The Rollercoaster

So, Thursday I called the nurse at my doctor's office and cried hysterically into the phone. She listened, and was very kind, and when I told her that I wanted to be seen earlier but that my doctor was "booked solid" she said, "Well, didn't the receptionist offer you to see a midwife or another doctor in the meantime, just to have a checkup and listen to hearttones?"
Well, no. No, she did not!
So...she hooked me up with a different doctor, a colleague of my docs. For the next day! So yesterday, I went, feeling nervous. My blood pressure was down from last time (when I sit in the room-it skyrockets-and this was a dift room) and she was SOOOOOO nice. She was opposite my doctor in the way that she kept reassuring me that I was normal. That this was normal for me to be scared and that if 5 weeks was WAY too long for me, then I should be seen anytime. Anytime. I think I knew this, but hearing it made me feel so much better. She said I could see her in the middle of appointments anytime I want.
She listened to all my questions and gave me lots of good answers.
I got really nervous when she got the doppler out, but literally-she set it on my belly and there it was. 156 :) She didn't even have to move the doppler, which was really great for me.
She also had me make two more appointments with my doctor-two weeks after each other-so that I already know that my appointments are set up closer together.
She was amazing. And while I still feel anxious, that crippling anxiety seems to be (at least temporarily) gone.
She also referred me to someone in behavioral psychology that has a speciality in pregnancy after loss. I have to call on Monday to see if insurance will cover at least part of it. I hope it will. I've been talking to a lady who is a family counselor, but I think I would benefit from someone with more of a specialty.
I loved hearing that little baby's heartbeat. It did so much for me. Believe it or not, it was the first time I got to hear it. I have had two super quick ultrasounds and got to see the little heart beating, but never got to hear it. It is such a beautiful sound.
It did bring me back to listening to the heartbeats with Aiden and Sophie. After my water broke, and I was in the hospital, they would listen to the heartbeats every shift change for those weeks. For some reason, I was never worried that I wouldn't hear the heartbeat at that point. I should have been. Sophie had no fluid. But I never worried, and I loved hearing it. It got to the point where I could use the doppler better than the nurses to find where they were. Aiden would hide and move and kick and squirm around.
Anyway, this appointment was really good for me. Next Friday is my anatomy ultrasound. We are going to find out the gender. I am nervous for it, but mostly nervous for my cervical measurement to see if everything is going ok in there.
Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post. I rely so heavily on this space and your comments and reassurance and honestly, I usually feel so much better once I pound it out and hear your voices telling me, "We're here, Christy! No matter what!" I hate so much to post about this because I know some of my friends are struggling to get pregnant, but you are all so amazing and you make me feel ok about it.
Loving you all!
xoxo

Are you irritated without reason?

Anxiety \Anx*i"e*ty\, n.; pl. Anxieties. [L. anxietas, fr. anxius: cf. F. anxi['e]t['e]. See Anxious.]

1. Concern or solicitude respecting some thing or event, future or uncertain, which disturbs the mind, and keeps it in a state of painful uneasiness. [1913 Webster]

2. Eager desire. --J. D. Forbes [1913 Webster]

3. (Med.) A state of restlessness and agitation, often with general indisposition and a distressing sense of oppression at the epigastrium. --Dunglison. [1913 Webster]

Syn: Care; solicitude; foreboding; uneasiness; perplexity; disquietude; disquiet; trouble; apprehension; restlessness. See Care. [1913 Webster]

Couldn't have said it better myself.
The days for me are fine. I am busy (especially busy with work, which is more like an annoyance) and I don't think about it much. Well, except every time I go to the bathroom. Or look at a calendar. But otherwise I'm good.
It's at night when the fear creeps in. Will tonight be the night? Will today be the last day that I was blessed to be pregnant?
I am fighting this. I want to fight it.
My counselor told me that grief can cloud over your true intuition.
So these little tiny pregnancy symptoms that I'm having, are they intuition? Or me just being an anxious freak?

Twice now I've had myself ready to go to the Emergency Room. Until I get ready to go and realize I don't have a thing to say to them when I get there. Um, I have a feeling I am having "silent contractions." Why? Because I read about it on google, that's why. Or that I think my cervix is secretly dialiting but I have no pressure or pain or increased discharge.
Because I know what can happen and I just want to be checked out? And why didn't I go to my normal doctor for that?

Well, because he is "booked solid."

Do I have to bypass the receptionist or something? Who do I call to pull some strings or something for me? And what do I say. I just want to be checked. I don't have an appointment until next Friday. It just honestly seems like a lifetime away for me.

