"When you see a rainbow, the storm is still lingering."

**This is part of a series of posts I wrote when pregnant, but before we announced publicly.**

The glorious honeymoon period of getting a BFP has warn off, and I feel like I spend every minute of the day silently panicking that something might go wrong again.

In the beginning, the best indicator that things are progressing well is something we in the infertility world call a "beta". A beta is a blood test to check hormone levels, mainly of human chorionic gonadotropid, or hCG (because honestly, that's the last time I want to type that full name out).  HCG is produced during pregnancy, and it's actually what those at home sticks are detecting when they return a positive.  In early stages, it's key that levels of hCG double somewhere between 30 and 70 hours.  Here's what I have so far:

7/24/15 = I have no idea, I was too excited to listen.  On this day, it doesn't really matter what the number is, just that it's there.

7/27/15 = 321  (awesome number!  last time at this point I was at 93, but again, it's the doubling that is key)

7/29/15 = 644

That's almost exactly 48 hours to double.  The nurse has so far called my numbers "beautiful" and "excellent".

But they said good things last time too.

*sigh* and there it is.  There's that voice.  That same voice asks where my pregnancy symptoms are, points out that I feel exactly the same as I did last time, and cautions me not to get too excited.  Worst of all, it asks me how will I survive if something does go wrong again.

I don't have a good answer for that one.

I reached out to the ladies on thencomesfamily.com, in a specific chatroom for people who are expecting after having suffered a loss.  So many people knew exactly what I meant, and agreed that that little voice is a dirty rotten bastard.

Later, someone posted this:

Faith Instead of Fear

And it so very well described what it feels like.  Getting pregnant again has brought moments of such joy and hope.  It's also brought with it bittersweet memories of last time, and such intense feelings of fear that it's all I can do just to remind myself to breath sometimes.

And so I wait, in both light and in rain, straining my eyes in the hopes of seeing a rainbow.