Besides announcing I was pregnant, I haven’t blogged much about potential ginger baby #3. I don’t want him/her to read my blog some day (originally documented to record literally every single thought I had about my first pregnancy/baby/Baby Evan from the second I got a positive on the stick) and think he/she wasn’t as wanted. I just don’t have a desk job, unlimited internet and 24 hours a day to think about nothing but BABY BABY BABY BABY anymore. In my mother’s day, this shows up in the fact that I have 3+ photo albums of my childhood, my sister has 2, and my brother has…almost 1.  Today you are less heavily featured on social media. 2014, baby!

Before I wrote this, I had to find an online calculator that would tell me how pregnant I was based on my due date. I’ve been saying “Uh…15ish weeks?” for a while now, since I lost a week based on the measurements at my first ultrasound and I keep forgetting to subtract it and I can’t remember which day I flip over to the next week. Plus I’m assuming the end of the pregnancy will be as miserable as the last one (quick recap: tons of pain, kidney stones, surgery, kidney infections, pre-eclampsia, induction) and I’ll probably be induced again. If I was a character on Downton Abbey this wouldn’t end well. Thank God for my modern medicine and weekly check ups – it helps to know they’re keeping a close watch on me. To sum up that rambling: Not sure when I’ll have this kid, probably July.

I had my second doctor’s appointment yesterday with one of the midwives. Everything is entirely normal, despite the fact that I got my first talking-to about how much weight I’ve gained/might potentially gain. I don’t actually know my starting weight OR my current weight – I had hoped it wouldn’t be an issue at all but I don’t think I’m going to be that lucky. I’m surprised though – besides an endless craving for McDonald’s bacon, egg and cheese biscuits (a horrible craving, since I can only get them in the morning and I mostly want them at 9 pm) I haven’t been eating much or badly. My nausea has kept me from pulling the “PREGNANT! TIME FOR ALL THE FOODS!” card. I’ve been getting to the gym as much or even more than I was pre-pregnancy. I’m not sure what else I am supposed to do so I only gain a couple more pounds in the next 25 weeks (stop eating? take up marathon running???) so I’m going to just let my perfect blood work and amazing blood pressure make me feel better.

On a less complainy note, we’re not finding out if it’s a boy or a girl. I have one of each, so I have stuff for each (and really, is there anything for babies that HAS to be either/or? No, there is not) and I like the idea of being surprised. E doesn’t care. I’m shocked he doesn’t care, but he really doesn’t, at all, not a bit, zero percent. I thought I might have to talk him into waiting but he was totally on board. I think he thinks it will keep me from buying a lot of baby stuff and he might be right. So far I haven’t been tempted to change my mind, but that hasn’t prevented GUESSING. Currently I guess girl, but that changes fairly regularly. I never thought I’d be a person who didn’t find out, since I figured I’d always have a preference (no matter how slight) and I’d want time to accept and get used to the idea. But this time I really don’t care. Caroline says it’s a girl we should name “Caroline Baby Jesus” and Evan says it’s a boy we should name “Diny” (short for Dinosaur) and they like the idea of being surprised when the baby comes out too. Although my poor kids have no idea what getting a new sibling really means, so boy/girl won’t be their ONLY surprise.

A List Of 3rd Pregnancy Complaints, In Alphabetical Order, While I Can Still Remember What That Means #epicwhiningahead

1. Exhaustion – My current nap schedule rivals that of a 3 month old, which makes sense because I’ve had something sucking all the energy out of my body for the past 3 months. I feel like I have one of those video-game life bars over my head that never gets above about 50% and usually hovers around 10. Just enough that I am not ACTUALLY asleep or dead, but not enough to handle reaching over there to put on the bra I took off at 9 am when someone knocks on the door. I will say having a 4 1/2 year old is very handy in this situation, since he thinks fetching things for me is the Best Game Ever and will bring me food/drinks/the remote/a blanket and pillow for another nap. But I’m still not putting that bra back on.

