Wasted Time?

"Is it all just wasted time? Can you look at yourself when you think of what you left behind?" - Skid Row, "Wasted Time"

Unsurprisingly, I think a lot about miscarriage. I have been pregnant seven out of the last 12 months of the year. Not the fun, rewarding, feel-good parts of pregnancy I imagine, but the nausea, exhaustion, want-to-gnaw-my-arm-off-from-hunger first trimester. Although we saw Eddie the embryo's heartbeat -- a milestone in our personal pregnancy history --  we have a long way to go. I think I'll be able to exhale a little if I make it past the first trimester, but I know families who have lost babies literally in every month of a pregnancy, and through stillbirth, so I have no illusion that you're ever really out of the woods.

I think almost every day about the possibility of miscarriage. The other day I was thinking, "What would be the worst part about miscarrying?" I was a little embarrassed to note my answer to myself: "the wasted time." The nausea, hunger, exhaustion, and lack of libido would be more tolerable if I was sure they would pass, that they would just be way-stations on the way to a healthy kid. As they are, they have been the sum total of my pregnancy experience. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, because I'm thrilled I am pregnant! But I feel like hell, and again, I've spent more than half of the past year in that state. Staying in my first trimester feels like spinning my wheels. It seems fair to add that when I feel this bad, I don't do a lot of socializing, so I feel like I'm missing some opportunities on that front by spending all this time in first-trimester land.

God forbid, if I lost this pregnancy, I would, of course, be devastated beyond feeling like I wasted time. I passed some kids drawing with sidewalk chalk this evening and my heart almost exploded from wanting. But I know I could get through the loss, and I know I could get pregnant again, since that doesn't seem to be a problem. I am just sick of feeling stuck, of feeling like I'm wasting time. I want to move forward. Intellectually, I know that whatever happens will be a kind of moving forward, but that is a solution for the mind, and again, this is a matter for the heart.