35 Weeks and Waiting. . . .

So 6 days ago, the doctor told me that he would guess 7-10 days until babies the got here, and he would be doing cartwheels if I made it to 10. So for the past 6 days, I've felt like we're just waiting. And waiting. Waiting for what? Who knows. Will my water break, will I start spotting or bleeding? Will I have contractions? I don't know. But I do know this.

I'm a survivor of infertility. And I'm used to waiting.

I started thinking about this and realized just how much waiting became what having a child meant to us. When we got married, I already had babies on the brain. We weren't getting any younger, but we wanted to wait at least a little while. I went off the pill. We waited a couple of months to actually start "trying" to let my body recover. I started charting. We waited month after month for the temperature to spike, or the CM to be just right, or the OPK to have a line that was just darker than the control line. Then of course the dreaded two week wait. Month after month, waiting, wondering, hoping, analyzing symptoms, making myself crazy. Peeing on the stick, waiting for that second line, waiting the 10 minute time period hoping it would appear.

I had told Andy that I didn't think it would happen immediately. He was way more confident in our fertile capabilities. I did talk him into starting a couple of months earlier than we had planned using my "the school district builds in extra days just in case we have snowdays" theory, and we started trying even though it wouldn't be ideal timing. Oh, if we only knew.

I spent months looking at my charts, looking at the inconsistent patterns, knowing something was wrong. Or knowing our timing was perfect, but not getting those two lines. . .but we just waited for it to happen. Waited for our month. Waited for the BFP that would come because we loved each other and we wanted desperately to start a family. Because we were doing everything right, and we would make good parents.

Waiting until the nurse practitioner who saw me at my OB looked at my charts and recommended we go to see a RE since she agreed something didn't look right. Getting up the courage, calling, and waiting for our first appointment. Walking hand in hand to that office, not knowing how long our struggle would continue, or how much heartbreak and how much joy we would find there. The first time my husband got to see me in stirrups, but certainly not the last. The first time we sat at the doctors big desk hearing the words and the terms I had researched and feared.

We had tests, and of course there was waiting. Finding out bad news, more bad news, and percentages month after month that looked more dismal. Trying to hold out hope, trying the protocols recommended, and again waiting for results. Clomid with IUI's, injectables with IUI. . .in reality, waiting for more bad news. That was what I kept thinking month after month. Wanting to be hopeful, trying to be positive, but in reality just waiting for the news to get worse.

I started this blog when I was starting the IVF process. The first part of our journey is captured on paper, and going back through it every time, I'm amazed at how much we didn't know was to come. At the beginning of my blog, I think I covered all the waiting that goes into IVF. Waiting to start, waiting for stims, waiting for egg retrieval, waiting for the fert report, waiting for transfer, waiting for beta. . . .

And then I was pregnant.

And everything that was supposed to be wonderful and hopeful and bright turned into worry. I very recently realized just how long I spent waiting for the other shoe to drop. How most of this pregnancy was filled with disbelief and fear. Now I'm a worrier by nature, so who knows how I would have reacted to pregnancy that came about without the journey we took?

But I know how much IF has affected me. I got my BFP at home, but still waited anxiously for first and second beta results. I peed on a lot of sticks, just waiting for one to tell me it was all a dream. I spent weeks (hell, months) holding my breath before checking the toilet paper for blood. I worried over miscarriage and waited for it. I worried for our first ultrasound that we might have empty sacs, or that all three embryos would be going strong. After our first ultrasound when we found two babies, but one heartbeat, I waited for bad news at the next. I waited to find out we had lost a twin, or that something was wrong with one or both of them. I kept waiting for bad news, but none came.

We entered the second trimester and I started worrying about delivering too early. We hit 26 weeks and all I could think about was viability. Every week that went by became another week closer to everything being okay. But still, I waited for something to go wrong. They would come early, they would be too small, they would be weak, they would spend months in the NICU. I was waiting to be put on bedrest. I pictured tiny helpless preemies, and worried.

And yet despite all this, I'm sitting here, 35w3d and thinking. . .now I'm just waiting for my babies. I don 't know exactly when hope crept in to replace the doubt, the worry and the fear, but here we are. I think this is why all of a sudden, I'm a little freaked out about the babies actually being here. Because suddenly they are real. They are no longer just a dream, or just something to constantly worry about losing. I have babies inside me, people who are going to come out soon, and need to be fed, and changed and cuddled and loved, and I feel like we've made it. I know there are still possibilities of things going wrong. But for the first time, hope and positive thoughts have taken over the worry.

All I am waiting for now, is the arrival of my two precious bundles of joy, our children. And all the waiting, all the worry, all the struggles are going to be worth it. If it had been easy, I don't know if I would have been as grateful. If we had been fertile, and not had to go through the testing, and the failed cycles, would we appreciate this as much?

I'm going to be a Mom.

34 weeks in that photo. . .and just waiting. And I know that Mommyhood is going to just bring more worry, more waiting, more hope and fear, and everything else that comes with it.

I can't wait.