A Frightening Pregnancy

First, I had some good news today!  My recent article on FertilityAuthority.com was picked up on Digg.com and a part of Google Alerts as a result.  This was the first time that my fertility blogging gained notice, and I hope not the last!  Thank you to any and all of you that have shared, retweeted, and commented here and on FertilityAuthority.com!

The article can be found at:
http://www.fertilityauthority.com/blogger/alec/2011/05/11/jeez-it-took-you-long-enough

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Pregnancy is romaticized.  It's beautiful.  Sublime.  A feeling that every woman needs to experience.

Did anyone remember to mention that it's limiting?  You bloat.  You burp.  You fart.  You have to pee every 15 minutes.  Everything is off kilter.  You're tired all of the time, but it's hard to sleep properly.

And I've just described a good pregnancy.

Fertile women complain about the above.

Ah, if only they knew.

For an infertile woman, pregnancy is frightening.  When you've miscarried several times before, pregnancy is nine months of waiting for the other shoe to drop and praying that it won't.

JK had a frightening pregnancy, and over the next several episodes, I am going to chronicle that pregnancy.  Though we made it to the other side, in many ways those nine months were more harrowing than the previous two years of trying to get to that point.

I will only say Wannabe Moms: please don't hate the pregnant folk out there.  Life has not suddenly become wonderful for them.  On the contrary, life is a series of obstacles and milestones.  A thousand and one things can go wrong, and often do.

PUPPS?  Yep!  Gestational diabetes?  You betcha!  Pre-eclampsia scare?  Sure, but only because you haven't had enough to deal with!

I feel like a Ronco commercial.  And that's not all you'll get!  You like breach babies?  We'll throw that in too!  Emergency c-sections?  OK!  But only if you act now!

Perhaps the worst part of a high-risk pregnancy is the shadow of knowledge that hangs over the pregnancy and you.  The further you go toward nine months, the more painful a miscarriage becomes.  They say in sports that a buzzer beater is much harder loss to bear than a blowout.  This is much the same.  The more that hope is kindled by a pregnancy, the harder the loss of that pregnancy.