Day 1, 20 years later

It's THAT day again. Exactly 20 years ago today (TWENTY YEARS!!) I got my period. Nothing unusual or notable at the time -- but my life was about to change forever.

I'd been getting periods since I was 11 and I had just turned 37. I had thrown away my birth control pills a little over two years earlier, and the excitement of those early months of trying to conceive -- unsuccessfully, one month after another -- had given way to a nagging feeling that time was rapidly passing, I wasn't getting any younger, and perhaps this motherhood thing wasn't going to happen after all.

I was about to be proven wrong.

Or so I thought...

February 8, 1998, will forever be branded in my memory as my "LMP date" -- the first day of my last period before I became pregnant for the first and only time -- a 26-week rollercoaster ride of joy, anxiety and raw terror -- which abruptly ended in stillbirth in early August.  That was followed by profound grieving (over many years, the intensity eventually subsided;  the grief, however, remains)(and always will);  increasing desperation, infertility testing and treatment; enormous stress, crippling anxiety and debilitating panic attacks.  Eventually, there was resignation to and, finally, acceptance of, our permanent childlessness.

10 years ago, I relived my pregnancy in detail on this blog with posts tagged "1998 memories."  I don't intend to do that again (once was enough...) -- but that doesn't mean the memories won't be there, or that I won't revisit them from time to time as significant milestones present themselves, again. (You have been forewarned...! ;)  )