2. Feelings – The combination of the holidays + Caroline turning 3 + pregnancy means I’m basically 20 seconds away from sobbing at any given moment. I cry during Match.com commercials, which are the lowest form of emotional string-pulling currently on TV. I cry reading Buzzfeed roundups. I get myself worked into screaming rage fits over comments on the internet that have absolutely nothing to do with me in ANY WAY. Listening to the radio in the car is a game of sobbing roulette, just waiting for a sad song or an NPR story about poverty of any variety. If someone were to be kind to me in public (putting my shopping cart away, holding a door, not giving me dirty looks when Evan yells “FARTS” in public) I would become inconsolable within seconds and probably scare them out of ever being kind to a stranger again.

3. Hugeness – I am starting this pregnancy at a higher weight than my first two (I ate a lot of feelings over the past year) and it is not very pleasant. I don’t know if any of my maternity clothes are going to fit (I can’t find them) and I KNOW none of my bras do. I’m not going to have an adorable bump or take cutesy maternity photos or impress anyone with my pregnancy style – if I make it 9 months without splitting my pants in public I will consider it a win. My doctor is not concerned (or at least has the tact not to point out it was stupid to get pregnant before I got back in shape because IT’S TOO LATE NOW) and I have plans to keep attending my gym and stay as active as I can…but I am not one of those people who gains 6 pounds and leaves the hospital in her skinny jeans. I do not plan to beat myself up over it (again TOO LATE NOW) but it sort of…sucks.

4. Morning Sickness – I should go back and reread post from both previous babies, since I am guessing I did have medium-to-disruptive morning sickness with them and have just blocked it out. I DEFINITELY remember that after I had Caroline it never really, truly went away – if I brush my teeth in the morning while still half-asleep I almost always gag myself. My current schedule goes like this: wake up, try not to move any more than necessary until I can get to the bathroom, throw up nothing for a while, feel like crap, eat something around noon, eat something around 2 pm, eat something around 4 pm, start feeling crappy again, try not to throw up until I go to bed. If I’m still awake at midnight it starts over again with the eating. I crave spicy food but am scared to eat it too much because that is an unfortunate choice when it comes back up. I’m not in danger of dehydration and it’s not bad enough for medication but it does feel like it’s going to last forever. THIS IS MY LIFE NOW.

5. Slightly overwhelmed and/or terrified – Three children is a lot of children. Outnumbered. Zone defense. We’re out of bedrooms and easily accessible seats in the van. I haven’t really thought much about the reality of three kids, since I haven’t fully convinced myself this one is real. (Sidebar that should probably be a whole post: It’s amazing how much one extremely early loss has changed my belief in pregnancy. I had no problem announcing I was pregnant the second I got a line on the stick the first two times because I had no experience with anything but a full-term outcome. Now I have a hard time believing I’ll ever get a baby out of this, despite the fact that everything is totally fine so far. I can’t imagine how much worse that feeling/worry is for someone whose suffered multiple losses or false positives.) But since it’s already 2014 I’m going to have to think of the details of adding a 3rd baby soonish. My current plan is bunks for the current gingers in Caroline’s room with the front bedroom as a nursery. It will give me an excuse to paint it something other than the VERY blue I chose for Evan (we’re not going to find out what this one is) and buy bunk beds, which is something my childhood heart has always wanted.

I really like lists and this I will blog lots of lists from now on. Coming soon: lists of things I am convinced are wrong with me, lists of stuff I need to replace for this baby because mine are broken/gone and I cannot live without them, and lists of lists. Also the story of how my 4 year old lost his first tooth due to a face-smashing. Maybe bunk beds aren’t a terrific idea.

Last week, I was pregnant. It didn’t stick, which I feel I need to mention right away so no one jumps to congratulate me only to feel bad about it later. I’m not pregnant now. I was pregnant, now I am not.

I had such a great reveal story, too. We’ve been trying for a long time now, almost a year, and after another month of negative tests at the end of August I decided to just give up until October. October marked 12 months of no babies, so my doctors would finally talk to me about fertility testing. With E’s crazy work hours the chance of getting pregnant without charting and calendars and schedules were almost zero…but that didn’t stop me from bringing a couple cheap pregnant tests to Atlanta just in case I was late. Even though I wasn’t trying my brain has been automatically keeping track of the days and….maybe…?

