17 weeks: What if I Wasn't?

I co-hosted a baby shower (with three other friends) last weekend for a friend of mine who became pregnant very quickly and easily.  Co-hosting was perfect because if something bad had happened with my pregnancy in the weeks or days leading up to the shower, I could easily back out of my hosting responsibilities.  I was totally prepared to do so as well.

In the hours leading up to the shower, anxiety started creeping in.  It wasn't the dread and sadness I have felt before showers when I was cycling or grieving a loss or taking a break.  It was anxiety about being pregnant and attending a shower (it never ends).  About people recognizing my growing belly too soon.  I agonized over what to wear and what I would say should someone ask, "Are you pregnant?"

I hope this doesn't sound inconsiderate, self-centered and thoughtless.  I was so grateful that morning to be pregnant at a baby shower.  In the weeks leading up to it all I thought about during the silly planning was, please stay pregnant through the baby shower, please just make it through the baby shower.

And then I thought about what it would be like to not be pregnant that morning, getting ready for a fucking baby shower.  I hadn't anticipated the event to bring back all of those awful feelings of not being pregnant, and even though I am (I am. I am. I am.), it was still difficult having a baby item in the house.  I kept it in the box it arrived in, unopened, until I needed to wrap it. 

I was grateful to be pregnant at that shower because it seems like almost all of my friends are pregnant right now.  If I was not pregnant right now I would not be in a good place, I know that.  Yet, at the shower all I could think about (besides how much I hate baby shower games) was that I didn't feel pregnant, that we would find out our fetus had died at our anatomy scan next week, how I really didn't want anyone to find out I was pregnant at the shower, just in case (despite showing a bit).  The shower simply crushed my confidence.  That is the post-trauma of infertility.

And I really was doing well before this weekend.  We've been talking about finding out the sex next week, photographing my growing belly (it is growing).  There are days when I chat it up like a normal pregnant woman about mundane bodily functions and finding maternity pants.  I even started pre-natal yoga.  I told my MIL that she has cursed all of her grandchildren to be boys because she wants a girl too badly (that was my nice (passive aggressive) way of telling her to shut the fuck up about gender when we just want a healthy, developing human to still be growing inside me).

In the back of my mind I also thought, "if you actually get another grandchild."

I survived the shower.  And decided that if we do make it that far (we will, we will), I do not want one of my own.   There were some suspicious glances at my abdomen and the few friends that knew did not mention my pregnancy to the larger group. 

At 17 weeks, insecurity and doubt comes and goes.  My abdomen is growing and that has to mean something, right?  The anatomy scan is next week.  I am excited and nervous, make that very nervous.  Very, very nervous.