Perfect Moment Monday: Reversals of Fortune

Over a year ago, I wrote about a woman I know solely because of infertility, and I wondered whether I should pursue a friendship. Following that post we continued to talk when we happened to see each other, but I didn’t end up specifically pursuing that friendship. After many failed IVFs, she is no longer pursuing treatments. Because of that, it felt like we were in different places in the process, and it just didn’t feel right to talk to her about my continuing treatments (whether more failures or, hopefully, an eventual success) while she had no possibility of conception. When I became pregnant, she was genuinely happy for me, but I felt awkward about having left her behind.

I haven’t seen her since early summer. Between bedrest and having newborns at home, I have barely left the house/hospital at all since mid-summer. Last week, during a rare outing, I ran into her. She has been pursuing international adoption, and since the last time I saw her, she has been matched with a child. In a couple of months she will have the baby in her arms. I am absolutely thrilled for her.

The Perfect Moment came when I realized that her baby is just two months older than Burrito and Tamale — close enough that they might become buddies. Somehow, in less than a year, we went from two nearly-hopeless infertiles, weary from years of failed treatments, to two mommies on the brink of planning playdates. It really can happen.

Find more Perfect Moments at Weebles Wobblog.

Put To The Test

[Pregnancy update for those who have been concerned due to my silence over the past few days: 33 weeks today. Still at home for now. As of yesterday, cervix dilating a bit more and Baby A's head apparently can be felt through the cervix, so I have no idea whether birth is imminent, whether I'll be back in the hospital tomorrow, or whether I'll be able to come home after I see the perinatologist. I will post something in the evening so that I don't leave anyone anxious with suspense.]

A year ago I wrote about an old friend of mine, one who is likely to struggle with infertility due to her medical history. I also wrote about how we’re no longer close enough for me to bring up such topics.

Today, after almost a year since our last contact, she emailed me, asking if anything was new.

Obviously, being 33 weeks pregnant with twins qualifies as news.

Here is my chance to practice what infertiles preach: the art of the gentle pregnancy announcement.

1. Do I just tell her about the impending babies, and that’s that?
2. Do I tell her about the babies with a subtle hint about the length of time we’ve been waiting, leaving the door open for her if she wants to talk about IF?
3. Do I flat-out tell her how these babies came to be, and extend the hand of infertile friendship?

1 or 2 would be my natural inclination, but I wonder if the situation calls for 3.

What would you do if you were me? That is, what would you do if you were generally secretive and taciturn, but also trying to be caring and helpful to someone who was your close friend more than a decade ago but is now a very casual acquaintance?

Thoughtful Thursday: BFF

Following up, sort of, on last week’s Thoughtful Thursday about the limits of the infertility sisterhood. That Thoughtful Thursday topic set an all-time record for consensus — everyone backed my decision not to befriend someone that I find unpleasant just because she happens to be (presumably) infertile, and most people said that in a similar situation they would also back off.

The day before that Thoughtful Thursday, I happened to hang out with Lori (Weebles Wobblog Wednesday?). She asked for a preview of the Thoughtful Thursday topic, and it led to a discussion of purposely befriending people, including strangers, just because they are in the same family-building boat (infertile, pregnant with twins conceived through treatments, adoptive parent…).

Meanwhile, while I was at the beach with Lori and her family, my husband was at the dentist. The hygienist is pregnant and due around the same time as I am, and she was extremely excited to talk to my husband. The next day at my own dentist appointment, the pregnant hygienist was off duty. The dentist, let’s call him Dr. Hipster (who is a bit younger than I am, has funkier glasses, and I’m sure has more exclusive taste in music) said about her, “She’s always enthusiastic, but she was off the charts yesterday. You and she are totally going to be BFFs.”

After getting over the shock of hearing a dentist use the phrase “BFF,” I thought about it. Why would I become friends with someone just because we’re pregnant at the same time? She’s probably not even infertile.

