Yesterday, John and I returned from a weekend in West Virginia, and headed to his mom’s house for lunch and an egg hunt for the family kids. In West VA, we stayed with some close friends of ours, Tom and Judy, who have a lovely cabin just outside of Franklin. The weather was a bit dreary, but not so bad as to keep us indoors for the entire weekend.
Shortly after we arrived, we were trying to figure out the last time we had been to the cabin; we were guessing that it was sometime last summer or early fall. Later in the evening, I remembered that it had been in October 2005, shortly after I had my second miscarriage. We had planned to go to the cabin with another couple, but they had to cancel at the last minute because of the stomach flu. It turned out to be a very restorative weekend for me. I spent the days journaling, crying, and reading Jon Cohen’s Coming to Term. It’s a little hard to believe that I had been pregnant and miscarried a third time since our last visit. This weekend, I was in much better spirits. There’s something about the brightness of new green leaves emerging on the mountainside trees that makes me feel hopeful.
Since my third miscarriage in December, I haven’t been reading all that much, and what I have read has been either fairly short books (The Year of Magical Thinking and The Full Cupboard of Life) or magazine articles. I just haven’t really been able to sit still long enough to lose myself in a book. This has been quite the departure from my normal reading habits, but I suppose it’s not really all that surprising.
This weekend, however, I managed to get through an entire book, and not exactly a short one. On Saturday, I finished The Distant Land of My Father, a novel about an American millionaire in 1930’s Shanghai, told from the perspective of his daughter, Anna. The story describes the father’s life—the choices he makes to be with and then away from his family, his ordeal during the Japanese invasion of China, and finally, his reconciliation with his daughter later in life. In the book, Anna’s father leaves her a series of journals, which she reads after his death. These insights allow her to gain some sort of understanding of her father’s decisions, as well as his regrets. I was sobbing while the last pages of the book. Mostly, it reminded me of the relationship, or lack of one, that I have with my own father. I was saddened by thoughts that my own father will probably never seek out a relationship with me. He didn’t even remember my birthday. I know that my father has his own story, his own issues, his own fears; I’m just afraid that I’ll never know what they are.
I believe that I am ovulating today, but, just to be sure, I’ll take another ovulation kit this afternoon. That means that I’m entering the two-week wait. I’ll start the progesterone in 3 days, and since extra progesterone can cause pregnancy symptoms (or really bad PMS) even when there is no pregnancy, I’ll try not to obsess over every twinge or sensation. Keep your fingers crossed for two pink lines on an HPT in 14 days or so.