Before we had "The Thickening!" And now we have THE QUICKENING! I regularly feel little twitches, despite my anterior-and-to-the-right-placenta, and I'm pretty sure they're not gas or digestion, they're my big baby moving around. I had thought it might be weird, but it's not. I love it. I am 20 weeks pregnant today. That means I officially can't have a miscarriage this pregnancy. If I have a loss, it would be a stillbirth. I'm glad to be over 35 so NSTs and an extra ultrasound is in my future. Reading all these natural parenting books I wish I heard more about infertility, about pregnancy loss, in them. That's part of "nature" too, and it sure as hell affects how women feel about birth. I hired a doula this past week. She's experienced, professional, sensitive, and she seems wise. She shared with me that she had lost an infant, though she didn't share details. I feel so sad for her. I can tell she gets that my worries aren't pathological. Hiring the doula made me feel so much more hopeful about my care and about the birth, after a disappointing last appointment with the midwives. It feels good to have support.
I'm so happy to be halfway through this pregnancy, to be showing, to be preparing. After so long and so much grief and despair about whether this would happen, I can't believe it's happening. Also this past week, I had unexpected contact with my family of origin. A tumult of emotions, and while my therapist was on vacation, but luckily a friend came into town and we talked about it a lot. I won't go into the details, but I will say that being called family is a privilege, not a right. Being called Grandma is a privilege that needs to be earned. I wish I could scream it from the rooftops. No one has a right to be in my life, to be in anyone 's life. Also, my choice to share about this pregnancy is also an honor. Anytime someone shares about their life, it's an honor. Sometimes my world looks smaller since I've challenged my old assumptions about what I "owe" to people. And that's sad. But it's also sometimes feeling a lot richer. And deeper. I don't want people who couldn't bother to extend sympathy with my grief over the miscarriages (or anything else) to share in my joy over this pregnancy, it just doesn't feel right.
I know I said I'd say "B'sha'ah tovah," but I say congratulations sometimes, and often I accept congratulations from others. I'm trying to live in hope, even though the fear comes sometimes. I love this baby so so much already. I love you, baby. I will tell you for the rest of my days about the earliest beginnings of yours.
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Friday, November 6, 2015
It's a ...
surprise! We managed to wait to find out the sex, even having to look away at several points when she told us to, so we wouldn't see. The ultrasound tech knows though, and took a picture. Most importantly, my baby is healthy by every single measure she could see. Four chambers of the heart. Perfect looking brain, kidneys, vertebrae, bones. My cervix is long and shows no sign of preterm labor risk. How did I get so lucky to have such a healthy baby? Tears streamed down my cheeks the whole time. My baby lifted up its legs like in happy baby pose; crossed its legs; made fists and brought those fists up to its mouth as though to suck its thumb; had a heart rate of 144 bpm (just like last time we checked, when it was 145). My baby's little foot was 2.9 centimeters long. That seems huge! And she said it weighs about ten ounces. Baby is measuring one week bigger than schedule, also like last time (I like big babies, and anyway that's reassuring). Also I get an ultrasound at 32 weeks, and they said they'll do non-stress tests weekly starting at 35ish weeks, all because I'm over 35 years old. Yippee! But most of all, yippee for my baby. My baby, with me, right here, healthy and seemingly peaceful. I feel so lucky and so grateful.
Telling
I am 18 weeks and 1 day pregnant today. Yay! I worry that I haven't felt movement yet, though a couple of times I wondered if I had. I feel so tired today. It's a gray day, but I am tired of being tired and behind on work. I wish I could just sleep until I felt rested, but that seems so elusive these days. I have my anatomy scan at MFM on Friday, and I'm both looking forward to it, because the last one was so amazing, and I'm nervous. What if something's wrong? What if we find out the baby has died? Soon I'll be at the stage where I'll worry about cord accidents. I know that most likely, we will bring home a healthy baby. And it's weird to admit just how much that hope in my life changes everything. Any time I think about the future, this pregnancy brightens it. Makes me smile. Unlike the dark year and a half of miscarriages.
I called the midwife office and switched my next appointment to one who I'm pretty sure I'll feel comfortable around. It helped last week to just allow myself to say about the last midwife, who I'll call Sue, "it's okay if I don't like Sue." I don't like Sue. But there are several others, maybe I'll like them better. I get angry every time I'm on my bike, thinking about how Sue warned me that if I got into a wreck and the bike hit my abdomen, I could lose my baby. I have never in ten years of bike commuting a few days a week, gotten into a "wreck," or fallen off my bike in any way. This was quite the mixed message, since moments before that she told me to go on anxiety meds; then she told me I wasn't worried enough? I just don't like Sue, and that's ok. I realize though that I trust Sue more than I trust my Mom, who I haven't even told about the pregnancy because we are estranged. That's just a sad fact, and I think that always makes disappointment harder.