Then, this week, I attended my first birthing class. There was another woman there who was pregnant with twins, due just a few days before I am. My first thought? “New BFF!” As I talked to her more, my second thought? “Never mind. I can do better.” (I’m a tough friendship sell, clearly.)

Then I thought about my actual friends. Let’s review my closest real-life friends.

• Ernie, best friend from high school: Gay and therefore situationally infertile; brother is biologically infertile; mother is clueless
• Other best friend from high school: For over a decade has declared her intention to be childless by choice
• Best friend from college: Female factor infertility, now parenting following IUI
• Best friend from graduate school: Advanced maternal age, now parenting following IUI
• Another close friend from graduate school: Not technically infertile, but TTC #2 when I was a year into TTC; had a miscarriage, then got pregnant again and for a brief time we were pregnant simultaneously; though not infertile, totally gets it
• A third close friend from graduate school: Unexplained infertility, now parenting following low-level interventions (after ~5 years of trying without intervention)

Are you sensing a pattern? Notably, all but the latter were my friends long before TTC came into the picture. The latter had already started trying when we met, but we didn’t really talk about TTC until years later when I started having trouble.

No, I’m not so exclusionary (or single-minded) as to choose friends on the basis of infertility. But… there are definitely people who’ve been crossed off the list because of a combination of fertility and insensitivity.

As for making new friends, I’ve certainly been tempted before to create a friendship on the basis of shared infertility. That friendship ultimately never went anywhere because it didn’t feel right to pursue it when treatments had worked for me but not for her — we stopped being a match in our family-building paths.

When I start attending meetings of the local multiples club, will I attempt to sort the infertile wheat from the fertile chaff? Will I arrange playdates only with kids who were conceived in a lab instead of a bed?

Uh, maybe.

Have you found yourself trying to befriend people on the basis of shared family-building paths? If so, how has it gone?

Thoughtful Thursday: Limits

This past weekend, we saw a bunch of DH’s friends. They included:

• a couple who announced their pregnancy, that day
• a couple whose wedding we attended in March, and who have just entered the 4th month of pregnancy
• a couple who gave birth last week to baby #2
• a couple who are pregnant with baby #3, due around the same time as I am
• the brother of Mr. Other Host; Mrs. Other Host gave birth in a different city while we were with the brother, who could talk about nothing else
• various single men
• and… a couple who have no children and are not pregnant

Let’s call that last couple the Henpecks. They are fundamentally good people, but they aren’t particularly enjoyable to be around. There’s the henpecking — I actually heard the wife tell the husband to “Shut up” in front of a bunch of people). There’s the boring conversation with each other — before ordering dinner, they literally went through all 100 items on the menu trying to find the best combination of two dishes for them to share. Then there’s the conversation with other people — things they find fascinating are not interesting to anyone else. If you recount a conversation you had with them to someone else, that person will say, “Oh, you must be talking about The Henpecks” because no one else would discuss those topics.

DH went to school with the husband, but they have never been friends; instead, DH and Mr. Henpeck have several mutual friends, so we end up in the same place sometimes. They’ve made overtures toward being friends with us, which DH has dodged. Mrs. Henpeck is an active object of ridicule among most of those mutual friends, mostly because of all the henpecking.

In the midst of the baby bonanza weekend, I got a pretty good sense that the Henpecks are infertile. There were numerous knowing looks to each other when babies came up, as they did every few minutes (not brought up by me, of course). At one point, they asked how long we’ve been married, and they contrasted my over-a-decade marriage with the couple who just got pregnant within a month of their wedding. The Henpecks have been married for about 7 years. I said, trying to be very kind but also not wanting to get into it too much, “Everyone has their own timeline.” Mr. Henpeck grasped his wife’s hand and looked at her sadly. *Ding ding, infertile alarm!*

This was a golden opportunity for me to extend the hand of infertile friendship, but I purposely let the opportunity pass me by. I’ve blogged several times about wanting to reach out (and sometimes actually doing it) to friends and acquaintances who seem to be dealing with IF, whether my knowledge of their infertility comes through their own disclosure or my guessing games. Wanting to provide information if needed, wanting to let them know they’re not alone, wanting to offer a source of support…

