Recurrent chemical pregnancies (A delightful holiday tale!)

This is a weird and hard post to begin and complete, so I'm going to take the burden off myself to make it perfect or even memorable and just throw down some words. I know I ate up anything I could find on this subject, so maybe some little thing I write might help somebody, somewhere.

It was really easy to get pregnant the first time. I wanted a baby, so we did what you do and on the second month I was knocked up. And it stuck and she came out big and healthy and that was that.

When I was ready to try again, in September of 2011, I assumed the process would be roughly the same. I was a little older and Clay had gone through chemo and I was certainly stressed, so maybe it would take a few extra months?

After probably three cycles of trying, it happened. But almost as soon as the line turned dark, it faded. It was a chemical pregnancy. It was jarring and it freaked me out. Even though chemicals are really common, I had this gut feeling that this was the beginning of a longer process. We were living in the rental house in Westport and it was Christmastime and I Googled a million different searches to read about what to expect ("AM I NOW BARREN") but not the fun kind of what to expect.

I eventually shook it off and we went back to trying. In May 2012 I got pregnant again. Ooo, perfect: Another February baby! And they'd be three years apart exactly, which was the age difference I'd wanted. This time I went to the doctor for a blood test because I was interested in my HCG levels. The day after my missed period I was only at an 18, which is really low. (It should be in the 100-1000 range...) They were all "it might stick!" but I knew it wouldn't. Just like before, three days after my missed period the line was gone and it was over.

I started to panic a little/a lot. I got hooked up with a reproductive endo who told me there was probably nothing wrong with me, that these things just happen. He ran a bunch of tests, took a bunch of blood, and checked out my uterus. And hey oh! There was a big polyp in there! So I had a surgery in September 2012 to remove it. I was so excited that there was this actual, concrete problem. It had to be the reason.

Through all this, I felt so isolated. I already had a kid so I felt like I couldn't legitimately complain. It had only been about a year of trying, so that wasn't that bad either. I didn't know anyone who'd gone through this so I didn't know who to talk to. Clay didn't seem bothered and didn't want to discuss it. So many people around me were onto their second or third babies, but I felt like I had to make up reasons why I wasn't. "I've always wanted a big spacing!" "It's so nice to have sleep finally!" "I know it'll work out!" But inside I was 100%, all-the-time freaking out.

After my surgery, I had two quick pregnancies. October and then November of 2012. Both ended exactly three days after my missed period. I'd now completely lost faith in the second line on a test and couldn't believe that some people posted the picture immediately after taking it. Or announced it right away. It seemed insane and so naive.

I felt so in limbo and so sad. I didn't want to buy cute clothes because what if I got pregnant and my body changed? I didn't want to look for a job because what if I got pregnant? I didn't really want to do anything because I couldn't think about anything else. I was obsessed (o-b-s-e-s-s-e-d), but felt like I completely had to hide my obsession. I dealt with it all very privately and worked to perfect my answers to all the inevitable "do you want another?" questions. I felt awful because I wasn't working, my whole role was full time mother, and yet I felt like I wasn't doing "enough" (whatever that means!) in terms of mothering. Because I couldn't grow another baby.

There were all sorts of women who I (admittedly insanely) felt were showing me up. Like Clay's ex-girlfriend who was working full time in a fancy job and had just had her third baby -- and I felt like a complete failure. What the hell was I doing? She wanted to have brunch with us, to bring over the new baby, and I just could not handle it. I avoided people, I stopped following pregnant people on Instagram, I told myself terrible things.

I stopped going to the reproductive endo because his next move was IVF and I just wasn't ready yet. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I wanted to try something alternative first.

So after reading a lot of positive experiences about it, I started acupuncture in January of 2013. I told myself I'd do four months of it, not worry too much about trying in the meantime and go from there. I went once a week until April and hated every minute of it (though I did love the actual acupuncturist, she was amazing), but I could feel subtle changes in my body. When I got my period, they felt like they used to pre-Harper. I won't go into graphic details, but I just felt like my old, super hormonal self.

Toward the end of treatment, I went to see a second reproductive endo, this time one I really liked. I wanted to make sure I had every blood test possible to make sure I really was starting on a clean slate after acupuncture. I got 20 vials of blood taken and a lot of extra blood sugar work because my blood sugar had come back a little strange. While I waited for the results and my next appointment in June, there was a well-timed marital encounter in late May 2013.

Just nine days later, in early June, when my friend was over with her two kids and 12 weeks pregnant with her third, I noticed how sore my chest was. That's not a symptom I get monthly -- wasn't even a symptom I had while pregnant with Harper -- so I thought hmmm? When Harper was in bed that night I drove way too far to find a Dollar Tree so I could stock up on a thousand pee strips and obsess over faint, faint lines. Except that when I hurried into my bathroom and took the test, the line was definitely not faint, definitely not a maybe. On just nine days past ovulation it came up immediately and was super, super dark. Say wha?

And that was Bea.

They think I was probably pregnant with twins to start with. They saw a weird undeveloped blob on an early sonogram and my HCG levels were through the roof from an early, early stage. (64,000 at my first appointment -- I think they were looking for 1,000-5,000.) It would explain the really dark, early test and why I got morning sickness before I even missed my period - - which coincided perfectly with a 10-day writing seminar I took at Yale. I kept dry heaving during panels of editors and weeping uncontrollably over waffles in the dining hall. Of course the whole time I kept taking those Dollar Tree tests in my dorm bathroom, expecting them to fade at any minute. But! Soon the test line was darker than the control and I just kept getting sicker and sicker, depressingly unable to enjoy the Shake Shack that was within walking distance.

And as long as that whole, lonesome journey had felt -- it was suddenly over. I was going to have the two kids I wanted. All that junk in the past was just junk in the past.

I have no idea what caused those four chemical pregnancies, or what took me almost 2 years to get pregnant. And I don't know if the four months of acupuncture helped (I really think it did -- but I'll never know how or why) or maybe the fact I got a root canal done the week before I got pregnant or that I lost 5 pounds a few months before. Was it because I started going forward with life plans -- taking a weekend away with girlfriends in New York, doing the Yale thing? Was it nothing and just time passing would have solved it all? Don't know, don't know, don't know.

I do know that what I went through (not the chemical part, exactly, I think that's kinda weird still) is not uncommon at all. So many women have a tough time getting pregnant -- either the first time or second time or third time or anytime. For all the people out there who brag "my husband just has to LOOK AT ME and I'm pregnant!" there are just as many thinking "NOT ME!"

And I know that sometimes when you're in something like infertility it can feel murky and dark for so, so long. But looking back, it wasn't really the longest or the worst and it somehow just passed. As time always seems to. I wish I hadn't been so hard on myself, I wish I'd seen how much I was doing for Harper, and how it gave me time to write more and sleep a bit more and have some great adventures. (Spain and Disney and Chicago and New Haven!)

(And now I feel like I'm writing Oprah's What I Know for Sure column...)

I know that the people who seem like they have it all together probably don't. They're feeling stressed by too many kids maybe. Or a career they're unsure of. Or their marriage is rocky or their parents aren't well or they're just plagued by typical and boring shortcomings like the rest of us. We have no idea what's going on behind others' walls and it's a waste to worry about it. Off with your head, Pinterest and Instagram!

It can be hard to hear "it'll be okay!" from someone on the other side of this, so I'll resist the urge to go there. But I do hope anyone treading these waters knows they are definitely not alone and they're definitely not crazy for feeling crazy or obsessed or worried. It's all normal and it's all life and I guess I just want to say -- I hear you and hang in there.