---
Two days later. Today I have the scan, which could be an incredibly happy memory or a traumatic one, likely happy. I also realized that it's exactly one year today since I had a scan that confirmed what I'd known the night before, that I'd lost yet another pregnancy. What a sad memory. All the blood that night, me burning swaddle blankets in the rain, me trying to destroy myself because I just couldn't take this cruelty. Here's a story I don't often tell: my ex-therapist charged me, as was her policy, for the phone call, 10 or 15 minutes or so long, that I'd made that afternoon to her office just telling her that indeed, I'd had another miscarriage as I feared. Later that night I left an enraged message about this, amid the bleeding and cramping and going mad with grief, on her voicemail. I called again the next day, changing my mind about never wanting to see her again, but still pissed as hell, and mean. I'm not proud of how I acted; I apologized to her afterward. Yet later on she repeatedly cited that night and morning, when I was absolutely beside myself with grief and pain, and angry that she charges (as is her right, though I later realized not all therapists do) in all instances for phone calls, as proof that I don't take responsibility for my actions and that I am "abusive." She never mentioned the context later. I'm still so ashamed of that story, and the label she put on me because of it, even though it's so clear I should have fired her long before I did. I guess I'm thinking about it today because holy fuck was that a dark time. Before the traumatic D&c, before the months of failing to get pregnant again, before the desperate attempts to not lose my job while missing so much work around that time. Things got better after I saw Dr. Special, and fired that therapist, and of course, since I have had a healthy pregnancy.
I told people more widely at work yesterday that I'm pregnant, and they were so happy for me and kind it turned a hard day into a really good one. It felt really good to share that instead of hiding why I'm tired a lot, and to have them share in my happiness. I wanted to find out the sex today just to have another moment of "telling" before the baby's born. But it's also scary--what if today I have to find out that I have to un-tell again? And sad--every time I tell someone I know I'm not telling my mom, and I miss her. Even though it's not healthy for me to be around her, though I feel bad about myself when I do, I miss her. And even more, I miss what I never had, a mom who I couldn't imagine not telling, like some people had.
I hope it's not a bad sign that I haven't definitively felt my baby move yet. Tiny "maybe that's it?" Here and there is all. I am going to bust my ass to be the kind of loving and attentive and secure-in-herself mother that my baby couldn't imagine not telling, and I've started trying for that since day one of this pregnancy.
I called the midwife office and switched my next appointment to one who I'm pretty sure I'll feel comfortable around. It helped last week to just allow myself to say about the last midwife, who I'll call Sue, "it's okay if I don't like Sue." I don't like Sue. But there are several others, maybe I'll like them better. I get angry every time I'm on my bike, thinking about how Sue warned me that if I got into a wreck and the bike hit my abdomen, I could lose my baby. I have never in ten years of bike commuting a few days a week, gotten into a "wreck," or fallen off my bike in any way. This was quite the mixed message, since moments before that she told me to go on anxiety meds; then she told me I wasn't worried enough? I just don't like Sue, and that's ok. I realize though that I trust Sue more than I trust my Mom, who I haven't even told about the pregnancy because we are estranged. That's just a sad fact, and I think that always makes disappointment harder.
---
Two days later. Today I have the scan, which could be an incredibly happy memory or a traumatic one, likely happy. I also realized that it's exactly one year today since I had a scan that confirmed what I'd known the night before, that I'd lost yet another pregnancy. What a sad memory. All the blood that night, me burning swaddle blankets in the rain, me trying to destroy myself because I just couldn't take this cruelty. Here's a story I don't often tell: my ex-therapist charged me, as was her policy, for the phone call, 10 or 15 minutes or so long, that I'd made that afternoon to her office just telling her that indeed, I'd had another miscarriage as I feared. Later that night I left an enraged message about this, amid the bleeding and cramping and going mad with grief, on her voicemail. I called again the next day, changing my mind about never wanting to see her again, but still pissed as hell, and mean. I'm not proud of how I acted; I apologized to her afterward. Yet later on she repeatedly cited that night and morning, when I was absolutely beside myself with grief and pain, and angry that she charges (as is her right, though I later realized not all therapists do) in all instances for phone calls, as proof that I don't take responsibility for my actions and that I am "abusive." She never mentioned the context later. I'm still so ashamed of that story, and the label she put on me because of it, even though it's so clear I should have fired her long before I did. I guess I'm thinking about it today because holy fuck was that a dark time. Before the traumatic D&c, before the months of failing to get pregnant again, before the desperate attempts to not lose my job while missing so much work around that time. Things got better after I saw Dr. Special, and fired that therapist, and of course, since I have had a healthy pregnancy.