This time, though, I didn’t want to reach out. Just because we both have the same problem doesn’t mean I want to talk about it with them. I don’t want them calling me, or emailing me, or having long talks over coffee. Just when I thought I was a poster girl for infertility support, I found that there are limits to my participation in the Sisterhood. If they asked me about infertility outright, I would talk to them, but it turns out that I am not willing to start a new friendship with people I don’t like, just because they happen to be infertile. I don’t spend enough time talking to my actual friends to invest time and energy in the Henpecks. I feel for them, but that’s where it ends.

Are there limits to the help that you are willing to provide to people dealing with adoption/loss/infertility issues? Are you willing to reach out to everyone, or only to some people?

Thoughtful Thursday: Signals

Last week we talked about etiquette for dealing with infertiles. Most people prefer to be treated with extra consideration, but some people don’t like being singled out. This week, I’d like to examine the issue from the other side: the signals we send that cause people to treat us in certain ways.

Let’s examine emails I have received from two close friends. One is my best friend from college, and one is my best friend from graduate school.

My college friend knew what was going on with IF, but during the period in the past 7 years when we have been in closest contact, I was in my TTC break after Miscarriage #1. When she’d bring up the issue of IF, I usually didn’t want to talk about it. Not that I didn’t want to talk to her, but I didn’t want to deal with the issue at all at that point. I didn’t want to talk, I didn’t want to try, I didn’t want to risk losing another baby, and I certainly didn’t want to deal with treatments. Given how much I have talked about IF more recently, especially since I started blogging, it’s pretty funny to think that there was a time when I didn’t want to deal with IF at all — but at that point that’s where I was emotionally.

When she and I don’t live in the same city, our communication is intermittent — we don’t tend to talk on the phone, and she is notoriously bad about returning emails. Literally a year can go by between my initial email and her reply. I hadn’t heard from her in a year and a half when I received the following email last fall:

[chitchat about work]
Okay, now the hard update: Let me preface this section by saying it’s the hard stuff, because we haven’t talked about this subject in a very long time, and the last time we did, it was very painful to you. If you start reading this and change your mind, just delete the message. The topic is babies.

She then went on to talk about how she’d dealt with infertility and started treatments and now was pregnant.

She tried so hard to be sensitive to my feelings that she had “spared” me from commiserating, sharing knowledge, supporting each other. I had never given her the message that I was now okay talking about my own infertility, and so she assumed that I still didn’t want to talk about it. She has a perception that I’m more emotionally fragile than I am, which certainly added to the situation, but ultimately she was respecting the signals that I’d sent.

Compare that to my best friend from graduate school. She was present throughout my initial TTC efforts, then treatments, then M/C #1, then the hiatus, then back to trying again. During that time, she went from being single to meeting a guy, marrying him, experiencing infertility, doing treatments, succeeding, having a baby, trying again, and having another baby. Damn, I’ve been at this a long time. During her initial IF, I tried to be helpful with information and support, but she was much more eager to get the show on the road and escalate to treatments than I ever was, so she didn’t find the situation as troubling as most of the rest of us seem to.

Her email to me, not long after IVF #2:

How are you, BabySmiling? Are you okay? I know you have been swamped plus dealing with IVF hell. I think of you all the time and I hope you are keeping your head above water. I know you are BabySmiling, but still, it is a lot.

This is a perfect email. Checking in, expressing care, praising my usual coping, and acknowledging that it may be harder than I’m letting on. The signals that I was sending to her were that I was facing a lot but trying to deal. I like that version of myself much better than the version with her fingers in her ears saying “la la la la”, and I like the response that this capable version elicited much better too. Strangely, my false front is super-capable, but so is my real self… most of the time.

What signals have you sent out about how people should treat you? Did other people’s responses fit the signals you were sending? You can talk about infertility, or pick some other issue.

