6w1d. The Learning Curve.

After the cautious joy of last week's post, I have come down a bit. I am still happy and still in a dazed state of disbelief. But, as is the case with the infertility-addled brain, I have shifted my worries of negative tests, low betas and chemical pregnancy to heartbeats and miscarriage. Why? Because it's what I do. And frankly, it's what we do. We being the legions of women (1 in 10 or 1 in 8 depending on who you believe) who don't get knocked up by brushing up against a virile checkout boy at the grocery store. You try and try for so long and with so many failed medical interventions that when by some miracle of science, you actually do get pregnant, your happiness has to share crowded space with all the disappointment and fear of the past months or years. It's a tight fit.

All of my worry and nervous energy has led me to ignore Dr. Google for once and just live normally. Nearly to the detriment of my gestational sac. At brunch this weekend I mentioned how good a dish with feta cheese sounded. My sister immediately reminded me that I couldn't eat that. I thought she was referring to the fact that I was lactose intolerant and I told her I would just have a tiny bit. No, pregnant ladies can't eat unpasteurized cheese. Right. I need to learn this stuff. Not that a crumble of feta would destroy the balance of the universe. My sister was kind enough to rattle off the list of things that you obviously shouldn't eat during pregnancy. Thank God someone is paying attention.

I think I felt that if I acted for real pregnant and did my homework then I'd jinx myself. Clearly not the right approach. I don't think that pregnancy is very susceptible to jinxes. Hexes are another story.

Of course the risk of all that learning is that when you find out that your growing cellular bundle is now the size of lentil and is developing a face, you feel like you're putting your heart in the middle of a four-lane highway. All that love and hope and fear is scary. I think that is how it will go forever.