There are always plenty of things to be anxious about while you are pregnant. It's just the way of things. Even for the most normal pregnancies, there will always be anxiety. Have I gained enough weight? Have I gained too much? How do I know the baby is there before I'm showing and before I can hear the heartbeat? Am I going to get bad morning sickness? Will my ankles puff up to gigantic proportions in the third trimester? What will labor and delivery be like? Will I be a good mother?
I am pretty sure that there is not one woman out there who, while pregnant, didn't encounter a little bit of anxiety about something, anything, at some point.
But I have to be honest here. When you've lost pregnancies, anxiety stops being something normal, small, or usual.
In the early weeks of this pregnancy, I was one constant ball of anxiety. Both of my losses were early and unavoidable. And so I counted every week. Six weeks put me farther along than either of my previous losses. Seven weeks felt like a miracle. Eight weeks was unthinkable. Every day, I was anxious. I was fearful every morning that this would be the day that I lost this baby. Milestones were so important to me. Seeing the yolk sac in that first early ultrasound. Seeing a teensy little peanut of a baby at seven weeks and that flicker of a heartbeat. Hearing that heartbeat for the very first time, and hearing that heartbeat each month at my regular appointments until I started feeling movement. Even now, every time this hedgehog kicks me, I take a pause and smile. It does not get old. Every punch, every roll, every tumble is a further sign for me that there is a baby in there, a baby who is alive.
When we moved out of the first trimester, my high anxiety dissipated. I eagerly took the opportunity to treat myself like a normal pregnant lady, able to enjoy and even take for granted that I was pregnant. It has been wonderful and freeing. Life is no fun when you spend every free moment worrying that something is about to go wrong.
We flew back from New Jersey last Thursday afternoon. Sometime between getting in the car to head to the airport and getting out of the car at the airport, I tweaked something in the side of my belly. Probably just twisted funny getting in or out of the car with my carry-on bag. I walked around the airport annoyed by the unidentified pain, and that little anxiety gauge in my brain crept up just a bit. I told myself that if it didn't get better by Monday, when we were back here in Decorah, I'd make an appointment to see my doctor. The pain got better over the weekend, but my little bit of anxiety never went back down.
I had a few days over the last week when, gross as it is to talk about, I had a noticeable increase in discharge. Pregnancy does crazy things to your body. Everything from just upping the amount of stuff that your body puts out to relaxing your joints and muscles such that your bladder doesn't quite do its job as well as it should. But despite knowing these things, I started wondering what was actually normal, and started worrying that what I was experiencing might not be normal, and as soon as you start thinking that way, you get yourself quickly to a place where you fear that you are leaking fluid or something else equally as serious. My anxiety shot up as high as its been since last spring.
I tried to sleep off the crazy, telling myself that I would watch things for a couple days and then call my doctor if things weren't better. It took me a full 24 hours to even admit to Matt that I was worrying about this, and he was amazingly supportive, telling me that there was never any harm or shame in calling.
It's been a few days now. Physically, things have evened out. Baby has moved off my bladder and so things in that department have tapered off. I'm feeling a little achy and sore and crampy on the underside of my belly, but even that is normal, and usually wouldn't worry me in the least. But my anxiety level hasn't tapered off at all.
I think that my brain, having taking so many weeks off of being anxious, remembered how to be anxious, and so I'm in full-anxiety mode right now. I hate it. But hating the anxiety doesn't make it go away.
Not able to shake the anxiety, I gave in and called the OB nurse coordinator at the clinic today, and shared my symptoms with her, and she is checking with my doctor and then calling me back to let me know what he thinks. I really thought that the act of calling itself would help me feel better, and in some ways it did. The nurse assured me that I did the right thing, and that this is why she's there, for any questions or concerns, and that my anxiety really just means that I'm already thinking like a mom and trying to be good to and protect my baby.
And yet...and yet. I feel really dumb.
Once I started telling her what was going on, I felt so silly and crazy for being as anxious as I am about it. This is what I hate. Losses make me more anxious about future losses (even when I’m 26 weeks pregnant and feeling hedgehog flip and kick me all the time!), and I feel so stupid when I bring other people into that anxiety, especially my doctor, when it is so very likely that there is NOTHING AT ALL wrong.
This is the thing about knowing loss. You get stuck in this weird place where, no matter how valid and uncontrollable your anxiety, you feel uncertain and unsure and even a little guilty about bringing other people into it. Because my rational brain knows that I am prone to anxiety about this pregnancy. I can self-differentiate enough to know in my rational brain that most of the anxiety is in my head, and not in reality. So I don't ever intend to make other people crazy with it. I simply try to deal with it inside myself.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't like it when I am a crazy ball of anxiety, because it shuts me down, but is, in reality, rarely worth getting other people worked up about. And it's kind of lonely. I don't like feeling silly, stupid, or irrational. In life, I hate feeling embarrassed. And so I am pretty seriously grumpy that anxiety puts me in a place to feel all of those things.