16w1d: Going Public

(This post talks about post-infertility pregnancy, but not about actual pregnancy.)

It’s been a week and a half since we told our families and most of the other people we know that I am carrying twins. Mostly individual announcements, except for a big reveal at a family dinner.

For someone who’s not anxious by nature, I was a ball of nerves before each family announcement. I asked DH if he was nervous, and he said, “No, why would I be nervous?”

Mostly, reactions have been extremely positive. A lot of excited screaming from family members. From friends, mild happiness at the initial pregnancy announcement followed by elation or dumbfoundedness in response to “twins.” The best twin reaction, from DH’s step-grandmother: “Wholesale!”

Much less “what took you so long” than I expected. Almost-universal questions about whether twins run in my family. Out of about 40 people told in person or on the phone, only 3 had specific questions about fertility treatments.

• As mentioned last week, one of my bosses: “Do twins run in your family, or was it fertility drugs…?”
• One of DH’s friends, who probably hasn’t dealt with fertility issues himself but is generally more aware than the average person: “So, do twins run in the family, or was it (knowing look) something else?”
• Mr. Dad, husband of Anti-Mom, mentioned previously in detail here and here. Thanks mostly to Anti-Mom’s bitchiness, Mr. Dad has gone from DH’s closest friend to someone who may or may not get added to an Evite when we’re in town. “Did you find out they were twins at the 5-week ultrasound or the 8-week ultrasound?” Nobody would know to ask such a question unless he’d been through fertility treatments himself. I’d suspected, but now it’s confirmed. Although I usually like someone more after learning they’re infertile, this revelation doesn’t change how I feel about Anti-Mom — she’s always been horrible: pre-, during, and post-infertility.

For someone who has been anticipating this announcement for 7 years, there are a lot of things I did not anticipate.

• A few minutes of talk about pregnancy, babies, etc., then moving on to other topics without me directing the conversation there. Most people aren’t as single-minded as I feared.
• The extent to which family members would commandeer the news as their own. DH’s stepmother sent out a mass email to everyone she knows, then forwarded us all of the responses. I stopped counting at 22. I have met 5 of those 22, and heard the names of less than half of the others. Several of my dearest friends still don’t know (because we are not sending out mass emails, and instead telling people as we see them in person unless we are guaranteed not to see someone until after the birth), but some lady from my stepmother-in-law’s yoga class knows. It’s sweet, really, but still weird.
• Insight into secret conversations that have been going on. For example, my mother said, “Last month your dad asked me when you were going to have children. I said, ‘How would I know?’” DH’s unmarried sister (with whom I’ve felt like I’m in a race) revealed that their mother has been pressuring her to have a baby, with or without getting married first, because we were too slow to produce grandchildren.
• My dad’s first question was whether the babies’ last name will be Hers-His or His-Hers. Neither, actually.
• DH’s father doting on me and refusing to let me lift a finger.

Unfortunately, one thing I did anticipate accurately was the extent to which DH’s mother would be a nightmare. I didn’t guess all of her statements exactly, but in many ways she’s been even worse than I expected. DH called her before telling the rest of the family in person (she lives in different city from most of the rest of the family) because he would never hear the end of it if she wasn’t the first to know. Just as I predicted, it’s been all about her.

• Her first reaction: Burst into tears. Then, “I’m going to have my hands full!”
• Her first words to me: “Can I ask you a series of questions?”
• Her first statement when she called DH’s father, waiting a whole two hours after we swore her to secrecy: “We did it!”
• Her instructions to DH’s stepmother: “We have to go to their house together and help out after our babies are born.” Stepmother humored her because she is too nice to say, “Never in a million years. That would be miserable.” I was the one who had to explain to DH’s mom that it would be more helpful if they came separately for a week each rather than together for one week (“Then we can come together for two weeks!” No, just no.). DH says he liked it better when they didn’t get along.
• Elapsed time between announcement and her purchase of baby items despite DH telling her not to buy anything: 14 hours, 8 of which were spent sleeping.