I just want reassurance. I want that damn vagina wand to tell me that my cervix is fine. There was absolutely NO evidence that what happened last time was my cervix. Immediately after my water broke I went to the ER and my cervix was closed and hard and there was no funneling.

I hate this guessing game. I hate not knowing. I hate the fact that I want SO badly to know that I won't have to leave this baby in the morgue. Where I left two already.

I want this baby (of course). But I wish they were here. If they were here I wouldn't know this fear or this pain or this feeling that time is literally standing still.

I feel like a broken record. I can remember being a kid and the record would skip and we'd have to put a nickel on it. I wish I could do that. Skip right over the scratches. The scratches put there by me jumping around to Cyndi Lauper when I should have been upstairs doing my homework.

I have no original thoughts. I'm paralyzed with this. I'm stuck. In a rut, we'll say.

I'm sure you are all sick of reading this, too. Some of you might be saying, you should just count your blessings that you are pregnant right now.

I get it. I should. I wish I could shake this. I wish I had confidence that my body would work this time. That it will do what it is supposed to. That it won't let me down.

Im sorry. I'm sorry that this is the only thing I can say.

I called to tell the nurse that I wasn't able to sleep. That when i get into bed I am haunted by my water breaking. That I can't roll over without wondering if when I get there my water will burst.

She asked, "Are you irritated or angry without reason?"

Um. Don't ask my husband that.

"Are you having thoughts about hurting yourself or the fetus?"

Nice question, lady. The fetus? Why does that word make me want to scream at someone?

Irritated without reason much?

I just think-why do you think depression? I don't want to hurt myself. On the contrary, I want to transport me to a place where my body is perfect and will complete this pregnancy.

Anxeity is different than depression. It's just different.

I need to go relax. Nice, soft music. Lights off and a candle burning for Sophie and Aiden. Breathing and focusing and figuring this out rationally.

random updates :)

I realized I've mentioned some things and then never gone back to them, and have had a couple of requests for updates :)

But first, I have to tell you guys this story.

I have a friend, M, who I used to work with when I was a first year teacher. He and his wife and hubby and I hung out sometimes, but they have 4 kids, so it's way harder for them to be free. Anyway, in October, I ran into him and he told me that his sister and brother-in-law had had a baby, and she wasn't doing too well and had been transferred to Mayo. It was horrible news to me-I wish this would never happen :( Anyway, he emailed me a few days ago to tell me that his baby niece had passed away after a month from a rare lung condition. He was wondering if I would get in touch with his sister-in-law just to be a support person, and I said I absolutely would.
So I sent her an e-mail with links to glowinthewoods, my blog, some other stuff, and just told her that I was here when she needed anyone to vent to or someone to understand. I noticed on her facebook that she had posted how hard it was going back to work.
Well, I just got her reply, and she was so nice and then....you will not believe this. She told me that there's something M probably never told me. She is a NICU hurse. At the hospital where I had my babies.
Not only was she there when Aiden died but SHE TOOK CARE OF HIM.
She knew my son.
She knew him. Saw him. Took care of him and tried to keep him alive.
She said she hung back while he was going because she was pregnant and loss was a lot harder (which, hello, of COURSE it would be!). And she said she thought of us for weeks after and how hard it must be.
And I HATE that she is feeling this now. I hate that her sweet daughter is not with her. But I don't think I need to explain to you all the impact of hearing from someone who KNEW MY SON. This gave my heart this burst. Which simultaneously broke all over again thinking of the pain she is now in.
Life is mysterious, yo. I swear.

Anyway, some updates :

I ate in the teachers lounge all 3 days this week. So far, so good. No one got up and like screamed or anything when I walked in, and we mostly gossiped about admin and students (don't worry, we don't talk smack about kids, just talk about how we can help them :)

I went to the urologist. He said that he thinks I actually never had a UTI in the first place! Apparently, I have had 5 red blood cells in every urinalysis I've had since at least 2004 (which is when I moved here, so records go back that far). He looked at a CT scan I had a year and a half ago and he ruled out kidney stones or a tumor. He thinks I might have tiny little lesions in my bladder that are further pushed on when I'm pregnant. He wants to check my bladder, but not while I'm pregnant because going up there could introduce infection (AH that word-no way). He actually thinks that the antibiotics I took for the UTI that I probably didn't have further irritated my bladder. Seriously-so confusing!

I don't have another dr appt until 2/12. Two more weeks. I can do this. And if I can't, I'm just going to call and ask for an appt! Because just try and tell me no!