Hopefully I'll hear back from the doctor soon, and hopefully it will help me feel better and not sillier.
I am pretty sure that there is not one woman out there who, while pregnant, didn't encounter a little bit of anxiety about something, anything, at some point.
But I have to be honest here. When you've lost pregnancies, anxiety stops being something normal, small, or usual.
In the early weeks of this pregnancy, I was one constant ball of anxiety. Both of my losses were early and unavoidable. And so I counted every week. Six weeks put me farther along than either of my previous losses. Seven weeks felt like a miracle. Eight weeks was unthinkable. Every day, I was anxious. I was fearful every morning that this would be the day that I lost this baby. Milestones were so important to me. Seeing the yolk sac in that first early ultrasound. Seeing a teensy little peanut of a baby at seven weeks and that flicker of a heartbeat. Hearing that heartbeat for the very first time, and hearing that heartbeat each month at my regular appointments until I started feeling movement. Even now, every time this hedgehog kicks me, I take a pause and smile. It does not get old. Every punch, every roll, every tumble is a further sign for me that there is a baby in there, a baby who is alive.
When we moved out of the first trimester, my high anxiety dissipated. I eagerly took the opportunity to treat myself like a normal pregnant lady, able to enjoy and even take for granted that I was pregnant. It has been wonderful and freeing. Life is no fun when you spend every free moment worrying that something is about to go wrong.
We flew back from New Jersey last Thursday afternoon. Sometime between getting in the car to head to the airport and getting out of the car at the airport, I tweaked something in the side of my belly. Probably just twisted funny getting in or out of the car with my carry-on bag. I walked around the airport annoyed by the unidentified pain, and that little anxiety gauge in my brain crept up just a bit. I told myself that if it didn't get better by Monday, when we were back here in Decorah, I'd make an appointment to see my doctor. The pain got better over the weekend, but my little bit of anxiety never went back down.
I had a few days over the last week when, gross as it is to talk about, I had a noticeable increase in discharge. Pregnancy does crazy things to your body. Everything from just upping the amount of stuff that your body puts out to relaxing your joints and muscles such that your bladder doesn't quite do its job as well as it should. But despite knowing these things, I started wondering what was actually normal, and started worrying that what I was experiencing might not be normal, and as soon as you start thinking that way, you get yourself quickly to a place where you fear that you are leaking fluid or something else equally as serious. My anxiety shot up as high as its been since last spring.
I tried to sleep off the crazy, telling myself that I would watch things for a couple days and then call my doctor if things weren't better. It took me a full 24 hours to even admit to Matt that I was worrying about this, and he was amazingly supportive, telling me that there was never any harm or shame in calling.
It's been a few days now. Physically, things have evened out. Baby has moved off my bladder and so things in that department have tapered off. I'm feeling a little achy and sore and crampy on the underside of my belly, but even that is normal, and usually wouldn't worry me in the least. But my anxiety level hasn't tapered off at all.
I think that my brain, having taking so many weeks off of being anxious, remembered how to be anxious, and so I'm in full-anxiety mode right now. I hate it. But hating the anxiety doesn't make it go away.
Not able to shake the anxiety, I gave in and called the OB nurse coordinator at the clinic today, and shared my symptoms with her, and she is checking with my doctor and then calling me back to let me know what he thinks. I really thought that the act of calling itself would help me feel better, and in some ways it did. The nurse assured me that I did the right thing, and that this is why she's there, for any questions or concerns, and that my anxiety really just means that I'm already thinking like a mom and trying to be good to and protect my baby.
And yet...and yet. I feel really dumb.
Once I started telling her what was going on, I felt so silly and crazy for being as anxious as I am about it. This is what I hate. Losses make me more anxious about future losses (even when I’m 26 weeks pregnant and feeling hedgehog flip and kick me all the time!), and I feel so stupid when I bring other people into that anxiety, especially my doctor, when it is so very likely that there is NOTHING AT ALL wrong.
This is the thing about knowing loss. You get stuck in this weird place where, no matter how valid and uncontrollable your anxiety, you feel uncertain and unsure and even a little guilty about bringing other people into it. Because my rational brain knows that I am prone to anxiety about this pregnancy. I can self-differentiate enough to know in my rational brain that most of the anxiety is in my head, and not in reality. So I don't ever intend to make other people crazy with it. I simply try to deal with it inside myself.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't like it when I am a crazy ball of anxiety, because it shuts me down, but is, in reality, rarely worth getting other people worked up about. And it's kind of lonely. I don't like feeling silly, stupid, or irrational. In life, I hate feeling embarrassed. And so I am pretty seriously grumpy that anxiety puts me in a place to feel all of those things.
Hopefully I'll hear back from the doctor soon, and hopefully it will help me feel better and not sillier.
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