She has called almost every day to ask dozens of questions (“Were the babies conceived in Spain? You could give them Spanish names!”), twist our arms to let her buy things (“Do you know how much a double stroller costs?”), tell us fun facts about twin pregnancy that she’s found on the internet (“African women are more likely to have twins!” Me, completely deadpan: “I am not African.”), and suggest ideas like a baby pool (my comment to dissuade her: “If the babies are born several months early, the person who collects the money for having the earliest guess will really feel like an asshole.”). I thought that scaring her with the risks of twin pregnancy was an effective way to shut her down until she started to believe that something is terribly wrong and that the only way to extract the truth is through constant questioning.

Poor DH fields almost all of the calls from his mother. He has answered all of her questions patiently, except for how we could have known they were twins so early, which he kept refusing to answer until I fed him a line about amnions and chorions (confuse her with science!). My plan before revealing the pregnancy was to come out of the IF closet — I still think that if anyone in our families asked about fertility treatments outright we would tell them the truth. But, we’re not addressing roundabout questions nor nosey questions asked for the sake of nosiness. Given how intrusive his mother has been with simple information, infertility is a can of worms that neither of us is eager to open up.

13w1d: Nuchal Scan

I had my nuchal scan on Tuesday. But first, a few examples of how infertility still affects me.

1. This weekend, we informed a friend-of-friends couple (you may know them as, “Have BabySmiling’s boobs always been that big?”) about the pregnancy. Wife was basically jumping up and down with joy — not easy, since she’s 8 1/2 months pregnant. Husband proceeded to make all sorts of lewd comments about the process of getting pregnant. I didn’t bother to correct him and explain that no sex was involved. Throughout the night, he kept interspersing random comments like, “Hey, you must be pregnant. Your tits are huge!” They’re a breast-oriented couple, apparently. I actually like the husband a lot, despite how jerky he sounds.
2. I’ve had an Amazon book order in my shopping cart for more than a week, including some twin books and some regular pregnancy/baby books. I have been putting off the order in case the nuchal scan revealed that one or both of the babies are dead. Thanks, infertility mindset!
3. The night before the nuchal scan, for the first time in this pregnancy, for hours after my husband went to bed I was unable to sleep. For once I was actually caught up with my blog-reading, so instead I tried to catch up on Creme de la Creme. Thanks, Dead Baby Thoughts!

My fears were thankfully unfounded. Nuchal scan went fine. The babies were so beautiful. I could make out the individual vertebrae of their spines, fingers, stomachs, button noses. They kept waving their arms in the air like they didn’t care (or rather, waving their arms in the amniotic fluid like they were druids?).

We also got blood draws to check for translocations and some other genetic issues. The genetic counselor said that given my two prior miscarriages, she personally would have pushed for genetic testing before conception, but I told her that Dr. Full Steam Ahead wasn’t so full-steam-ahead with genetics for some reason and didn’t want to test until after three miscarriages. That ship has presumably sailed, but if genetic testing reveals anything out of the ordinary, it will give us important information on these babies since some of the usual screens like the AFP aren’t helpful with twins. It would also be doing a service to any relatives who might share that genetic issue — for instance, if DH has any genetic issues, his four siblings who will be trying to conceive within the next 1 to 15 years would probably benefit from getting checked out.

The phlebotomist asked, “How are you with blood draws?” I wanted to say, “Fabulous! I have had more blood draws than you can possibly imagine, and I’ve given myself hundreds of injections!” But, I never want to make phlebotomists so complacent that they get rough or careless, so I blandly said, “Fine.”

And now, the main event! By the way, in case you’re keeping track, I’m pretty sure they’re still in the same positions with the same A/B assignments from the last ultrasound. But, last time, A was the bigger one, and now B has caught up and passed his/her twin. B’s heart rate is still a little faster. (For my own future reference:) currently the one on my left is A and the one on my right is B.

