Back to The Task at Hand

Big news from KateCville: After four years of insane academic effort, I defended my masters thesis.  I presented my work, which amounts to about 75% of a PhD thesis, answered an hour of tough questions, then three minutes of deliberation later, passed.  I turned in all my papers last week.  I am free!

The question is, what next?  First, a short break.  Next, a few hours of tutoring here and there so that our household doesn't bleed money indefinitely.  After that, who knows?  I'm scheming and will share my plans when I form them more coherently.  

But all that is professional.  Personally, I have a whole lot of plans.  

On my facebook page, among all the congratulations over my successful defense, was this: 

Wow.  I think I know what this means.  Congratulations!

The implication is that I am pregnant again, and that is why my advisor finally let me go.  So I'd like to set the record straight: 

1) What this means (my passing my thesis defense) is that I did a damn lot of hard work and it was MORE than enough for a masters degree.  I was determined to get the masters, and though I had to face considerable unspoken punishment for my "sin" of having a baby in grad school, I finally perservered, thankyouverymuch.

2) I am not pregnant. 

Let's examine the evidence People Magazine style:

You can't tell in the picture is that I was also menstruating.

Definitely not pregnant.  

I wish that I were.  Hub and I are trying, but can't get our hopes up.  This process has become complicated, and healthy pregnancy seems like something worlds away right now.   

This morning, I went to a party with a mom group I met at a nursing support group way back when Elsie was a tiny baby.  They're all pregnant.  I was literally the only one not pregnant for the first hour of the party.  They were announcing left and right and squealing and hugging each other -- one is even having twins, so she's extra pregnant.  The conversation centered around cravings and ultrasounds and nausea, and I was thinking of my latest pregnancy, a chemical pregnancy -- the earliest (and easiest) loss, just a few months ago.  You get your positive pregnancy test, and then you get a heavy period the next day.  There was fertilization, but it didn't stick.  

I am the wet blanket of the group, at the moment.  I have had more losses than I wrote about on this blog.  Six people (living, breathing people, not embryos) have died in my circles over the past few months.  All but one under the age of 30.  By the time my student committed suicide last week, I barely had any grief left to give.  I am all grieved out.  Mix in a particular sensitivity to loss around pregnancy, and it's due time for a hiatus from happy glowy play group..

I am genuinely happy for all of these women, and for all of my other friends expecting babies, but it is difficult to feel so outnumbered.  I do fine in mixed company, with one or two pregnant women, but put me in a room of six, all glowing and gushing, and I feel like the angel of death.  

If you count a chemical pregnancy as a miscarriage, (some days I do and some days I don't) then that brings me to three.  Three this year.  Three, the magic number where you start the road to fertility treatment and IVF.  I don't want to do that yet.  I'm not ready.  I may never be ready.   

I've read that stress can't cause miscarriages, that it's just women putting blame on themselves unnecessarily, but I don't believe it.  The stress of this year, hating my job, feeling constantly pushed back and pushed down, grieving intensely, made my hair fall out.  It made me sick.  No, stress didn't cause my blighted ovum and first miscarriage at the new year, but it might have caused the next one and the chemical pregnancy.  My immune system has been in overdrive.  I have acquired food allergies I never had before.  It would not surprise me one bit if my immune system is attacking embryos as invaders and evicting them.  

We'll see how it goes from here.  I have a new life.  A lighter, happier life without grad school.  I have a new insane diet to work out these food allergies once and for all.  Things are looking up.  Expect more fertility themed posts in the future.  And please, if you happen to know me in real life, keep this on the down-low.  It might take a while. I'll take all the prayers and thoughts and good vibes I can get in the meantime.