On Sunday morning, just before breakfast at the Type-A conference, I peed on a stick. I stared at it for 30 seconds but only got one line. Of course I only got one line. I’m doomed to only get one line forever. I set it on the counter and left. When my roommate Miranda and I came back up to the room a while later I picked it up to throw it away (because ew, what was I thinking?!)…and there was a second line. TWO LINES. I screamed “Miranda!!!” and threw the door open and she was standing there smiling at me.

“I know!” she said. “I saw!”

“But there was one line! There was only one line this morning!” I said.

“Right before we went downstairs, I saw it and though ‘Hey, that an HCG test, not an ovulation test’! I didn’t want to say anything!” Miranda said.

“Aaaaahhhhhh! You saw! You didn’t tell me! Oh my god! Two lines! But we gave up – I’ve been trying for so long, we gave up!” I rambled and laughed and cried and she hugged me and I was so so happy.

My roommate knew I was pregnant before I did. I called E and informed him he was actually the THIRD person to find out, but not to feel bad since I was the second.

Isn’t that a cute story? My own mini 2-hour version of I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. I couldn’t stop myself from telling a few friends (and a few strangers) right away, but promised myself I’d wait a respectable amount of time to announce it officially, since the books tell you to wait. Now I know why people wait.

On Monday I got another positive at home, with a fancy digital test. I took a picture of it, just to prove to myself it was real. On Thursday morning I wasn’t feeling particularly pregnant – which is pretty normal, it happened with both of the kids – so I peed on another stick to reassure myself.

One line.

I tried the digital test. Not pregnant. I started to worry, but with no symptoms one way or another I couldn’t do anything. I called the doctor to ask if they could confirm, but the office on base won’t even test you until 2 weeks after your period is due, so I had another 8 days before I could go in. I asked Dr. Google, I asked my Facebook chat friends, but no one had a magic crystal ball that could tell me anything. So I waited and crossed all my crossables and prayed and wished and tried to lie as still as possible, as if just NOT MOVING could make this pregnancy stick.

It didn’t work. It unstuck, and now I am back where I was at the end of August, with one line on the test. I don’t feel like I lost a baby – at not even 5 weeks I think it’s only considered a chemical pregnancy and I didn’t have enough time to absorb the news, let alone get attached. It wasn’t a baby, it was the promise of a baby. Or may the suggestion of a baby, since no one is promised anything, especially by their own bodies. I didn’t pin any pregnancy reveal ideas or make any lists or imagine nursery themes or browse Etsy for cute hats or think of clever ways to put it on the blog. There wasn’t any time. I haven’t lost a pregnancy before, and I’m not exactly sure how I’m supposed to feel, but it’s mostly just kind of disappointed. I was really looking forward to being pregnant. Those 4 positive days have thrown my hormones and emotions totally out of whack though. All I really want is a couple of hours of alone time to lie in bed and feel sorry for myself and eat a pint of ice cream, but I haven’t had the chance. E is stuck at work close to 100 hours a week – that’s not a typo or an exaggeration – so he barely even knows what’s happening and can’t be here to talk or help or keep things together. He’s under so much stress already dumping all of this on him seems completely unfair.

And as if that disappointment wasn’t enough, I have a slightly horrifying, extremely personal medical thing that flared up again the second I got a positive test and by Saturday was almost unbearable. I’ll spare you the details but it involves a scalpel and stitches in a very sensitive (not thoroughly numbed) area and possibly major surgery in a few weeks, which I don’t know how I’m going to schedule since E can’t even get out of work to watch the kids for my urgent appointment, let alone something that’s not considered an emergency. Throw in the government shutdown and the threat we might not get paid (and the reality that the reenlistment bonus installment E gets each October is nowhere to be found) and I’m sort of stressed out. All of THAT on top of the non-pregnancy means I feel like everything sucks right now. I wish I’d never taken that test. I never would have known and the status quo of no baby never would have changed.

