Just Easin' the Tension, Baby.

Telling people that I’m pregnant has been a strange experience. Not only because it feels like I’m lying, but also because I concurrently battle a voice in my head that says telling people means certain doom for our baby. Totally irrational, I know.

We’ve gotten a lot of love and support from family, mixed reactions from friends – some more than thrilled, some congratulated us like we told them we bought a house then followed their respects with how much work we were in for (and yes, they knew what we’d been through)… That was a little disheartening. But none of that matters when I think about my second home here. Even with all the praise we’ve received from our families, none of it compares to the support we’ve gotten from all of you. It’s just breathtaking to think about.

Telling people at work has also been interesting. I was so filled with anxiety about how and when I should say something that I more less ended up blurting it out. (My bosses already knew)

Nice lady from Bookkeeping: Well Good Morning Melissa, how are you today?

Me: Pregnant, and you?

(Squeals from two other ladies ensue)

There were only a few of us in the office at the time, I figured I’d let them gab about it and everyone else would catch on rather than me making one giant announcement during an Operations Meeting and risk being the center of attention. I’ve also gotten a few “It’s about time!” comments from older male coworkers. Which makes me wish I could live out this clip:

In addition I’ve started coming out about our Infertility. It’s scary to be honest about it, but it makes me feel proud at the same time, because we've come so far. Scary also since I’m the sort of “leave your home-life at home” type of employee. But coming out about in now also makes me glad that I was so secretive about our IVF cycle while we were going through it. I don’t think I could have responded quite as tactfully to the ignorant responses I’ve gotten regarding fertility treatments. None were made with ill intent, they just came about by being severely misinformed. I’m doing my best to diplomatically educate people without sounding too technical/condescending/know-it-all-ish. No easy feat for me.

I’ve made some progress in my head without the help of my therapist – yay me! I stopped therapy temporarily because I was too damn tired in the evenings to even try to complete a coherent sentence, so I’d rather not waste my deductible or my therapists time. Plus I’d prefer to spend that time eating and falling asleep sitting up in bed. Where was I going with this. Progress, right. I’ve decided to use my blog as aversion therapy. You may remember me telling you all that I had been feeling unsettled about talking about my pregnancy here specifically because I wasn’t sure I wanted this place to be about pregnancy as opposed to just IF. The other side of that is just feeling plain unsettled about this pregnancy in general. It’s not just hard to talk about it here, it’s hard to talk about it period. I feel… Guilty. Unworthy. Self-conscious. Conceited. Phony. Terrified. Which has no doubt made me a pleasure to be around, I probably sounded like I was telling people I had Cholera, instead of just being pregnant.

So. I’'m going to power through it.

I’ve decided that documenting this pregnancy is more important to me than my baggage. I worked really fucking hard to get here and I don’t know if I’ll ever be here again. Plus I have the memorization capacity of a gnat, so somebody needs to chronicle all this crap.  And I’m going to do it right here. In the place and with the people I feel most comfortable spilling my guts too: Complete strangers living in different states most likely under assumed names.

I love you’s guy’s. More to come.