Baby A, measuring at 13w2d (2 days ahead), heart rate 158; it looks like A is sucking his/her thumb, but it was more like waving to us

Baby B, measuring at 13w3d (3 days ahead), heart rate 162

I love them so much.

Now it’s time to place that Amazon order…

Thoughtful Thursday: Reveal

It’s May, and that means it’s time to announce the April Intelligentsia (people who have commented on every Thoughtful Thursday post for the month of April).

Of course, we’ll start with stalwart four-timer Wiseguy from Woman Anyone?

Ernessa from Fierce and Nerdy is three-peating, and she also just sold her first novel. Congrats!

Fattykins from I Can’t Wash My Jeans, My Fat Is In The Way and
Kristen from Dragondreamer’s Lair are back for the second time.

We also have a few first-timers:
New members include: Beautiful Mess Life induces thoughts, mostly random, Jill from All Aboard the Pity Boat, and Photogrl from Not the Path I Chose.

Next order of business: the contest to guess the Transformers-themed nicknames that we’ve given to our fetuses. As I predicted, nobody guessed either one, though there were some good guesses. My husband particularly enjoyed Photogrl’s offerings of Primus and Galvatron. His exact reaction: “Ooh, second generation Transformers!” There were lots of guesses for Optimus Prime, but we vastly prefer the (relatively) esoteric.

No, our fetuses are named Starscream…

and Soundwave, a now-anachronistic 1980s cassette player.

I am a goody-goody, but DH is all about the Decepticons.

And now, for the main event.

This weekend, I saw several old friends and one new friend… Dora!

We didn’t tell some of them that I’m pregnant, because they’re not close friends and although I’ve gained a little weight, it can pass as extra fat.

We did inform my dear friend Ernie (Bert was ill and couldn’t join us). He was absolutely thrilled.

I surprised myself by not explaining how they were conceived, even though in the same conversation we talked about his brother Grover’s continued infertility with his wife Prairie Dawn, and we have previously discussed Ernie and Bert’s situational infertility as a gay couple. The method of conception just didn’t seem relevant, and a discussion of our own troubles seemed like it would take away some of the jubilation.

Despite years in the infertility closet (we’ve told a few friends, zero family), I’ve fully expected to spill the beans to almost everyone once we make our announcement. Public service, partially, and also putting it all out there after years of secrecy. But, after my encounter with Ernie, I’m second-guessing that assumption. When the time comes for each conversation, maybe I won’t feel like it. Maybe it won’t be appropriate right then. Sure, if people bother us with “what took you so long” or “how did you get twins” questions I’ll give them an earful. But if they’re only reaction is happiness, do I really want to ruin the fun right then?

One couple that I still plan to inform, even though we’re not close friends, is a couple who everyone else has had on babywatch since their wedding two years ago. They are very religious, and they own a giant house in Minivan-land. I happen to know through a mutual friend that they have had fertility issues, just as I silently suspected (and as everyone else has been loudly speculating). The big tipoff for me was the way that the wife beamed when she found out about that mutual friend’s pregnancy — “Isn’t that so wonderful for them?” Not a bitter infertile like me, but hopeful and genuine. I want to tell her about our struggles to offer myself as a resource if she’d like and also to hopefully give her some hope (not that she’s lost hope at this point). But who knows; I may chicken out again.

For someone who is far from shy in speaking her mind, I sure do clam up a lot around reproductive issues. But just wait until the inappropriate questions/comments start. There will be no clams in sight, only soapboxes.

Who have you told about infertility, and what made you tell them? Who do you plan to tell in the future, and why?

10w0d: Fun with Weight Gain

Note to ICLW visitors: Hi! This post is pregnancy-related. If you would prefer non-pregnancy talk, come back on Thursday.

I have the weirdest problem. I need to gain more weight.

