I started spotting after we got home from the doctor's office. As if I wasn't worked up enough already, of course. The doctor had told me to expect a bit of bleeding, since he'd been fiddling around in there quite a bit between the Pap smear and the ultrasound and everything, but seeing it sent me over the edge anyway. First thing in the morning, I called the OB-GYN's office and begged to come in for another ultrasound to see if I was miscarrying. 

My husband had to work, so I made the journey myself. This time, I was bypassing the doctor's office and heading straight to the ultrasound lab. Maybe their machines were better, I thought. Maybe they'd take a look and say, "Oh, honey, your baby isn't behind... the doctor's portable machine just couldn't give him a clear look! See, here's your healthy little bean. And wow, what a heartbeat!" 

In reality, the news was a little more mixed. The bean had caught up an extra day - it was now measuring 6w1d when it should have been 7w1d - and his heartbeat was relatively strong at 115 beats per minute. They couldn't figure out where the bleeding was coming from, but my cervix was closed and everything looked fine, so they sent me on my way. I was starting to feel pretty optimistic. The bean was catching up, his heartbeat was in the normal range... maybe this would turn out okay after all. 

Around the middle of my ninth week, I started to feel like my pregnancy symptoms were fading. I didn't have a lot of the classic ones - I felt a little queasy in the mornings and evenings, my boobs were sore and I was pretty tired, but compared to many other pregnant ladies, I had it really easy. So when I realized that my boobs felt totally fine and I wasn't even a teeny bit barfy, I started to worry. The nurse at the OB-GYN said, "It's pretty normal to have fluctuating symptoms, but if you'd like to come in for a reassurance scan, we can fit you in this morning." 

"Yes, please," I said. I never say no to an ultrasound. 

I got there a little bit early. It was a nice day out, so I walked around the neighborhood for a bit and talked to the bean. "Okay, buddy," I said, "It's time to get your picture taken. I want you to stretch out really big and show everyone how big and tall you are! Get that heartbeat going, too! Come on, kiddo, let's do some jumping jacks!"

This scan was even more confusing than the last one. The bean was still there, still alive, but now he was measuring ten days behind... and his heart rate had fallen to 111. 

"That's not good, is it?" I asked the ultrasound tech.

"Well, sometimes they rest," she said. "Your doctor will call you to discuss everything soon." 

My husband had left work early to come meet me, but he hadn't arrived until after the scan was finished. I met up with him outside the subway and relayed the news. He was much more optimistic than I was. "The baby is probably just sleeping," he said, "It'll be fine, honey. Our kid is a fighter." 

"It's very small," he said.

My heart thudded in my chest. They'd made me wait back here for nearly an hour, perched on the edge of the examining table in my surgical gown and socks. The doctor had an emergency, the nurse explained as she wheeled out the portable ultrasound machine yet again. She brought me a magazine to pass the time, but it was one that I'd already read on the subway ride up to the doctor's office that morning. I tried to read it again, and then I gave up and just started praying. And waiting.

Finally the doctor came in. "How are you?" he asked. "Terrified," I said. "Oh, I'm sure everything is just fine!" he said, "Let's take a look now, yes?"

Ah, the internal ultrasound - the first of many, as I'd later discover. The nurse adjusted the screen so I could see, and there it was - the tiniest little blur with an even smaller flicker in the center. The heartbeat.

"It's very small," the doctor said.

I knew it right away - there was something wrong. "Too small?" I asked.
"I did not say too small," the doctor said, in his melodic, accented English. "Very small. But they all start very small, and then they become big. It is the miracle of life."

I was not buying it. I continued to interrogate him as he continued the exam. "What does it mean if it's very small? Is it supposed to be bigger? Have you ever seen a case like this where the baby turned out okay?"

"All the time," he assured me. But it was too late - the joyous "pregnant, pregnant, holy crap PREGNANT" chorus in my head had started singing a different tune. This time it went, "you're fucked, you're fucked, you are soooo fucked." The baby was measuring eight days smaller than it should have - I was seven weeks exactly, and the baby only measured five weeks and six days.

