My due date is
May 24, 2001
Today I am
17 weeks, 4 days
pregnant.
I'm not weighing myself anymore -- it's just easier on my mental state that way.
We are having a
GIRL!!!
Names under consideration:
Isolde Maria
Jun Isabella
Eloise Marie
Here she is, my little girl. I think she looks just a little bit like an alien. But a cute alien, of course!
*****
You all know that Celine Dion is pregnant, right? And that she conceived with IVF? Well, have you seen this? It's a little weird. She is referring to a frozen embryo from her IVF cycle as her son's 'twin'. I don't know. Maybe something got mixed up in the translation (I'm sure she did this interview in French) or something, but I find the thought kind of weird.
We have 10 embryos in frozen storage. I do not consider them my daughter's twins, or even my daughter's siblings. They are possible children, just the same as the immature eggs in my ovaries may one day become offspring if given the chance. One day they might be children, but right now they are.... potentials. Nothing more. I don't sit around thinking about them, stored in a vat of liquid nitrogen in a downtown medical building. I don't wonder what they look like or speculate on how many are girls and how many are boys. The only time, really, that I think of them is when I think of having more children -- I think about the process of frozen embryo transfer and how much easier that will be than doing a full-fledged IVF cycle. But I don't consider them my children. Am I being cold and heartless here?
We've been having a great big baby boom at work. 2 women are due in January, then there's me in May, A. is due in June, and B. due in July. Five of us pregnant at the same time. Of course there were the usual jokes about there being something in the water or some kind of pregnancy germ going around... (if only it were that easy!). We're all quite happy to be pregnant -- these are all planned pregnancies and 3 of us (one of the Jan. mommies, myself, and B.) had had difficulty conceiving. It's been fun, having all these other pregnant women to talk with. But all this blissful happiness hasn't lasted -- B. had a miscarriage a few days ago. She was 10 weeks pregnant.
She hasn't come back to work yet, so I don't know how she's doing. I'm nervous about her return; I don't want my presence to hurt her. I know how it felt for me, when I had a miscarriage -- I hated pregnant women. I wanted them all to suffer as I was suffering and feel what I felt. It wasn't fair that they had all this happiness while all I had was pain. I don't know if B. is going to feel the same way as I did, but if she did she's going to hate the very sight of me -- everytime she sees me and my belly it's going to be salt in the wound. To make it even worse, management has asked us not to mention her miscarriage when she comes back to work -- apparently her husband requested this because he's not sure how she'll react. I want to tell her that I know how much she's hurting right now and that I cry whenever I think of her loss. I hate the thought of trying to smile and act like nothing happened when she comes back to work and I see her again. How can we just pretend that she didn't lose a child? I'm afraid it will hurt her more to not have her loss acknowledged by us than to have the memory brought up.