9w5d – Deep breath – Relax – Breathe
Happily, I spent much of yesterday afternoon feeling green around the gills. Which had the desired effect upon my mood. Unhappily, this forced me to confront how very neurotic I’m getting about this pregnancy. I was trying to explain it to my mom, and actually stumbled on a decent comparison:
I tend to suffer from a single day of excessive shall-we-say “moodiness” before almost every period. A day in which nothing anyone says is worthwhile, where I resent everything & everyone around me, take way too much stuff way too personally, and generally try my hardest NOT to behave like a bitch (though I do not always succeed). If people could hear my thoughts during that 24 hour time-frame I would have no friends left at all, and my husband would leave me, and small children would run screaming from me in the streets. Even my dog would hate me if she had a window into my brain on that day. I know this about myself and I have learned not to make any life-altering decisions during that day. I try to keep my mouth under control. I smile and nod and generally try not to say anything at all. Yes, I do get that unreasonable, and even when I know that’s what’s going on, I can’t really talk myself down; I just have to slog through it while it’s happening.
That’s rather what this is like. I know I’m being unreasonable. I know, in my head, that the odds really are in my favor. I know pregnancy symptoms come and go. I know that I’m making a mountain of worry out of a molehill of boobage.
It makes no difference. I’m trapped, and my brain is shooting up with adrenalin delivered via a gigantic needle straight to my emotional nerve center and trying to talk myself down from that? Might as well try to talk myself down from 3 seconds into a freefall off the Empire State Building. By the time I’m in that place, I sort of have to wait to go splat on the ground, because nothing else is going to make an impact – so to speak – until then.
This terror I’m dealing with is sort of the same, only it’s happening a hell of a lot more often than one day out of the month. And I’m not tempted to say unfortunate things to loved ones and strangers so much as I’m tempted to whisper horrifying thoughts to my own brain over and over again. Awake or asleep, I’m telling my brain over and over again that this can’t work, not for me, not ever, not no matter how much I want it – especially if I want it this much – it absolutely cannot happen for me. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
But it’s exhausting and it’s getting old and I want it to stop.
Actually doing ok today thanks to yesterday’s undeniable early-afternoon-sickness. What I want – more than almost anything – is just a few days in a row of belief that this will actually work. Thank you to those of you who commented that they dealt with this sort of over-the-top anxiety during their early pregnancies. It makes me feel less crazy – less out-of-control – knowing that the anxiety is temporary and that others have gone on to be productive members of society – and even mothers! – after enduring it.
I’m trying to take this one day at a time, I guess. Get through today and tomorrow – which will be my last PIO shot! That’s something to look forward to. And my rental doppler will be arriving sometime this week. Also something to look forward to, even if I’m unable to hear a heartbeat immediately upon arrival. My next doppler exam with my midwife is on Friday, and I suspect that if we can’t hear a heartbeat then, that she will figure a way to get me an ultrasound. (She had an IVF baby at age 41, so she knows what I’m going through.)
As for me, I’m going to try to not succumb to the crazies today. Get some writing done. Baby the dog. Baby the husband. Drink a cup of decaf. (Mmmmm, decaf!) Play with my new pregnancy organizer that came yesterday from Amazon. Fill out calendar pages. Pick out crib bumpers or some such silliness. Do some cross stitch. Read some SF. Use my pregnancy workout video for the first time. Daydream about being as adorably pregnant as the Cirque du Soleil acrobat (no, really) in the video. Do kegels until I jist caint kegel no more. Nap. Enjoy the rain. Eat toast. Chew ginger gum. Try to remember how to be me, mellow Sprogblogger. At least for a while.
Thank you.
I feel you, all the way. Sigh. I would like to fast forward for both of us – then I get mad at myself – I am supposed to be enjoying this dammit!!!! I hope you do the workout thing – I promised myself that I would try to walk everyday – it has happened just a handful of times.
Enjoy the decaf, enjoy being you – no matter what that brings – you are fabulous.
