Here I Go Again On My Own...

Oh hell, oh help.  Hello.  I think my body is trying to miscarry.  Again.

I'm sitting in a goddamn Taco Cabana enjoying the free wireless to write about what may or may not be happening inside me.

Let's rewind.  It'll keep my mind off this.  No it won't.  It'll keep my hands busy until my shrimp tacos arrive, which is really the most I can hope for under the circumstances.

Two days ago, on Monday, I had my doctor's appointment.  I was terrified that she'd refuse my request for a prescription for progesterone cream.  Progesterone is critical to sustaining a pregnancy, and for lengthening my luteal cycle to allow time for a successful implantation.

The night before my appointment, I was an unholy mess.  Mr. Fish was leaving in the morning for work, flying out to Arizona.  That made Sunday night not only their date night, but the last night Socks and Fish would spend together before he left.  (We divyyed up Sock's nights for a sleep schedule, with Friday as Family Date Night.  It works pretty well, because Socks gets plenty of snuggling and I get to sprawl in my princess bed).  That night I went out for a drawing class and really managed to enjoy it.  When I came back, I played Rock Band for a couple of hours, until Socks emerged and announced that Fish was asleep and asked if I wanted to snuggle and connect.

We'd had a hard go of it lately.  Out interactions had been loving, but stressed, trying to figure out this living-together-while-poly thing, as well as generally trying to figure out our new-found places of friction.  (Living together will do that.  I've avoided cohabitation for more than 5 years out of fear). We made significant progress, but it cost a lot of emotional energy and kind of drained our reserves of tenderness.  Each of us wanted to cross the gulf, but we were both tired and needy.

Socks folded me in his arms on the couch, trying to draw me out and connect, but I just couldn't.  I was so sad, so godawfully sad.  Was I pregnant?  Could I keep it?  Would the doctor believe me and help me?  And in the end, how could I get close to someone who wasn't feeling what I was?  I just felt...twisted.  Heart wrung, irrationally angry that Socks couldn't fix it for me.  Also raging because I knew I couldn't ask him to stay with me on the night before Mr. Fish left town, but just wanting him to promise it anyway.  Stay with me stay with me stay with me I hate you I need you Stay with me Stay with me Stay with me.  I bit my tongue, but probably didn't need to bother.  Socks and I are both hella empathic.  He always knows what I'm feeling, even when I don't want him to.

He tucked me in.  I balled up on my side and told him goodnight, tersely, feeling like a jerk but still unable to stop.  I slept fitfully, woke up at 2:30am, and stayed up for hours googling luteal phase defects, abstracts on treatments and trials, TTC websites.  I was angry.  I was sad.  I was desperately lonely.  Finally I crept into the Submarine (the room Socks and Mr. Fish share), and prodded Socks to move over.  I stared at the ceiling and recited:

"In trials where 200mg progresterone suppositiories were administered to women with infertility related to luteal phease defects, women receiving the treatment conceived at rates of 50-70%.  Progesterone suppositories or creams are most common, and a far more potent method of distribution than oral tablets.  An early miscarriage is called a chemical pregnancy, which most TTC websites describe as basically fucked up, delegitimizing language.  Synthetic progesterone has been linked, somewhat controversially, to hypospadias in boy children.  No such link exists for natural progesterone."

Socks wrapped his arms around me.  "Have you been up all night googling?"

(Sullenly).  "Yes."

"My baby.  You're so scared.  You're miserable."

(Resentfully). "Yes."

I lay there silently for minutes, and then grunted, "How. Do. You. Feel."

Socks tightened his arms around me.  "I feel worried and sad for you..."

"NO.  How do you feel?"

"Oh."  And he unloaded.  Sad, scared, disappointed, feeling weirdly responsible, feeling like he shouldn't have expressed these feelings because it's happening to him but not in him.

And I was finally able to melt.  We both do this thing.  There's distance, and we feel it, but when we're hurt it's just oh-so-hard to come out of our protective stances.  But when the other one is hurting, we find the strength.  When the other one needs something, our own needs become manageable, able to be put on hold, and our hearts become available to wrap around each other and love again.

Socks met me at the doctor's office.  She's quite the naturalist, and clearly wanted to make sure I was addressing my cholesterol and vitamin D.  But she heard us, really heard us, and reviewed my charting with me.  Socks handled the nutritional questions--his wheelhouse--and I handled the charting and symptom questions--mine.  In the end she embraced us both and put a hand on my belly, which made me so hopeful and affirmed that I nearly burst into tears in the office.  I went home with the progesterone cream, albeit at a lower level than I wanted.

That day was followed by many more hurts and disappointments.  I said unconscionably stupid and hurtful things to Socks, and we cried and struggled and forgave and got through it.  I kept up the progesterone for two days after my temps dropped, which had the effect of making me feel like a penned animal, pumped through with drugs, struggling on without reason or hope.  I took my broken heart home for the weekend, where my mother and sister and grandmother were waiting with open hearts and too-soon jokes (of the best kind).  There were so many slow minutes, superficial conversations that felt so difficult to execute.  When no one was looking or when it was convenient, I balled up in bed and cried, or crumpled up on the floor, knees tucked under my tender belly.

We went to the ballet and I started bleeding right before the curtain went up.  Fabulous.  I started the matinee slumped against my mom, dead-eyed and wishing myself home under the covers.  But as the spectacular lunacy of the show started--(two words, live snakes)--I found myself furioiusly signing to my sister and cracking jokes during the applause.  My sister and I are one being in two bodies.  Or rather, maybe two huge servers that have to synchronize periodically, in order to back each other up.  We communicate in an incomprehensible gibberish, half-way between twin language and telepathy.  At its best--and we're always in high form where there is pain--it's hysterical in all senses of the word.

I drove back to Austin lighter.  Yes, I'm still worried.  I'm still disappointed.  I don't know what to expect or believe.  But I returned to my beloved husbands, all filled up with family love, and made them an extravegant Indian meal served with crystal, silver, and candles. 

Sometimes taking care of the people you love is the best way to care for your own broken heart.