I think the excitement is starting to eclipse the fear – at least for the moment. Not that I wasn’t excited, but being terrified really kind of impedes just feeling happy. It’s one of the reasons I was so freaking angry. This pregnancy means so much to me, and I want to be able to enjoy it like I did with Devin’s, not just wishing it were over. As much as I will always be waiting for it to be done with, waiting to hold a baby in my arms, I hope I can also just be happy with where I am. It’s so hard to do now. The shadow can seem almost too much to get out from under it.

But the last two days I’ve felt… happy. My little tiny belly paunch is starting to stick out a little more, and even though I know it’s flab and bloating, it reminds me that I am pregnant. Every time I notice it I think, “Oh my god.” There is wonder and joy and thankfulness.

So very thankful. Just like last time. We had to struggle through so much, some really hard failures, to get to where we are now. A lot of bad news without any guarantee of ever getting good news. But we have it now. I do belong to groups online, and of course most of them are not infertiles. Do I still get a little angry at the world that most of them got pregnant in 1-3 cycles when I couldn’t? Yeah. But I think I’m okay with being set apart. When I list our journey people say, “Whoa.” It’s not normal. It’s a hell of a lot harder. But in the end I’m sitting here at 6 weeks pregnant and bawling in joy.

::

I apparently have also been blessed with a lot of understanding people. It shouldn’t surprize me, but it still does sometimes anyways. And I don’t mean my blog readers – you all know my journey – I mean the new groups online, and coworkers and such… the people who don’t really know me.

My online forums haven’t batted an eye at the fact that this is my second child, or said a word about my sig (which has Devin’s picture in it right now). It’s mostly a younger generation on these forums, and it’s quite uplifting to see how accepting and encouraging everyone is. I have had nothing but people rallying around me, supporting me, cheering me on. And one of the coolest things is seeing how my old pregnancy group – one I was a part of with Devin – are cheering me on. Those girls never for one second discounted Devin in any way. I cannot say how much that means to me.

At work I have been pleasantly surprized – I haven’t gotten one comment about relaxing on vacation. And remember how I said one coworker is pregnant too? I was talking to her a bit today, and she said she actually knew she was pregnant back in March, before I left. But she said she was really hoping I would get pregnant, and she didn’t announce her news because I “had enough shit to deal with” and she didn’t want to add to it. I also had another friend online who did the same thing, waiting to announce a pregnancy in the hopes that I would get good news and theirs wouldn’t hurt me. I just think about how very selfless these people are… how they were thinking of me at a time like that.

I am very sorry, however, that many of you have developed some very serious addictions to this blog. ;)

::

Either I didn’t notice last time, or I wasn’t feeling as much last time, but I didn’t realize how much the pregnancy things going on inside feel like impending AF. The spotting (yep, still doing that) makes me paranoid, which makes me notice every. little. thing. People are right, that “heavy,” bloated, achy feeling feels a lot like AF… and yet different. It does make me jump a little bit when I get a cramp of one sort or another. I’ve had some cervix twinges, some ligament pains, some general uterus weird-feeling-things that I assume is stretching.

There are a lot of moments in my day when I forget that I am pregnant. I’ll get busy working on something, then I’ll feel a twinge and startle for a brief second… and then realize, once again, HOLY CRAP, I’m pregnant! And then I get a big dumb smile on my face and forget what I was doing.

Did I mention my boobs hurt? Yeah, my boobs hurt. Not a LOT. Just a little. Except when I try to sleep on them. And then they’re all like, errrrrrr, move over!! Plus they are itchy. I assume from that, and the fact that Den stared at me this morning when I got up and said, “Big boobies!”, that they are growing. Not a ton – no porn star boobs yet or anything. But they’re filling out a little. Yippee! But they are just going to have to get used to being slept on, because I am enjoying every last day I have to sleep on my belly.

My face is getting oilier than normal. I’m going to have to really keep up with that or I’ll break out like crazy. I hope my hormones even out after the first tri, like they did last time!

I’m getting impatient. The first trimester really kind of sucks. You aren’t showing, you can’t feel anything, you can’t check with a doppler, and there are a thousand things to worry about and a high chance of miscarriage. I am really really looking forward to moving past this stage. I want my belly to grow, I want to feel the baby move. I am SO excited to get further into this. It’s slowly sinking in that I could have a belly showing in a few short months. I wonder if it will be the same as I remember it. I wonder if it will be just as amazing.