You've Got to Ac-Cen-Tchu-Ate... Oh, Shut Up.

I'm not feeling so great today.

I mean, I'm fine physically. My morning sickness is diminishing every day to the point where I routinely get hungry before I get nauseous. I'm tired, but no more so than usual. In terms of aches and pains, the biggest thing I have to complain about is a totally unrelated blister on my foot (darn you, cute shoes!) Honestly, if it weren't for the belly that's getting harder to cover up every day - and which I keep spilling soup on - it would be possible to actually forget that I'm pregnant. In fact, these past few days have been downright boring, symptom-wise. And boring is good, because boring is normal, normal is not traumatic, and not constantly experiencing traumatic events means that I have a fighting chance of getting back to the person I was before this whole crazy mess started.

Yesterday was a different story. It was far from the worst-case scenario, but the news of my placenta previa just kicked me right to the curb again. The pattern of my behavior is roughly: feel happy ---> see doctor/find out something is wrong with my body ---> plunge into crippling depression ---> over a long period of time, start gradually feeling better ---> feel happy ---> see doctor/find out something is wrong with my body ---> etc. This problem was greatly compounded during my IVF cycle by a negative experience with my egg retrieval procedure, which made me feel like the medical staff who were telling me all these bad things about my malfunctioning body were not in fact kind people who were doing their best to help me, but rather judgmental, heartless cogs in a reproductive endocrinology assembly line that was processing patients with approximately the same level of care that Henry Ford used on his Model Ts. (Okay, that was harsh. What I mean to say is, Henry Ford used way more care on his precious horseless carriages than I felt my RE's office did during my retrieval. I'm still really pissed that they took what was already a bad situation and made it worse, and no, obviously I have not gotten past it yet.) Everyone I interacted with yesterday was very kind, thorough, and optimistic that we will ultimately have a good outcome. That's wonderful, of course, although it also makes things a little harder to wrap my head around because when I look back at the totality of my experience since my diagnosis, there's no one villain that I can point to and say "You! This is your fault!" There's no mustache-twirling Giver of Infertility who I can fantasize about punching in the face. There's just bad luck, and good luck, and I have no way of predicting which one will finally tip the scale.

Anyway. I could start linking to a bunch of research I did yesterday about complete placenta previa and why I'm slightly mystified that my doctors are so pessimistic that mine won't clear up before delivery (many do! really! and they are quantified in peer-reviewed studies that are published in major medical journals!), but I think I'll save that for another day. My guess is that I'll start to feel better slowly over the next few days and weeks, right up until my next appointment can tell me that the baby is eating my lungs or shaped like a dragon or something else equally unpredictable and horrifying. We'll have to see.

Coming soon: My contribution to NIAW! Telling friends I'm pregnant! Maternity pants deliberately worn to a burger place for maximum food consumption!