I told people more widely at work yesterday that I'm pregnant, and they were so happy for me and kind it turned a hard day into a really good one. It felt really good to share that instead of hiding why I'm tired a lot, and to have them share in my happiness. I wanted to find out the sex today just to have another moment of "telling" before the baby's born. But it's also scary--what if today I have to find out that I have to un-tell again? And sad--every time I tell someone I know I'm not telling my mom, and I miss her. Even though it's not healthy for me to be around her, though I feel bad about myself when I do, I miss her. And even more, I miss what I never had, a mom who I couldn't imagine not telling, like some people had.
I hope it's not a bad sign that I haven't definitively felt my baby move yet. Tiny "maybe that's it?" Here and there is all. I am going to bust my ass to be the kind of loving and attentive and secure-in-herself mother that my baby couldn't imagine not telling, and I've started trying for that since day one of this pregnancy.
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Trusting
I am 17 weeks and 1 day pregnant today. Which is awesome! Almost four full months! I have a little bump that admittedly most people wouldn't notice if they weren't looking but it's there. This reminds me: you know that cultural sensitivity exercise where they ask you to "draw an Indian?" And the point is that an American Indian doesn't need to always be dressed in feathers or whatever but can look like anybody else. That reminds me of pregnancy. "Draw a pregnant woman." And up until recently I'd have thought immediately of a woman with a gloriously developed belly. And that's certainly reflected on absolutely everything written about pregnancy. But it's also a woman with an entirely flat stomach, or someone who looks like me, or someone a little between all these points. Being on the verge of birth takes a long time. Pregnant women are just, women.
The best thing to report is that I heard the baby's heartbeat yesterday. Strong and rhythmic and amazing, 145 bpm. I am so so relieved to know the baby in there that I still can't feel is alive and as far as we can tell, well. I cried so hard for a while on the car as we left the midwives' office, I was just overcome. With relief and love and I hardly knew what else. I didn't like how yesterday's appointment went. I was listened to and responded to and that was good, but I have a hard time getting over a few things that really shook me up and ended up leaving me a bigger emotional wreck than I'd planned on, or needed to be. First, you have to understand that both MFP and I are really anxious in the days before the appointment. We fear that we'll find out the baby has died again, like we did on my very first visit to that office, my first prenatal visit ever. I go over the traumatic miscarriages in my head and remember all the anger and resentment I feel about the treatment I got. I made a list of questions to ask the midwife I'd be meeting on Monday, and I admit I'd heard she was especially gentle and I was looking forward to telling my story of the miscarriages to someone who seemed responsive. I don't really feel like the one midwife I've seen really gets how this is affecting how I feel about my treatment--that I'm still kind of pissed that the midwives were totally not there for me during the MCs, and how quickly, despite my advocating for myself, I got funneled through the medical system like an anonymous piece of meet without help or adequate preparation; how I was poo pooed. Yeah, partly I want a, "we can do better and will try to," but mostly I want an answer to, "how is my birth and pregnancy not going to go the same way?" Anyway, they get me into the exam room and say the same midwife as before will see me, fucking with my mental expectations of the visit. There are several midwives in the practice and any one of them could deliver my baby, so it's important I get to meet all of them in advance; plus like I said, I was looking forward to trying a new one; and thirdly, I have PTSD and am nervous as hell about each visit, so anything totally controllable that gets fucked up heightens my fears. And did I get a, sorry we messed that up? No of course. I got, make sure you tell the desk next time. Well I did, actually, and the desk fucked up. They did offer to let me switch, but I didn't know how long I'd have to wait to get in to see the other one, and I wanted to hear the fucking heartbeat. So then, and this is what really fucked me up, she asked if the midwife in training can look for the heartbeat. I like her, and the last time the midwife found it super quick so I was like sure. BAD MOVE. NEVER AGAIN. She struggled to locate it. I became distraught, though likely I just froze. I said, oh no, here it is. In my head, I was convinced, this is over. Yet again, it was stupid to hope. I'll have to untell everyone. I knew I shouldn't have counted on this. That's it, everything I feared is happening. Meanwhile the experienced midwife is smiling, oh it's okay, which is not helpful to have my feelings be so denied, and then she took over and found it right away. And then I couldn't even sob with relief as I wanted to because it's a Doppler and if I move, you can't hear it, and I REALLY wanted to hear it. I think the wait was only 20-30 seconds, who knows, but in my trauma brain it didn't matter, it is seared into my brain, it was so fucking intense. Bastards. This was after they asked me how I was doing and I said nervous because we're always nervous about hearing the heartbeat! Now I know never to let any trainee do a damn thing to me--do it on some mother who's only had healthy pregnancies and who doesn't have PTSD, ok?