It’s all just…shitty. It’s shitty. I feel shitty.

This post was going to be full of sidebars and parentheticals, so I’ll try to sum them up with a general disclaimer: like I’ve said to many people and had quoted back to me by astute readers – one person’s hard does not invalidate someone else’s hard. I am not saying “Woe is me! Pity me! This is the WORST EVER!” I am saying “These are my feelings and maybe you have some feelings and we can talk about our feelings and maybe braid each others hair if you want or you can call me a spoiled douchecanoe if you want and either way I will understand.” Because, feelings.

I have been on a cleaning tear (Tear might be too strong a word. More like a cleaning small rip in the corner of a page) for a couple of weeks. My housekeeping skills are not great and in general everyone is fine with that situation. The children certainly don’t care. But things reached a point where I didn’t even want to open the door for the pizza guy. Every time I would look at the pile of mail by the door or the pile of school papers on the piano or the pile of birthday decorations on the table I would freeze. Where to START? What’s the POINT? Why should I even BOTHER?

When one thing in your life feels hopeless and out of control, it’s easy for that to reflect into other things, and in this case the mirror was clearly my house. The thing being reflected is bigger than a few stacks of paper though. I’ve been off birth control and hoping for a baby for 9 months now without success, even though it feels like everyone around me is getting pregnant and having babies. Tons of babies. Babies everywhere. You get a baby and you get a baby and YOU get THREE BABIES! (True story, a friend from high school is having spontaneous triplets.)

There’s a whole online world of trying-to-conceive message boards and secondary (tertiary?) infertility boards where people talk about this stuff, but because I never had any trouble the first two times I’m mostly unfamiliar with them. To be totally honest, until I started talking privately with some of my friends about how I’m struggling, I had no idea how much planning COULD even go into getting pregnant. Ovulation sticks and fertility apps and trying disgusting information involving mucus became things I Googled on a regular basis. The biggest surprise was how many people casually mentioned “Oh yeah, I used those OPK sticks to have my daughter”. I think a lot of people err on the side of privacy when it comes to their baby-making-attempts (because, yeah, no one wants to know ALL THAT and no one owes the internet their medical history) but it gives the impression if it takes more than 5 minutes you’re sort of a weirdo. A “Surprise! Pregnant!”-baby (which I am totally guilty of) is more blogable than endless “Not pregnant! Again!” posts, so someonr announcing it when it happens means you don’t really know what people have gone through. I’m a tiny bit concerned that the IUD I had after Caroline was born caused some sort of terrifying, permanent problem (Dr. Google totally agrees) but before we’ve been trying a year no real medical professionals (Dr. Google obviously got his degree online) want to talk to us.

I realize 9 months isn’t that long to be trying, but when your friends who said “Yes! We’re trying too!” back in November are actually giving birth to their babies it feels like forever. I also realize I have two beautiful children so complaining about not having a baby is going to sound selfish and disgusting to some people. But two was never our plan and close together is so much fun, I liked the idea of adding more sooner rather than later. I guess that “Man plans, God laughs” adage is pretty apt, although I if anyone embroiders that on a pillow for me I’ll punch them in the face.

So instead of thinking about my sad, empty uterus constantly I’ve been cleaning. CLEAN ALL THE THINGS. It’s part super-premature nesting, part feng shui and part at-least-this-is-a-problem-I-CAN-solve, but it’s helping. Sort of.

Yes, it’s definitely helping. Just looking at that room and knowing all the birthday decorations (from APRIL, good God woman, you’re so lazy) are put away makes me feel better.

I’ve got the guest room and the kids’ rooms to tackle next, including a couple of terrifying closets I haven’t fully opened in years. I even wrote a garage sale on our calendar and I’ll be running in and out of the house throwing stuff in the yard all day. Maybe space – a space, lots of space, many spaces – will leave room for more good things to come in. It’s better to think about it as space than as emptiness. I’m tired of empty.