sketchblog

I’m sitting in a freezing lab next to a wall. A lab tech dressed in bright blue scrubs preps my arm for a blood draw, and I look the other way, to face the wall beside me. On it, eight inches from my nose, someone has thumbtacked a cardboard cutout of a meat processing plant. A monochrome logo in fat red ink of a curly-haired bull and the company name blazened around it.
Me: (chuckling) That’s pretty random.
Tech: Random? (smirks) It’s not random at all.
Me: How so? It’s a meat processing plant logo on a piece of cardboard! It’s hilarious. You kill me.
Tech: You know, the owner of the plant was here just the other week.
Me: No kidding?
Tech: She was very pleased with the sign, of course.
Me: (nodding along with the surreal conversation) Then it was worth it, having this sign on the wall.
Tech: Yeah. And then, when she was leaving, she gave me a dozen chicken wings!
Me: (laughing out of my mind) Then it was definitely worth it!
Tech: (laughing) I like you. You come back here anytime!

I watched the monitor as the nurse practitioner glided the sonogram on reconnaissance around my organs. It’s hard not to get technical and revealing with the findings; I keep erasing lines. But I enjoy this kind of detective work, even at my own expense. There was no visible embryo, not yet, only the stage for one. She gently reminded me that it may be too soon to tell, but I’m trusting my gut instinct that there won’t be, this go round.

I disclosed the blood sample more out of courtesy than closure. What gave me those symptoms was most likely a ruptured uterine cyst, which, apparently, is a common ailment in horses. Yes, try googling “uterine cysts.” I got graphic rat dissections and a litany of equine medlines on the subject, but nary a word on uterine cysts documented in the human species. But I swear, the nurse told me they were a common ailment in women!

This I know now: our hearts and home have room for another child, even if our cars don’t accomodate a third carseat.

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It’s gorgeous right now. Everything has a crisp surface, the horizon unfolds in blue and purple hills; you can see the outlines of trees several miles away. I forget my camera when a peach-colored sheet of cloud covers the skybowl, reflecting the setting sun. As if the earth has turned off all the lights, the sky beckons the eye upwards. All I notice on the ride home is the linear network of telephone poles and electrical wires, the limestone cliffs as they rove by. I love the sunsets in Texas.

The highs and lows this weekend knotted me and left me wondering how I should feel. I took the remaining two pregnancy tests, the ones left in the package. Compulsively, I had to confirm the positive test; I couldn’t wait until the doctor’s appointment, which is tomorrow morning. And I never suspected they would silently disappoint me! But after seeing two negative results, I steeped in doubt for a while before resurfacing to tell Damon what I found.

The mind has a powerful way. It can wrap itself snug around the possibility of a new baby, no matter how impossible it originally seemed. As the hours pass, a vision becomes clearer and problems begin to resolve, and fear transforms to hope. Then, to release the notion is like asking to grieve. Could this all have been a fantastic head trip? I feel I can relate on some level to IVF patients, who never really know what to expect.

Both of our children were planned. It took an agreement, a basal thermometer, a chart, and a month to conceive each boy, and each time I felt in complete control of my body: I knew the day I was ovulating like I knew the day I was pregnant, and two tests for each child confirmed the latter, in each case. But now, I feel so vulnerable and human, clumsy and blind. And I’m sorry to burden you with this self-pity, but years later I might find this all amusing. I mean, relatively speaking, these are small beans. But they are feelings, nonetheless, and because I’m human I have them.

So tomorrow morning, I go to the OBGYN. I’m anxious. Knotted. And I’ll be a little sad if we don’t find an embryo, but I’ll be okay.

Tonight I have a fun project to occupy the rest of my time: a painting, commissioned for a very special occasion. And I’m absolutely thrilled. Still, I can’t give away any details (well, not yet!).

To all you mothers reading this, I hope you had a relaxing but joyful Mother’s Day…and maybe a glass of wine or a mimosa, for me?

I don’t like to make excuses. I’ve scarcely written a word in more than a week, posting photos instead. Words have sunken deeper, swirling in my subconscience and slowing me down. For seven days I’ve failed to run three miles without stopping short, panting behind a frown for more oxygen. Every time I’ve stood up, the world’s disappeared for three seconds behind a white vacuum. I couldn’t draw, couldn’t paint. I was incubating. Last night, I drove to the store for milk and returned with brownies and dark bars of chocolate, a magazine and a pregnancy test.

The test. Last night, I sat on the toilet and stared at the results laying on the bathub ledge. For fifteen minutes, the little white wand stared back at me with those mute, faint lines. I sobbed in denial. The moonlight poured in; it’s a full moon. The seasons, the changes, the moon: I’ve been more aware of every cycle but my own. I hadn’t had an obvious cycle in nearly three years. And we were taking precautions!

But I hadn’t read the instructions correctly. A crossed line in the oval window, not a single line, indicates pregnancy. I hysterically threw the wand into the trash and went to bed.

When I awoke, I took the test out of the trash. I remembered doing this with Chas’ pregnancy test: there was the negative result, yet all of the symptoms indicating pregnancy. Sure enough, when I lifted it to my eyes, I saw a faintly crossed line. And sighed, wincing, before piling the boys into the car and heading to the gym.

I stopped on the trail to do some knee lifts. Within a couple of seconds, I caught eyes with a whiptail lizard. It watched me from a hole in a tree stump for three whole sets, occasionally turning an eye to a passing jogger. Shortcutting across the meadow, I lunged through high clover, lush and fragrant. My legs felt like lead. When I greeted Ford at the childcare facility, he asked me if he could have a baby sister, point blank. I nearly fainted as I stood up from my bags to ask him if he wouldn’t mind repeating himself.

I wanted to sleep all day, even though I had promised Ford that we’d go hiking. Instead, the television numbed us and I fell in and out of sleep, and my watch would ocasionally chime at the hour. When I had worried long enough, and Damon flattered me plenty on my glow, I bought another test kit and snuck into my bathroom.

Pregnant!

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Damon walked into the room, where I was nursing Chas, and I shared my shy, pink grin. After a few tries, he understood, folding red, wet eyes between cupped hands, a happy jaw escaping words. We paced the house in wonderment together, doe eyed and dumbfounded.

Strangely, the only person the news has fallen hard on is Ford. He is heavy with grief. The levity of annoucing the news to family has been lost on Ford, who keeps telling me, “Promise me you’re kidding, you’re not pregnant, Mommy. I don’t want you to be pregnant!” Guilt cuts me with these words, but Damon tells me it will pass. Not to worry.

Meanwhile, Chas is dreaming in his sleep, sprawled on the bed. His frog legs are twitching and he appears to be mouthing words almost imperceptibly. Exhausted, I lay down between him and Ford (who is now asleep, himself). Sandwiched between the kids in the bed, I lay grounded by the mass of a growing family, while my joy flies high from a quiet smile. And Chas begins to laugh in his sleep.

Just like that, we are now FIVE!