#1

Hello, world. I have no idea who will read this, if anyone. It will probably be yet another endeavor I attempt (like creating life) that is doomed to fail before it even begins. This attitude begs the question, then why begin? Well played. I'll tell you why: because I'm tired of suffering in silence and I'd like to sound my angrily barbaric yawp to the universe. 

I don't really read other people's blogs. I don't even entirely understand the purpose of a blog. But I'm sick of consigning my morose and self-abnegating comments to a Word doc journal on my desktop which no one (including me) reads. My pathos craves an audience. I need a bigger stage.
 

By the way, do you like my choice of background image? 

The long and the short of it is this: I'm pregnant after three years of ttc (that's trying to conceive for the uninitiated). I had a miscarriage at 10 weeks in November of 2008, and I spun into a twisting vortex of despair after that happened. (I'll write a whole post about that experience in a few days: stay tuned for that treat.) We could not conceive again for three years, during which time my heart hardened to a crispy blackness reminiscent of my dog's sun-baked turds. I wished death to all who were lucky in fertility. I lurked Facebook with self-lacerating obsession for updates from friends who were pregnant or had had children. This resulted in crying jags lasting hours upon hours. (I have since deactivated my Facebook account.) I prayed. I stopped praying. I prayed again.

Then four weeks ago today I got my BFP (big fat positive) on a HPT (home pregnancy test). It was not necessarily a surprise because we had actively tried that month, but it was a shock in the sense that we had gone so long trying with only a negative result. 

I've had a series of bad pieces of news in the intervening four weeks. These include that the embryo is measuring one week to ten days behind, and that my hCg levels are not doubling every two days as they're supposed to. There is plenty of online commentary (reputable and disreputable alike: my professional-grade Googling lands me everywhere from credible medical Web sites to poorly spelled bullshit on Ask.com) which indicates that these do not necessarily guarantee an end to the pregnancy. And my doctor has said that it is still theoretically possible that this little one survives. 

But I've been here before.

And I'm prepared for the worst.

Actually, I'm already living the worst. My heart is a black mass of toxic fluid. My body is a death chamber. My spirit is broken, my faith is cracking. I pray to God, the saints, Mary, the whole pantheon of my youth. But I'm walking around waiting for the other shoe to drop, and when it does... I don't know how I'll survive.

Actually, the problem is I know I'll survive fine. I'll just return to the bitterness of my infertile days of the past three years. I know that reality well: I've settled into it, I manage the thorns of my twisted psyche with dexterity. I know how to get up in the morning when you detest your life: you just put one foot in front of the other and go start your shower. It's easy once you embrace it. 

But I so desperately want this one to live. Please, God, let it live. Don't consign me to the flames of spiritual death. Don't destroy me again. Let the child live. Let the child live. Let this child live.