My Prologue

So I've mostly been talking about feelings and not so much where I am in my journey.  I'm actually pretty early in it.  That's why my pain is so fresh and so potent and so all-of-the-time (right?  That's why, right?  It won't feel like this forever . . . right!?)  Husband and I have been off birth control for eight months now, but we only found out about the PCOS about three months ago.

The first month after The Reveal I went to England without Husband on a study abroad that I had already planned before I knew that I would find out earth-shattering news the week before my flight.  So that was a lot of weird times trying to process and grieve thousands of miles away from anyone in my support system.

The second month I got serious about trying natural cures.  I wasn't really overweight (5'7" and 156 lbs), but I had read that losing 5-10% of your body weight could normalize your cycle.  So I went on an extreme PCOS diet (no dairy, no grains, no legumes, no sugar, only SOME fruits and vegetables and meats) and I started exercising.  By the end of the month I had lost 12 lbs.

The third month was when I started getting really antsy, though.  I felt like I had accomplished my weight loss goal.  I lost another lb over the month, but didn't feel as motivated to keep up my frenzied pace and I eased up a little on the diet.  When my period came, it was a perfect 28 days after the last one for the first time in YEARS.  But it was still a period.  And without weight loss to pour my energy into, waiting for my next ovulation has been excruciating.  And I know that after it passes, I'll be facing the TWW, which will be even worse.

So I've been pouring my energy into a planning and over-thinking a lot of miscellaneous baby-related things instead.  Which is fun . . . but I'm not sure it's super healthy.

First was names.  Husband and I nailed down a name for each sex months ago and they are both the perfect combination of recognizable but not too popular with excellent meanings, clever literary references and neutral initials (our last name starts with T so Zachary Isaac was out of the question for me).  It took weeks to orchestrate such perfect names.  But I wished later that I hadn't because it was right after they were settled that I found out I had PCOS.  Having a name made the loss even harder because not only did I not have a baby, but I didn't have those specific babies.  When you have a name you have somewhat of an image of what that child will be like and now that child is gone.  So for a while I wanted to change the names because just thinking of them made me remember that bitter time.  I was back to feverishly researching naming trends and etymologies.  But Husband convinced me not to because, to him, we're still waiting for those children.  I feel like we lost them but he feels like as long as we keep the names, we haven't.  We just know who we're looking forward to.  To him, throwing out their names would be killing them.  So we're keeping the names.  And I don't get to throw energy into coming up with new ones.

So now I'm planning the nursery.  My first theme was Totoro, but I think I'm more into Kingdom Hearts now.  And I know that when I finish with this I'll go to baby announcements.  Or maternity clothes.  Or that all important decision between breast-feeding and bottle-feeding.  (Who am I kidding?  It will be breast-feeding.  I find it way too cool that my body has the ability to sustain a human life.)

Does anyone else do this?  I think I keep going back to it because it makes me feel like I have some small sense of control in the baby realm instead of constantly just waiting and waiting and waiting.

I'm only 24, so we were originally going to wait until after law school to start trying drugs, but I'm going crazy.  We've each taken on an additional part time job so that we can afford it earlier.  Hopefully in a couple months.  And hopefully that will give me somewhat of a sense of control before I design and send out my own baby shower invitations with a "TBA" in the "date" column.  I'm thinking High Tea as the theme.