When skinny girls complain about being unable to gain weight, they get little sympathy. Just like when fertiles complain to infertiles about getting pregnant every time their husband looks at them. Or like the time my husband needed a new wallet because his old wallet had been so full of money that it burst. Lest you think we’re rolling in the dough, it’s not what you think. A dozen guys had reimbursed him for prepaying their hotel rooms during a Boys’ Weekend. Even from the guys who had just handed him a large amount of money in small bills, there were a lot of glares when he announced the state of his wallet.

Back to me, and being simultaneously fat and skinny.

I’m not like the skinny girls, I swear. I am not, and have never been anything close to, a skinny girl.

I’m just carrying twins. To increase the likelihood of actually giving birth to two live babies, I need to gain a lot of weight throughout this pregnancy. The estimates vary depending on who you listen to/which books you read, but the twin book that I trust the most says that the best outcomes for multiples in terms of survival and reduced prematurity require a lot of weight gain. Mind-boggling caloric intake and double the protein that I’ve been getting even on days when I try hard to consume protein. For a vegetarian who has lost her taste for most sweets, getting that many calories is pretty much impossible. (See? Cry Me A River territory, right?)

I’ve been eating constantly, and I thought that I was pretty well on track. Most of my pants no longer fit, and my belly is much bigger than usual.

Then I went to the OB. I haven’t been on a scale since before getting pregnant, so I had no idea how much weight I’ve actually gained. I would have guessed at least 10 pounds (which would be perfect given the twin recommendations and my starting BMI).

Nope. I have gained (drum roll)…

…zero pounds.

Huh?

My weight during treatments has fluctuated in a 5-pound range, and today I was smack-dab in the middle of that range. What the hell? I am certainly bigger, so where is that weight going (and why didn’t my weight magically disappear before I was pregnant, when I wouldn’t have minded)?

DH said that he has been secretly monitoring my food intake, and that although I am eating more, I am also eating mostly healthy foods. Too much salad! Even my salad dressing choice is not fatty enough.

I now have to eat almost nonstop, and I need to work in more fattening foods (most of which don’t appeal to me, between the nausea, aversions, and my preexisting eating patterns). Remember when I said that I have the weirdest problem?

I will leave you with two vignettes that demonstrate the yin and yang of my skinny fatness.

We saw a bunch of friends this weekend, including the Other Hosts. I tried to camouflage my belly, and apparently succeeded. We ended up telling the Other Hosts and one other person about the pregnancy, because DH really wanted to be able to tell someone the good news in person and his closest friend made a pretty good candidate, but I drew the line at making an announcement in front of a dozen people, some of whom I barely know. After Mr. Other Host heard the news, he said, “That’s funny, because I was going to ask you if you’d lost weight.”

Backstory for the next vignette: I have a medium-sized body, but I have extra-large breasts. DDD, in fact. They’ve gotten probably half a cup size bigger since being pregnant.

After dinner, one of the people that I don’t know well (I’ve been to her house and she’s been to mine, but we’re not actually friends) asked Mrs. Other Host, “Have BabySmiling’s boobs always been that big?”

Actually, yes, pretty much.

The Verdict
Fetuses: each about an inch long, weighing less than 1/3 of an ounce between the two of them
Breasts: bigger, hard to disguise — but for many people the change is just a drop in the ocean
Stomach: much bigger, but possible to disguise
Rest of body: no bigger
Muscle mass: possibly atrophied
Mass: no change!

I’m thinking of following Dr. Nick Riviera’s Window to Weight Gain advice (from when Homer Simpson wanted to become obese so that he could go on disability). Don’t chew gum, chew bacon. Brush your teeth with milkshakes. Oops, I’m a lactose intolerant vegetarian. Back to the drawing board.

Didn’t I tell you that this is the weirdest problem to have?

Thoughtful Thursday: Announcement

Happy April! It’s time to announce the March Intelligentsia (people who have commented on every Thoughtful Thursday post for the month of March).

First, there’s three-peat member Wiseguy from Woman Anyone?