--but they should have fucking known anyway, just have the trainee look for the heartbeat AFTER the experienced one already found it! Okay?! And then she's like, you'll need a pap, and I'm like, way to not read my chart, asshole, I had it last time (ok you can see I'm having a hard time trusting my caregivers), and suggested that I take anxiety meds (out of your scope, lady, also, will they cure the memory of losing two pregnancies in a row, or the fact that 1 in 160 pregnancies end in loss?), telling me I should stop biking to work (um, no), and asking me when I was going to feel like things were okay with this pregnancy, all in a jokey, friendly, not too condescending or edict--issuing way, but COME ON. Pregnant women are concerned about their baby's health? That's a universal experience. Women who've had multiple losses fearing that the baby might not have a heartbeat, and needing some goddamn consideration of that when deciding how to train a midwife? OBVIOUS. Woman with PTSD who has rehearsed how the appointment will go needing to be sure of who, exactly, she'll be seeing that day? Maybe not as obvious, but you can fucking say sorry when you fuck up instead of telling me what I'll do differently!
Apparently I'm still very angry about how that went. On the day of, I was just a ball of tears and exhausted and I lost hours of work unexpectedly because of it. Believe it or not, I still feel like I'm in a good place overall with my care. It's just really hard for me to allow flaws. All of these are small in the context of the visit except for subjecting me to the needless search for the heartbeat, and secondly, fucking up who I'd be seeing. MFP is going to call in advance each time in the future to make sure they have it right, so that my very traumatized self can have as few surprises as possible. Also, I am going to work on getting into the mindset that my job is to get the best care possible, and that involves being respectful, but it does not necessarily involve being nice or protecting the midwife's feelings--i.e., I will try to practice saying no (to allowing the trainee to do anything, or anything), and saying when something is not helpful, and asking for what I need instead. I am afraid of being invalidated during labor, I'm afraid of insensitive people who neither know nor care about my story being around me in labor, I'm afraid of unnecessary pain resulting from my own inability to advocate for myself, I'm afraid of needing to be an adversary rather than a partner with my caregivers. I feel afraid of imperfections in the people from whom I'm asking for help in this process. Of course they will be imperfect, but what level of imperfection am I willing to tolerate when my baby's life is at stake? When this kind of health matter is trauma central for me, for other reasons but also because of the recurrent miscarriages? It's hard to feel safe and okay and trusting, even when I feel--or especially when I feel--utterly floored by how happy and relieved I am that I'm this far and the baby's okay.
I got a list of doulas from the midwife, and I'm calling them for interviews. I think a doula can provide some of the individualized support I'm looking for, at least in the birth part. And maybe a postpartum doula for after.
The best thing to report is that I heard the baby's heartbeat yesterday. Strong and rhythmic and amazing, 145 bpm. I am so so relieved to know the baby in there that I still can't feel is alive and as far as we can tell, well. I cried so hard for a while on the car as we left the midwives' office, I was just overcome. With relief and love and I hardly knew what else. I didn't like how yesterday's appointment went. I was listened to and responded to and that was good, but I have a hard time getting over a few things that really shook me up and ended up leaving me a bigger emotional wreck than I'd planned on, or needed to be. First, you have to understand that both MFP and I are really anxious in the days before the appointment. We fear that we'll find out the baby has died again, like we did on my very first visit to that office, my first prenatal visit ever. I go over the traumatic miscarriages in my head and remember all the anger and resentment I feel about the treatment I got. I made a list of questions to ask the midwife I'd be meeting on Monday, and I admit I'd heard she was especially gentle and I was looking forward to telling my story of the miscarriages to someone who seemed responsive. I don't really feel like the one midwife I've seen really gets how this is affecting how I feel about my treatment--that I'm still kind of pissed that the midwives were totally not there for me during the MCs, and how quickly, despite my advocating for myself, I got funneled through the medical system like an anonymous piece of meet without help or adequate preparation; how I was poo pooed. Yeah, partly I want a, "we can do better and will try to," but mostly I want an answer to, "how is my birth and pregnancy not going to go the same way?" Anyway, they get me into the exam room and say the same midwife as before will see me, fucking with my mental expectations of the visit. There are