanted and leave when I wanted and do whatever I wanted to.
My whole summer that year was a road trip. I continued on to California and stayed with one of my best friends before going to the camp. The camp is a story in itself, but I discovered wheel pottery there and also had the epiphany that I wanted a PhD in theatre. My safe/power place, the one I go to in my mind when things get rough, is a little beach we discovered along the coast on one of our days off. I moved past my heartache. I visited UC Berkeley. Then I started the trip back, but this time I had no home to go home to. All my belongings were in a storage unit so I lived with my sister and her now husband for 2 weeks until I found a place to live. I never had a final destination, the journey created one for me. On the other side of that journey I was a different and stronger person.
When Scott and I decided to begin trying to get pregnant I now realize I was rather focused on the final destination. I saw us with a child. I imagined and fantasized about us being parents, I say actually, we both probably fantasized about being parents. Pregnancy was just the car ride there. In my mind pregnancy was one long celebration occassionally interrupted by discomfort and maybe morning sickness. Hence, it should be no problem for me to have the most difficult semester right in my first trimester. I could cram in all my program requirements while pregnant so I wouldn’t have to worry about them once I had the baby; once I reached the final destination.
Oops.
The Journey So Far
Well, the in-laws left and we had a day to get ready for our good friends’ wedding along the North Shore. It was beautiful there and we so needed the break. The day after we arrived we found out that the dog we were watching was in the vet hospital. We left the festivities early and spent the next several days getting in touch with her owners on the Appalacian Trail and shelling out our entire savings in vet bills (which were soon reimbursed). The owners decide to have their parents come pick up Elly. Scott and I spend a night and a day sobbing over the sick dog and trying to make her comfortable. The owner’s dad comes to pick her up and we say goodbye for what I know will be the last time. Elly passes away within the week. The next day after Elly leaves I take my first pregnancy test. It’s a faint line, but it’s there. I take two more on subsequent days. The line gets darker.
In my mind this is fate. It was our first try. It was really impossible for us to get pregnant considering all the falderall in our lives. This baby is going to be feisty for sure. For almost eight weeks pregnancy is exactly how I imagined it would be. I sleep a lot more, but I mange to miss morning sickness and just have lingering bouts of nausea. My waistline starts to expand immediatly and I’m in full-on maternity clothes by week six. I buy tons of books and get in an online pregnancy buddy group. Happy, happy, joy, joy.
Week 8: I fail my subfield exams. I’m totally shocked. I cry. That evening I begin to spot. The next morning it gets worse. I call in to work and go to the ER because it’s Saturday. Everything looks fine. They take lots of blood, do an internal exam, and an ultrasound. On the ultrasound the baby is measuring exactly as it should and has a strong heartbeat. They tell me to come back if it gets worse and to “save the remnants of conception” should I miscarry at home. The next day it gets worse, but I’m afraid to go back to the ER. I wait it out till Monday and go to my clinic. The doc there checks my hormone levels again and calls me that evening to tell me there is no indication that I’m miscarrying. Wednesday is my official first prenatal appointment. My doctor looks at all my tests and tells me it looks to her like I may be miscarrying. She does an internal exam and takes more blood. I get the whole deal on how if it happens I will be fine and it’s still early. She will rush the test results and call me that afternoon to tell me if she thinks it’s imminent or not. I have a class presentation that day. I stumble through it. She calls to tell me everything looks fine and to relax. For some reason I have a hard time believing her.
I continue spotting on and off and sometimes constantly for the next five weeks. Mentally and emotionally it was the hardest few weeks I’ve been through in my entire life. We went to the doctor every week and received only reassuring news, but the continued presence of blood just did not jive in my mind of how things were supposed to go. The researcher in me made things worse by researching miscarriage and first trimester bleeding. I became obsessed. I lost my appetite. On multiple occassions it was easier for me to believe I was going to lose the baby than continue in this place of not knowing. I was depressed. My usual faith and hope lost out. I kept searching for something to hold onto, to get me through. The pragmatist in me tried to tell me that I would be fine either way. Unfortunately, I knew that wasn’t really true. The thing I held to actually was that either way I still had Scott and he had hope even if I didn’t.
To be honest, this baby has also been quite outspoken about the situation already. At my 10 week ultrasound s/he decided we needed reassurance and waved at us through the screen. S/he was bopping around like crazy in case we didn’t know that at least s/he was having a good time. S/he also gave us a great profile shot. We’ve seen his/her beautiful face already.
The next week my doc decided to check for a heartbeat via doppler, this crazy Fisher Price lookin’ radio and microphone thingy they use on your belly to hear the baby. My doc tells me not to be worried if we don’t hear it because it’s still early. Sure enough, we hear it, beating strongly just below my belly button. At my last appointment last week, week 13, she uses the doppler again. This time s/he actually kicks at the thing, but still a strong heartbeat.
The spotting has tapered off, but remains. It also remains a mystery. They can never find its source, not on the ultrasounds, not during my exams, nothing. The only thing they can suggest is that it has something to do with my slight bicorneate uterus. If you’re really interested in that particular term, look it up. It was on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy a while back.
I’ve been trying to embrace this as a journey. This means I can’t keep hoping to go back to the way my life was before I got pregnant or even back to the first six weeks of my pregnant euphoria. I’ve passed those landmarks and I have to keep going. Just like my California trip, home has become an elusive idea. It hasn’t been created yet because it’s the journey that forms and formulates what that home will be. I’m not necessarily talking about my house here. However, I do have to say that my house as a space has changed and is journeying, too, because it has morphed in my perception as my body has changed. My bathroom has become this space of comfort and terror as it’s usually where I find out how the spotting is going, but also where I take my baths and showers, the two things that keep my body relaxed. Our bedroom has also had to become a different space because I spend so much time there these days. I’ve had to adjust the entire geography of our bed. I now sleep with four pillows: two under my head, one between my legs to keep my hips from aching, and one held against my chest to keep me from rolling onto my back or front and to press against my growing belly. I have nightlights that illuminate my way to the bathroom at night, which I visit nocturnally at least three times. I recently realized that in my third trimester the bed is going to have to move downstairs because our narrow stairs to the bedroom just aren’t going to work in the middle of the night when I have to pee and I’ve got a watermelon attached to my front. So, even house/home isn’t stable any more. The things is there’s no expressway on this journey. I don’t get to choose to take the quick route. I highly recommend pregnancy for all those out there trying to cope with issues of control. It’s a sure fire cure for the control freak.
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