My husband and I left the office and headed straight to a cafe, where I ordered everything on the menu involving chocolate and began furiously searching the internet for a more satisfying answer. I liked my doctor, but I was certain that he was bullshitting me. It just didn't make sense - how could it be normal for the baby's growth to be so far behind?

"Honey, the doctor said it was fine," my husband told me, "so I'm sure everything is fine. Please, stop driving yourself crazy and eat this Nutella thing before I do."

"It's not fine," I said, stuffing the Nutella thing into my mouth, "I just know it."

"You said the same thing about getting pregnant," he reminded me.

"I know," I said, "but this is different."

Looking back, I don't think that I actually had any sort of real prescient knowledge about the situation. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and when you go through life convinced that everything is going to go wrong - well, eventually, you're going to be correct. But that was the last day that I really allowed myself to walk around with the "pregnant, pregnant, pregnant, yay" song stuck in my head. For the next four weeks, the song was more like, "pregnant, pregnant, pregnant... maybe... for now."

This is a blog about trying to have a baby.

I haven't had a baby yet. I've had one miscarriage and two cycles of trying but failing to conceive again. This is not an infertility blog - I know that we haven't been trying for nearly long enough to claim that title. We are relatively young, healthy more or less - I suspect our time will come sooner rather than later.

This is a story about being totally fucking impatient, and about wading through grief, and how those two things come together.

I'll start from the beginning.

I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome in my early twenties, after reading a magazine article that felt more like someone had written my biography. Irregular periods? Check. Overweight, and an apple shape with that sort of "is she or isn't she pregnant" belly? Yep, folks have been offering me their subway seats for years now. A touch of cystic acne and stray chin hairs? All present and accounted for! So I headed to the endocrinologist, who pretty much took one look at me - and my ovaries - and confirmed what I suspected.

"You will probably have a difficult time getting pregnant," she said, "Stay on birth control, start taking this Metformin and come back to see me when you're ready to conceive."

I wasn't too worried about it, since I'd always planned on being a barren spinster anyway. (Yes, fellas... chunky, hirsute and pessimistic! Can you believe she's still single?) So for years, it was just another sad thing I'd resigned myself to. I am probably infertile. I should just get used to it. And then it turned into: forget probably. I'm totally infertile. I just know it in my heart.

But then, nearly a decade later, I met my husband. We fell in love and got engaged and talked about "starting our family," and then it was time to get back to an endocrinologist. The doctor prescribed some things, ran some tests and decided that we should try a cycle or two without medication so they could test my ovarian response. "But I want Clomid NOW!" I thought. "Doesn't he know I'm INFERTILE?!" 

Impatient was more like it. In October of last year, my husband and I took a trip to New Orleans. We went on a six-day bender full of raw oysters and cocktails and debauchery. Then we came back home, pulled the goalie, and - in a blissfully hungover post-Nawlins haze, and despite my pessimistic conviction that it was totally never going to work - we made a baby.

Spoiler alert: It didn't work out.

I had a bad feeling about it from the beginning. My progesterone was low at 7 days post ovulation, and I was getting negative pregnancy tests at 10, 11 and 12 dpo. The packaging insert promised the tests were 99% accurate by that point, so I was like, "Yep, I knew it! Not pregnant. Probably because I'm totally fucking infertile. Obviously."  Based on my progesterone level, the doctor prescribed me 50 milligrams of Clomid for our next try. I went to the drugstore to fill the script and pick up a giant box of tampons. Clearly, I'd be needing them soon.

But then day 13 came and went, and day 14 and finally I figured I should probably take a test again. And this time the second line was there. It was faint, but there.

I was pregnant. Holy shit, I was pregnant! In that moment, my biggest, longest held fear about myself was shattered: I wasn't infertile after all. I ran out to buy a cute little onesie and then rushed home to tell my husband. "See? I told you it would be easy," he said.

I spent the next three weeks in a state of total bliss. "Pregnant, pregnant, pregnant!" my brain cried, "We're SO FUCKING PREGNANT, can you BELIEVE it?!"

And then, at seven weeks on the nose, it was time to see the doctor.