12 weeks, 4 days

Somewhere around the middle of last week, I realized that I was going to need to figure out who was going to take care of when the RE booted me. Because the day is coming soon, and just like weaning of the PIO and estrace tablets, it will happen whether I like it or not. The fact is that Dr. BusyBusyBusy has kept me under his care a little longer than most patients, and I prefer to think it's because they like us over The Clinic. Even if that's not true, I'm going to keep thinking it. In fact, this past summer semester, we had class with one of the women who works in the office, and she told me that we could return any time we liked for an ultrasound, even after Dr. BBB wishes us a fare-thee-well. This seems to jive with my theory of being liked, so we're keeping that one up. And as much as I like Dr. BusyBusyBusy, he's not an ob/gyn anymore, he's an RE. So where would I go?

I like our ob/gyn, Dr. Dyke; she's "family" as one might say, and referred us to Dr. BBB. There's absolutely nothing wrong with her. But then I read the Ina May book, and really what I wanted to do was go the farm, but c'mon, that ain't gonna happen. I started questioning whether I wanted to go back to the ob/gyn and the questioning got more insistent. I'm not saying that there aren't holistic docs out there. I know good and well that there are, and perhaps Dr. Dyke is one of them. But I started thinking about how I had envisioned a pregnancy before all the IVF shite, and it involved very natural and simple things. For example, trust in my own body.

Any woman who does any type of fertility treatment will tell you, it's easy to lose that trust in her body. I think back to those innocent days when we started this. I initially thought how easy Partner would get pregnant, and gradually it began to dawn upon us it wasn't going to be that straightforward. When the hsg knocked her out of the running, that was the first body betrayal of many. Then I thought I'd get pregnant with no problems. None at all! I was so excited to start injecting drugs into my body that I never once stopped to think about what would happen if it didn't work. When it didn't work, a load of bricks came down. We both questioned ourselves. It's probably my fault, we both thought to ourselves and then admitted to each other out loud, thankful that there could never be any evidence at all about who's "fault" it was. That's a slippery slope to start down.

And that very word, "fault" lies at the root of what happens to us during IVF. I think every women starts to think on some line like that, whether we want to or not. We certainly ran the gamut here: "It's my fault my ovaries don't respond to the drugs" Partner would say. "It's my fault my uterus couldn't hang on" I would say. "It's my fault I'm too old," Partner would say. "It's my fault because endometriosis" I would counter. All those blood vials that get drawn, all those ultrasounds, all the serious neurotic energy we spend counting millimeters of follicles and uterine linings, it's almost impossible to not start questioning our bodies.

So when I sat down and started thinking about what I wanted, it was to stop questioning my body. On Tuesday, I will officially be out of the first trimester, and so far I've managed to hang on. I want to start believing I can do this, naturally without intervention. I want to start thinking about my woman's body-- about the nourishment I can provide to Cricket that does not involve getting a shot or dose of some pill.

So what did I do? I made an appointment with a midwife clinic in town. The upside of this clinic is that there are only three midwives there, which means I'll get to know each of them as the pregnancy goes on (goes on?!). We went in armed with questions, ready for the midwife to get one of the wrong. (Ha! Wrong answer! We won't be seeing you!) But that never happened. She talked about what we could do naturally to ripen my cervix when the time got close and involved things like herbal remedies. I asked about pain relief techniques and what she would recommend, knowing that I wanted a drug free birth. She gave good answers. She volunteered that birth could take place in many different positions, not just on the back. She noted that after the baby was born, she'd place it right on my chest and let the cord stop pulsing before WE cut it. No one would announce the baby's sex, we could find that out ourselves. She'd even let do a hands-on-hands thing with Partner so Partner could guide the baby's head out with her. Good Lord-- can you say big fat cry in the new midwife office? I can. And did. There was more general goodness, and we've decided, we're going to her.

Of course, all this goodness of natural birth came with the caveat: providing everything is going well. Providing that. I asked, if I have the GD, could she still take care of me? Yes, providing it was manageable. And then she gave me the dreaded glucose. That was Monday and I still haven't managed to take myself over to do the test. Also on that order sheet was the first blood draw for the quad screen, something else that terrifies me slightly.

Next week is doctor-o-rama: Blood tests and gestational diabetes test Monday morning (no more procrastinating!). Perinatologist Monday afternoon. Midwife appointment one: Tuesday morning. Dr. BusyBusyBusy Thursday afternoon. Sheesh, for wanting to feel like I was going back to low-key natural pregnancy, that sure is a lot of doctor appointments... Sooner or later, I will have the natural pregnancy I have dreamed of.

Sooner or later.