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Searching for a sign

On the morning back in January 2010 when I lost my only other pregnancy, I woke up feeling great. Feeling not pregnant. Feeling like myself.

Which means that this time around, I am searching and clinging to symptoms and signs, trying to ease my mind, as if somehow "feeling normal" means that this pregnancy, too, is doomed. Common sense would tell me that it's normal to feel normal, especially this early in a pregnancy. And I want to believe it. And, trust me on this one, it bugs the hell out of me that I can't. I would really rather be a normal person, able to trust my body and trust God. But I'm not. I'm a crazy-lady.

Yesterday, I felt great. Boobs not so sore, didn't feel sick, didn't feel bloated. Just felt like me. Which was terrifying.

Overnight, I woke up with crazy stomach pains. Not nausea. Not feeling sick. Just flat-out painful stomach cramps. Not that you care, but I'm guessing it was a ridiculous case of gas pain. Yup. I said it.

But in the middle of the night, waking up with these pains, my first fear is that the pain was a lost pregnancy in the works. Shortly thereafter, I panicked about the possibility of the pain signaling an ectopic. And a little while after that, I came to my senses, cursed the can of soda I drank in the evening, cursed myself for overeating at dinner, cursed my parents for bring over a cherry pie, and decided that I felt cruddy because I was just suffering the consequences of those actions. Two Tums later, I tucked myself back into bed, and woke up this morning feeling much better. Oddly sore (from sleeping poorly?), but better.

Lack of sleep means that I just feel off today. And I just ate lunch, which I was hungry for, but feel kind of "meh" about now that I'm done eating.

ALL of these things I've felt in the last 24 hours: stomach pain, soreness, tiredness, not sure about how well lunch will sit...all of them could certainly be the pregnancy symptoms that I asked for. Or they could have NOTHING to do with pregnancy.

And that's the rub. Even things that could be signs and symptoms are yet so easily dismissed. And I'm back to where I started yesterday, not yet ready to believe that this is going to work, not yet ready to believe that there will be a baby in my arms next May/June, not yet ready to accept that I'm doing anything but pretending to be pregnant.

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