I feel like I’ve been hiding in a shell lately. I don’t really want to talk to people about how I’m doing or what’s going on in my life because I don’t really feel like I know.
I finally forced myself into making an appointment with my new MFM yesterday. The only memory I really have of her is from the visit when my NST/BPPs started taking a bad turn. I don’t like knowing that I won’t have my old MFM with me going through a second pregnancy if it happens. I hope at least the nurses are the same since they were very sweet last time and held my hands when I cried and was waiting for Paul to get to the hospital.
For some reason I started letting myself read stillbirth blogs again, which I stopped doing for a long time. I don’t know why I do these things, it’s not as if I don’t already know pretty much every Bad Thing that can happen during pregnancy. I’ve also come to the conclusion that you can’t really emotionally prepare yourself for something that awful either so it’s not like reading all this and crying over other people’s stories is going to somehow dull the heartache if Something Bad does happen.
I figured out part of why I am so much more scared this time around. It feels like I am testing fate, like I’ve gotten too big for my britches and the universe is going to be like, you think you can have THAT much happiness? OH NO YOU DON’T. Maybe I felt like the universe owed me T, this time feels like I’m being greedy. But that’s not fair right? Why does having two babies feel greedy to me when other people in my life can tell everyone they want four (after having just popped out #2) and not feel like greedy testers of fate?
Stupid body.
So I changed meds over the weekend. I don’t feel right. I don’t know if it’s because of PMS or the med change or the weather or what. I feel like my feet are retaining water but they aren’t, at least not visually or from touch. My blood pressure has been up…I think…my cuff kind of sucks even though I just bought a new one and the readings never match what I get in the doctor’s office when I bring it in….so there’s that. I should probably try to buy one that works before we start TTC right? I just feel off. And I feel bad because apparently even T has noticed it, Paul said he asked this morning as he was getting ready to go to daycare, “What’s wrong with mommy?”
That sound you just heard is my heart shattering for being such a crappy mommy to such a wonderful little person who deserves better. Ugh. Maybe I am greedy.
I don’t know. I think I’m just really tired. The idea of TTC#2 is exhausting. The doctors, the lab work, the ultrasounds, the worrying, the NSTs, the BPPs….The way I see this working out if we are able to get pregnant again is me white knuckling it through the entire pregnancy…first worrying about a miscarriage, which oh by the way I found I’m homozygous or whatever for some MTHFR mutation so yay, gotta talk to the MFM about that now, where was I? Oh yeah, being terrified the entire first trimester of miscarriage, spending the entire second trimester worried about preterm labor, and the entire third trimester worrying about stillbirth because of how shitty my placenta might be. Oh and worrying about pre-e and IUGR. And the NICU. And if my baby is going to be okay. I know that if we can get a healthy munchkin out of it, it won’t matter at all. I don’t think back on my pregnancy with T and remember all that stuff for the most part, I just remember how cool it was to feel him kicking and hiccuping in me, how much I loved my pregnant belly, all the good stuff. I really loved being pregnant, I did.
But it feels like I climbed this huge mountain and it was so beautiful at the top and here I am again at the base of an even bigger mountain and I’m staring up at it and I just can’t even see the top. I just wonder how I even make it, how I even get myself to start. And I worry about whether or not I will make it to that beautiful summit or not and what I will lose along the way trying to get there.
I think these are the moments that remind me why I need God in my life. This is just all too big for me. I’m not enough. This is when I need Him to carry me. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around all of this, to somehow figure it out on my own terms and it just occurred to me that that isn’t how I’ve made it through any of the other hard times. Thinking about all of this has made me realize, I have to stop. I can’t keep spinning this shit around in my head this way. It’s not helping, it’s making me a crazy person, it’s probably hurting my health.
I don’t know why it’s still so hard for me to remember I can lean on the Lord a bit (or a lot) at times like these. But let’s save discussion of that personal failing for another day, shall we?