Keeping Things in Perspective

We're still hoping, of course, to be pleasantly surprised by tomorrow's beta, but we assume that what we'll actually see is that my HCG has dropped since Friday, confirming that although I was, evidently, technically pregnant for a few days there, I no longer am.

It is, as I said before, a weird feeling.

The amazement at having managed to have gotten even "a little bit pregnant" on our first try actually comes close to (but, unfortunately, still falls short of) overshadowing the disappointment of not being completely successful, and the sadness of knowing that there was a "Zippy" for a while there, but there isn't anymore.

That part is kind of odd, though, because we certainly are sad about it, but we're not devasted, as I might have expected.

I think the most important factor is that we had already gotten the negative result on the pee stick on Thursday, before getting the iffy result on the blood test on Friday.

So, we went from hoping we were pregnant, to thinking that we weren't to finding out that we had been and there's a tiny, tiny chance we might still be.

That is so much better than if we'd gone from thinking that we were pregnant to finding out that there was almost no hope that we actually still were.

We certainly feel a loss, but it's a loss of something that we never knew we had.

I know that is infinitely different from what it might have been if we'd gotten a positive result and thought things were going well for several days - or weeks - or months - before things went wrong.

I know people who've been through that, and I can't even begin to fathom that pain.

I almost feel that I don't deserve to feel sad about this, because it just totally pales in comparison to what they've been through.

As pregnancy loss goes, what we (assume) we are experiencing is about as mild as it gets, but it makes the possibility real for us.

Having been through even this, I find myself much more aware of the potential for an unhappy outcome.

It is easy to think that "bad things" happen to "other people" but this reminds me that everybody thinks that, until it happens to them. After all, someody has to be the "other people."

I know that, when we do get a good, solid positive result - and I know that we will, whether that is on our next attempt or several months from now - our joy and our excitement will certainly be tempered by uncertainty, much more so then they would have been, otherwise.

I know that I will view a positive first beta as just "a good sign" and certainly no kind of guarantee. I'm sure I'll get a bit more optimistic with each successive beta, as my HCG levels double as expected, and even more after ultrasounds confirm that all is well, and might actually relax a bit more after the first trimester, but I'm sure I will always be worried.

Here are a couple of statistics that I've come across during my research over the past couple of days:

• As many as 80% of women will (whether they realize it or not) experience a chemical pregnancy at some time during their reproductive years.
• 50 to 60% of first pregnancies end in miscarriage very early in pregnancy. Most occur without the woman even knowing that she was pregnant.

Actually, both Shrike and I found that second statistic oddly comforting, perhaps because it was phrased in terms of "first pregnancies."

Who knows, maybe the statistic is the same for all pregnancies, but since it only says "first pregnancies," I guess it gives us the impression that the next time we get egg and sperm together, our odds of having them "stick" will be better.

Shrike laughed at me when I told her, but what my gut reaction to that statistic reminds me of the most is this:

When I played softball as a kid, the players in the dugout would cheer and shout encouragement to the batter.

After the first strike of an at-bat, we'd always say, "Ok, now you're ready, now you're ready!"

That's how it feels.

We've got (or soon will have) our "first pregnancy" behind us (wow, that feels really freaky to say), we've done our time on the "bad side" of the odds, and now we're ready to move on.

To stretch my softball analogy a bit more, (God, what a dyke!) it's like we connected on the first pitch, but popped it foul.

With one strike against us, we're warmed up, we've got a feel for the pitcher, and now we're ready to swing for the fences.