6dp3dt – #3

Not much to mention on the “am I?/aren’t I?” front save that my, er, front doesn’t feel as sore, nor look so porn-star impressive this morning as it has for the past few days. I’m officially entering into the “I just know this didn’t work” phase of things, and I’m delighted to report that I’m working up to a seriously pissy attitude about it already.  Go me!

Dinner last night was fun, but “Pal Joey” was a cynical, bitter story about a con-man taking advantage of three different women.  Not really my kind of story at the best of times, even though the production itself was good enough.  Poor “Joey” just couldn’t pull off the ‘star quality’ that the role demanded, and he was completely overshadowed by all three of the women who played opposite him.  Stockard Channing was  phenomenally good as the aging lover bankrolling his dreams.  I’ve never thought of her as a singer, but her version of Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered brought down the house.  Unfortunately, the production involved lots of actors smoking, so the theater was full of nasty cigarette smoke hovering at nose/throat level all night, and on top of that irritation, the man in the seat next to me smelled bad.  I’m sure it’s brought on by the PIO, because usually people-smells don’t really offend me unless someone’s really rank, but my stomach was churning all through the show, which didn’t help me to enjoy it.  

So today I’m waiting to go to work.  Trying not to collapse in a maudlin puddle of self-pity.  February 12 was my due date, and I have a feeling that for the rest of my life, this is going to be a tough day.  Way back before I knew any better, before I had any reason to know differently, I thought that once you got pregnant, that the hard times were over.  At least the really really hard times.  I thought that seeing a heartbeat meant that I was going to walk away from the shitty experience of IVF with a hard-won baby in my arms, come February.  I thought I was home free.  

And then I learned better, and for my last pregnancy, I never even calculated a due date.  It was August something.  I haven’t calculated a due date yet if this one should work, and I might not ever “fetishize” an eventual due-date in my mind the way I did this one.  There was something so concrete, so real about being able to look at today’s date on a calendar and say, “Yes!  On that exact day, I’ll be a mother,” that it felt like more than just a possibility had been taken from me when I lost proto-sprog #1; it felt like I lost a baby.   

Days like today, it still does.

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