Repeating their Intelligentsia status from a prior month are Cat; Ernessa from Fierce and Nerdy; Leslie Laine from What You’re Not Expecting When You’re Trying to Expect; and Shalini from By the Pricking of My Thumbs.

We also have a couple of first-timers: Kristen from Dragondreamer’s Lair and Kymberli from I’m A Smart One.

Hooray!

Today’s Thoughtful Thursday is pregnancy-related, but those who haven’t been pregnant are also free to chime in. I certainly had opinions about it before I ever became pregnant for the first time — and then those opinions changed drastically when I became un-pregnant. My opinions changed again as infertility wore on for years and years, and when I became pregnant then un-pregnant the second time.

I used to think it was wise to wait a sensible time to tell the world, but that it was fun to tell lots of individual people. Now, I think it’s best to wait a longer-than-sensible time to tell almost everyone, with the caveat that it can’t always be hidden as long as you’d like (growing belly, morning sickness, etc.). Sensible for normal people and sensible for those who’ve dealt with infertility or loss are not even on the same scale — like comparing a stopwatch to geologic time.

With this pregnancy, I’ve been thinking that I’d wait at least until the end of the first trimester to make the general announcement. This includes family — we’ve told them less than anyone else throughout the past 7 years, why should we change things now? It also includes work, non-close friends, and Facebook. Actually, maybe Facebook will have to wait until the birth.

This all seemed very far away, until I realized that the second trimester begins in mid-May. Every day may be crawling by at a snail’s pace for me, but May also feels very soon. May is next month! Ultimately the exact timing will boil down to who we’re seeing when, and how long we can hold out before we can’t hide it any longer. I’d be surprised if I tell anyone who doesn’t already know about our infertility before the end of the first trimester.

The general consensus seems to be that the end of the first trimester is the sensible time for the big announcement. The reduced miscarriage risk coincides with the burgeoning inability to hide the belly. Dooce had a subtle announcement to the world right around the end of the first trimester.

Our close friends The Other Hosts waited until the day of their nuchal scan to announce it — it happened to be New Year’s Eve, so the announcement was made at the party in front of all of their friends. Their families found out around 8 weeks (except for her mom, who knew from the beginning). Mr. Other Host told DH a couple of weeks before the nuchal scan. As I have mentioned already, Mr. Other Host called and told me the morning of the big day, immediately after the nuchal scan: literally as we were backing out of the parking spot post-retrieval, which was not ideal timing for me, but it was still a kind gesture for him to tell me in advance instead of springing it on me.

A few days later, we received their belated Christmas card in the mail — they also waited until the nuchal scan for the mailing. It was a wedding picture, wishing people a happy new year from Mr., Mrs., and Baby Other Host (with due date). Anyone who didn’t hear the announcement on New Year’s Eve definitely got the message soon after.

Mr. Other Host is an “I’m so excited and I just can’t hide it” kind of guy, and they got pregnant the first month they tried, so I’m not surprised about the Christmas card. At the same time, I would never be so presumptuous to send a Christmas card — even if the pregnancy was 8 months along when the cards went out. I have learned the hard way, through my own tears and those of too many friends, that there are no guarantees.

I’m going to see one of my closest friends today, and another one tomorrow. They’ve been with me the whole way on this journey; how could I not tell them? They seem to be an exception to my “wait a very long time to tell” rule. I’m very excited for those announcements, actually. I’m dreading some of the others, though. The worst: I would bet money that DH’s mother will berate us for not telling her about this pregnancy earlier, for telling anyone before her, for not telling us about the previous pregnancies, for not confiding about infertility… Yet another reason to put the announcement off.

Today’s questions (answer based on what you’ve done, if you’ve had the opportunity, or what you’ve imagined, if you haven’t): When does a pregnancy feel real enough (or safe enough) to tell the world (anonymous billions on the internet notwithstanding)? When would/did you tell your inner circle? When does it feel real enough to “announce” it to yourself? How much do you think that your answers to all of the above are influenced by infertility and/or loss?