I'm SO glad tomorrow is Friday. We have had 3 house showings in the past few days. Isn't that nuts? I am so, so, so, so hoping we can ditch this place, and soon!

Ok, I think that's about it. :)

Clueless? Ignorant? Blind?

I feel ok.

I feel ok. I am 16 weeks and some change. I feel completely fine. My nausea is gone. I'm not having headaches. I'm not all that tired. I have no itching or unusual discharge (I mean unusually unusual), I have no pains, cramping, blood.

I'm starting to feel little tiny swishy swishy movements. They come really early in the morning or right before bed.

I don't feel any pressure. I don't feel any pain. I feel like I'm carrying much higher than I did with the twins-I don't know if that's necessarily true, but it just feels so different.

So, all I can wonder is, what am I missing? Because last time I certainly didn't "know" anything was wrong.

But, if I wanted to be honest, I wondered. But it was my first pregnancy, and it was twins, so how was I to know? Was I clueless? Just dumb?

And now, am I blind? Am I turning my eye to something that I should be seeing? Is there something I should be noticing and telling my doctor about? Is it there and I just don't want to notice?

This time there is a 5 week wait between doctor appointments. I read a lot of other blogs and there are a few of my people that are pregnant again, around the same gestation as me. I read that they are getting cerclages, and ultrasounds, and medicine, and lots of doctor appointments.

Please don't misunderstand. It's not like I want a cerclage. I don't want all of this stuff if I don't need it. I'm trying to trust my doctor and my second opinion.

What happened was a "fluke." But since they can't tell me exactly WHAT happened, I would like to know how they know that.
I would like to know how I just get treated like a normal pregnancy this time. Starting at 18 weeks my doctor said I would get transvaginal ultrasounds to check my cervix. He is so certain that it is not my cervix. But my next appointment is made for 19 weeks because I'm having the anatomy ultrasound at the same time.

I'm not positive, but I'm guessing that it is like this for whatever kind of loss you had. If your precious child was stillborn, you are constantly wondering if their heart is beating. For me, my water broke early. Whenever I cough, or sneeze, or roll over in bed, I brace myself. I get ready for that horrible popping sound (the doctor says you can't hear it, but I have a distinct memory of that sound so whatever) that feeling of water gushing down your legs. I have yelled at my husband for driving too fast in the car going over a bump. I mean, going over a bump? Come on-a bump isn't going to make your water break.
Or is it?

I have nightmares. Ones where I peek into the toilet and see my mucous plug and realize it's too late. Nightmares with lots of blood-which is weird because I haven't had (knock on wood) a drop of blood in either pregnancy. Even in my water breaking and for the two weeks after where I leaked I didn't see any blood.

I think a lot about those two weeks I spent on bedrest, after my water broke on baby A (Sophie). There was a prayer I said every night. I was fighting for hours, minutes. I just needed to make it to 23 weeks when my hospital would at least try to save them. I couldn't stop crying and people were saying " You have to be strong, it's not good for the babies."
Right, I'm laying here knowing my babies are dying and you're telling me not to cry?

I am so anxious. I feel as though time is literally standing still. I got new students today as its the beginning of a new semester. I had some students mention that they had French class at the end of last year when I was gone and they joked about how they didn't learn anything at all. There's some guilt in that, of course-there's a lot of guilt in education, I think. Anyway, all I could think was -Oh, what if I leave these kids again. What if I'm out again because another baby dies. They will be so disappointed and they won't learn.

Ok, now, let's get realistic here. If they don't learn any French in middle school, it's going to be OK. Really. They will live. For real.

But it's how my brain works. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm trying so hard to focus on teaching myself to relax. But I'm scared of everything. I love warm baths and they are so relaxing but I've read that if you are dilating at all, it could cause infection. I'm scared to exercise. I'm scared to not exercise.

This is so ridiculously hard. Please tell me that what I'm feeling is normal. That I'm not going crazy.

Am I ready for this?

I had an interesting conversation with a coworker/friend yesterday. She came to my room at lunchtime and said, "Come on. You're having lunch with us. Let's go."
I just kind of looked at her. I tried as quickly as I could to come up with some excuse as to why I couldn't.
I just kinda said, "I think I'll just stay here-maybe tomorrow?"

Since the beginning of the school year, I've been eating lunch at my computer, where I eat and simultaneously read blogs. I just click, click away and sit there by myself.

Maybe it's not healthy, I don't know. Maybe I do know that it's probably not.

