Is This Normal?

18 weeks and 1 day.

Although I have been pregnant many times, the pregnancies have never been successful, and therefore, have never been 'normal'. I find that I spend a lot of time analyzing every aspect of my body especially how I feel. The little twinges, dull nagging somethings, hunger and repulsion, I make mental notes of them all.

I have read the book "What to Expect When You are Expecting" so many times that I have begun to think it is jinxed. It sits on our book shelf near me right now. I can see its curled softcover waving me in. I don't want to look at it again. I did once this pregnancy and realized it wasn't as informative as it was the first two or three times I read it. I have since done so much Googling that I actually have more information stuffed into my head than can be contained in that book.

I try not to think too much about every little thing, but I have an awful lot of time on my hands. I often wake in the middle of the night and wonder, but with my trusty iPhone at my side, I can quickly Google the random thought that popped into my head. If I try to resist and go back to sleep most times I can't. So I give in and give a Google.

Yesterday I had a pain in my side. It ran from my pubic bone to my hip bone somewhere deep inside. I recognized this as round ligament pain. I thought about how my uterus has now grown larger than it ever has before and although I have never had rock hard abs, I'm sure there are parts of me that are loath to give up their usual form.

Griffin and I are planning on going to the bookstore later today. My first thought is to get some books on raising a baby - a subject, until recent Googling, I knew nothing about. I am not a 'baby person'. I don't coo at infants in strollers, I've never changed a diaper and I've never even held a baby. Never had the desire to. I don't want to sniff their heads or pinch their fat cheeks. Yet I really want one of my own. At least I think I do. As it gets to be more real and there is no turning back (unless my body says otherwise) I am really hoping that I will fall madly in love with my creation. Everyone tells me that I will, but what do they know?

Right now, my feelings towards my 'little squirrel' are that I must protect it and make it grow and most of all - keep it inside me. (Why do I keep referring to her as an "it"?) I have not returned to the gym with Griffin since I found out I was pregnant again. I think it started with me being too tired to go, but perhaps it was more about my fear of jostling the spawn and loosing the pregnancy. I even find myself walking differently, its hard to explain, but I am somehow more careful with my footing. How can I even think about going to the gym?

This is my last chance to be a good wife, a good daughter-in-law, a good granddaughter-in-law and perhaps a good mother. I don't want to screw it up. My feelings are not about how much I love my baby, fetus, offspring, spawn - it is more like a test that I am carrying around inside me. Can I pass the test? Do everything right? Even though I know logically that I did nothing to cause the last 4 miscarriages, I can't help feeling like I was a failure. I hate failing.

So I guess I will continue to walk carefully, occasionally pause and think about how something feels, either dismiss it as 'something I understand' or do a quick Google to reassure myself, and try to hold my 'test' in for 22 more weeks or so. Is this normal?