Marking the moment

So, I’m totally exhausted. This amazing weekend has come to an end and my bed is calling my name. Here’s the thing, though. I feel like I can’t let myself sleep until I pump out something – anything – to mark this moment. This is the last moment of certainty I fear I’ll have for a while.

And, the timing of it is kind of a shame. I owe you all (and am promising you now!) a much, much longer post about my weekend at the Walk of Hope. For the sake of providing a teaser (because I clearly haven’t dangled enough others out there lately), here’s the general run-down:

• $70,000 raised for RESOLVE
• A beautiful and warm DC morning
• A sparkly new venue with what felt like many more people than last year
• Bucketfulls of hope and cheer
• A lot of adorable little ones wearing multiple variations of “I’m an IVF kid” stickers
• A few inspiring conversations with total strangers
• Oh, and yea, and one other little thing. I got a personal thank you, hand shake, and bracelet from RESOLVE’s own Barbara Collura for being among the top individual fundraisers.

So, yea, that happened!

But, what’s weighing heavier on my sleepy mind at the moment is that tomorrow is beta day. Tomorrow things change. I’d say I’m feeling about 5% confident we’ll get a clear BFN, 5% confident we’ll get a clear BFP, and about 90% confident that we’ll still be left waiting. I’m calling it now — mildly elevated beta that could either be an early pregnancy (with my hallmark shit betas) or residual HCG from my regular boosters (last 2,500IU dose on Friday).

In my head I’ve established my own scale:

• <40: Abandon all hope ye who enter here. Totally not pregnant
• 40-300: Who the fuck knows? Another round of beta hell
• >300: How did my lab’s get mixed with someone else’s? Could it actually be…

I don’t now how hard and fast any of you should view those numbers, but I know that I need my own personal matrix in place before I’m ready to cope with tomorrow. I’m going to have enough to obsess over, at least I can do a little prior planning on the numbers end of things.

I complain a lot about how the uncertainty is one of the hardest elements of this whole IF deal. There are the big picture uncertainties – will I ever be a mother? will I have a biological child? will I ever be able to get over this pain and anger? – and there are the more granular worries – when can I try to TTC again? will I get pregnant? will I stay pregnant? They all cause their own level of stress and anguish, but I do think the uncertainty I’ve had the hardest time coping with over the years is that which sets in after chemical confirmation of pregnancy. If trying to conceive carves your life into two week periods of waiting, confirmation of pregnancy carves my life into 2 hour, 2 minute, and 2 second intervals of waiting. My three failed pregnancies have made me familiar with what it feels like to experience concrete and tangible sources of uncertainty for which there is no timeline or end point. The seconds after a positive pregnancy test are, perhaps, the most frightening of all for me.

As all this runs through my head I know I’m rationalizing. As I posted on Twitter earlier today, to me, “BFN=certainty and BFP=anxiety.” I’m already setting up my own lose/lose situation. If my blood test is negative, sure I’ll have certainty, but I’ll also have failed at conceiving yet again. And, this would be even worse, because I’d be batting 0 for 2 for the first time given this cycle’s two perfect-appearing follicles. If I am pregnant, I’ll always feel the need to refer to myself as “technically” pregnant, and will anticipate that each hour, minute, or second will be the last one of my fourth pregnancy. Our psyches’ have a strange way of trying to maintain some semblance of stability, eh?

So, this is the moment I’m marking. A moment of the utmost clarity at my role, purpose, and importance in the infertility community, mixed with complete confusion as to the headspace I should currently be occupying.

At least Mr. But IF and I both had equally valid excuses for why we didn’t get so much as a card for one another for our 7th anniversary tomorrow. Because, yea, that’s good timing for a beta…