But I used to eat in the teacher's lounge with a really, really fun group of ladies. All really super nice-all people who I like to be around. They are funny, and kind, and they care about me. But- BUT- 3 of them just had babies. One in March, one in April, and one in July.

There are two reasons why I feel reluctant to go in. 1. I don't want to sit there, just waiting for someone to slip up and say something that makes me freak out or cry or want to run out, and 2. I really don't want THEM to have to spend their lunchtime with the "broken" person, watching what they say, trying not to slip up in front of me.

I mean, I don't want them to NOT be able to mention their new, beautiful babies. Babies are blessings. Why wouldn't you want to talk about them?

But I don't know if I want to hear it. I don't know if I CAN hear it.

I told this to my friend.

She looked at me and said, "Christy. You can't do this forever. You can't avoid people forever-you're going to have to do this sometime. When you're ready, I'm here for you. I want to eat lunch with you. I miss you! "

I said back-"I know. You're right. Ok, come get me tomorrow and I'll go down with you."

I immediately I wondered if I really agreed with what I had just said. Is she? Is she right?

I mean, I know. I can't avoid people forever. But I sort of want to. But maybe it's not exactly healthy to seclude myself, looking at blogs, and never having any social contact.

It just hurts so. bad. I don't have anything to share. I could talk about my dog or something. How he peed in the bedroom, maybe. But I have nothing. I don't have any tips to share about being a mom, most of the time I have no clue what they are even talking about.

The thing is, they barely mention their babies. Really. I'm sure they talk about the students at school, and what's going on, and the new administrator in our building.

I feel like I should do this. But am I ready? Do I really want to do this?

What if they think that by coming back, I'm ok? What if they equate this with the fact that I am pregnant again? Because I am, I feel a lot better and all of the sudden I come back?

She stayed and ate with me in my room that day. She told me everyone missed me and just wanted to see me!

What if they miss the old me? What if they realize that I'm not the same anymore and wish they would've just left me in my room with my salad and the Internet. What if I immediately start crying?

Barnes and Noble

Last night I walked around this store for 30 minutes.
The whole time I held a book of baby names.
Then as I left, I set it back on the shelf.

My maternity clothes are still in the rubbermaid tub. If I dig through them that way and don't take them out, it'll be really easy for me to store them away (hide them) again. If I don't buy any books...if I don't make a single to-do list, then there will be nothing for me to have to put away (hide) again.
If I don't come up with a name, there will be nothing for me to doodle when I'm talking on the phone, thus there won't be a paper trail.

This year, my calendar is online. You see, I won't be able to come across scheduled doctor appointments and classes because they can all be deleted by someone else and are all in one place.

I have dreams where I am standing, in the baby section of a store-debating. Should I buy this? It's on such a great sale. I had one the other night where I was in Paris in this neighborhood that I've certainly never been to, and there was a big with French writing on it that I thought was so adorable. In my dream I knew that it would be my only chance to get it. But I wrestled with myself. Should I let myself buy it? In the end I woke up and bought nothing.

I am just so, so scared.

An Escape

It is dark when I wake up.
The alarm hasn't gone off, and so I lay there, waiting.
Waiting.
For what, I'm not exactly sure-but not just for the alarm.
That I know.
Something I think I will always be waiting for.
The daily routine-lather, rinse, repeat-is done on autopilot.
I watch my shape in the mirror-rather critically-
My skin is dry and crackling, dark circles underline my eyes.
It is still dark when I leave the house.
The routine is so simple-so monotonous-
6:42 a.m. is when I leave.
Every day.
Light is peeking through.
I drive down my street, and my attention is drawn to the left.
There's that car.
That car.
It's still running, it's headlights bounce off the white garage door.
I want to look away.
I need to look away.
But instead, I stare in.
The big window stands open as a mom hands over her most precious item.
She hands her baby to someone.
Someone she must trust.
She leaves the baby here each day.
At the same time.
At 6:42 a.m.
This could be me.
This should be me.
I should be stopping.
I should be turning left, pulling in, carefully taking out MY most precious item(s).
But I don't.
And I can't.
And I may not ever.
Instead, I drive.
And every.single.day.
As I get to the next intersection,
I see an airplane.
It takes off, pulling up its wheels.
Shooting up, up, up in the sky.
Irony at its finest.
How I wish I were on that plane.
Going away, away, away.
Somewhere away.
Anywhere away.
I wish I were turning left, pulling into that driveway.
I wish I were on that plane.
Instead I drive ahead.
I enter my silent classroom.
And I pretend.