You arent crazy at all! Not one bit! I think that anyone who struggles with IF and/or loss, goes through these emotions so differently than those who have happy go lucky pregnancies with no issues. Just one day at a time. One breath at a time. You are doing GREAT!!!
I think your fabulously honest insight is dead on, and your description is so perfect. I get it. Me too.
And I also truly think and feel that your fears are understandable–they really are, look what you’ve been though to get here! And of course, I also like to think they are unfounded.
So sorry about the collision between the whippet and the boy. good lord. sounds just awful and scary. When animals are hurt like that, I panic and just have to hope to hell they’ve learned enough of our language to know how terribly sorry we are.
So, as a diversion, a new nice person commented on my blog today, so I went to hers: http://pundelina.blogspot.com/ she is a fine writer and a smarty pants (references mosh pits and shrodinger’s cat in the first few entries)- and you may like her. If you have time, it might be worth a visit. She is in 2ww hell too.
Me? A date with Harry Potter 7. I love science fiction as long as it is more SF and not so much fantasy (not so much the elves and faeries and dragons)– william gibson for example, larry niven– please feel free to suggest something diversionary so I can enjoy being somewhere else.
xox
hang in there, one day at a time– one less PIO shot (you should throw a party with spicy food), and one day closer to the next doppler.
Kate
Susan Reply:
August 2nd, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Have you read Neal Stephenson? His latest, Anathem, is fantastic. Cryptonomicon is one of my favorite books ever. His baroque trilogy (which I just might need to re-read) is the best 3000 page distraction EVER. If you like Gibson you’ll probably like him.
How about Iain Banks? He writes as Ian M. & Iain (Or is that Iain M. & Ian?) Anyway – you probably want his mass market paperbacks – he goes for literary oddball, too, which I love, but they’re not SF at all.
Kage Baker’s Company books are fantastic. I need to reread the whole series all at once since i read them one by one as they came out over about a decade.
In the oddball might-as-well-call-it-SF-as-anything-else camp, there’s Graham Joyce & Jonathan Carroll. Two favorites who divert me like no-one else can.
(And, of course, because I’m unable to recommend books without mentioning they Boy’s efforts, if you ever feel like stretching out your fantasy horizons you could always pick up something by S.C. Butler at your local library. He just finished book 4 and is so relieved!)
I am so happy you are complete nut case & feel like crap (yeah, hormones) . You are being honest and thats all anyone can ask for. Of course all this is totally stressful. My god, women, you would be a weird Blade Runner character is this didn’t get to you.
Thinking of distractions – may I suggest the DVD Cranford. It is a period piece from the BBC and such an easy thing to watch.
Wishing you a wet, relaxed, tea & toast kinda Sunday.
How does your ticker work? I’m so confused by it. It seems to go from “X week 5 days” to “Y week 0 days” I get that 0 day is day 7, I suppose, but what about day 6? Should it be ‘X week 0 day (Monday)’, 1d (Tuesday), 2d (Wednesday), 3d (Thursday), 4d (Friday), 5d (Saturday), 6d (Sunday), ‘Y week 0 day (Monday)’…and so on? I don’t get how it goes from 5 day to 0 day.
Congratulations, btw! I’ve been reading for a while and wish you all the happiness with sprog! I feel stupid that this is my first comment.
Susan Reply:
August 3rd, 2009 at 7:25 am
Hmmmm. Now I’m the one who’s confused. My ticker only has how many days are left and doesn’t go into weeks&days at all.
Now, I’ll often put in my title where I’m at, which has changed as my doc adjusted my due dates – which may be the source of your confusion. Because I know one week he called a Thursday 7w1d and then by the next Thursday he was calling it 8w2d. I followed his lead, since it’s right there on the U/S in white & black!
But at the moment anyway, Tuesday will be 10w, Wednesday 10w1d, etc. All the way up to next Monday which will be 10w6d.
I got hb’s at 9 weeks, but I’ve had a lot of paranoid doppler practise.
Good luck, a full bladder, patience and aim low down
xx
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