several midwives in the practice and any one of them could deliver my baby, so it's important I get to meet all of them in advance; plus like I said, I was looking forward to trying a new one; and thirdly, I have PTSD and am nervous as hell about each visit, so anything totally controllable that gets fucked up heightens my fears. And did I get a, sorry we messed that up? No of course. I got, make sure you tell the desk next time. Well I did, actually, and the desk fucked up. They did offer to let me switch, but I didn't know how long I'd have to wait to get in to see the other one, and I wanted to hear the fucking heartbeat. So then, and this is what really fucked me up, she asked if the midwife in training can look for the heartbeat. I like her, and the last time the midwife found it super quick so I was like sure. BAD MOVE. NEVER AGAIN. She struggled to locate it. I became distraught, though likely I just froze. I said, oh no, here it is. In my head, I was convinced, this is over. Yet again, it was stupid to hope. I'll have to untell everyone. I knew I shouldn't have counted on this. That's it, everything I feared is happening. Meanwhile the experienced midwife is smiling, oh it's okay, which is not helpful to have my feelings be so denied, and then she took over and found it right away. And then I couldn't even sob with relief as I wanted to because it's a Doppler and if I move, you can't hear it, and I REALLY wanted to hear it. I think the wait was only 20-30 seconds, who knows, but in my trauma brain it didn't matter, it is seared into my brain, it was so fucking intense. Bastards. This was after they asked me how I was doing and I said nervous because we're always nervous about hearing the heartbeat! Now I know never to let any trainee do a damn thing to me--do it on some mother who's only had healthy pregnancies and who doesn't have PTSD, ok?--but they should have fucking known anyway, just have the trainee look for the heartbeat AFTER the experienced one already found it! Okay?! And then she's like, you'll need a pap, and I'm like, way to not read my chart, asshole, I had it last time (ok you can see I'm having a hard time trusting my caregivers), and suggested that I take anxiety meds (out of your scope, lady, also, will they cure the memory of losing two pregnancies in a row, or the fact that 1 in 160 pregnancies end in loss?), telling me I should stop biking to work (um, no), and asking me when I was going to feel like things were okay with this pregnancy, all in a jokey, friendly, not too condescending or edict--issuing way, but COME ON. Pregnant women are concerned about their baby's health? That's a universal experience. Women who've had multiple losses fearing that the baby might not have a heartbeat, and needing some goddamn consideration of that when deciding how to train a midwife? OBVIOUS. Woman with PTSD who has rehearsed how the appointment will go needing to be sure of who, exactly, she'll be seeing that day? Maybe not as obvious, but you can fucking say sorry when you fuck up instead of telling me what I'll do differently!
Apparently I'm still very angry about how that went. On the day of, I was just a ball of tears and exhausted and I lost hours of work unexpectedly because of it. Believe it or not, I still feel like I'm in a good place overall with my care. It's just really hard for me to allow flaws. All of these are small in the context of the visit except for subjecting me to the needless search for the heartbeat, and secondly, fucking up who I'd be seeing. MFP is going to call in advance each time in the future to make sure they have it right, so that my very traumatized self can have as few surprises as possible. Also, I am going to work on getting into the mindset that my job is to get the best care possible, and that involves being respectful, but it does not necessarily involve being nice or protecting the midwife's feelings--i.e., I will try to practice saying no (to allowing the trainee to do anything, or anything), and saying when something is not helpful, and asking for what I need instead. I am afraid of being invalidated during labor, I'm afraid of insensitive people who neither know nor care about my story being around me in labor, I'm afraid of unnecessary pain resulting from my own inability to advocate for myself, I'm afraid of needing to be an adversary rather than a partner with my caregivers. I feel afraid of imperfections in the people from whom I'm asking for help in this process. Of course they will be imperfect, but what level of imperfection am I willing to tolerate when my baby's life is at stake? When this kind of health matter is trauma central for me, for other reasons but also because of the recurrent miscarriages? It's hard to feel safe and okay and trusting, even when I feel--or especially when I feel--utterly floored by how happy and relieved I am that I'm this far and the baby's okay.
I got a list of doulas from the midwife, and I'm calling them for interviews. I think a doula can provide some of the individualized support I'm looking for, at least in the birth part. And maybe a postpartum doula for after.
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Fear and not-fear
I am 16 weeks pregnant today. That makes me so happy. I am so far along! This feels so very pregnant! I struggle with feeling like an imposter in a lot of areas of my life, but especially pregnancy. I remember saying to the midwife right after we heard pregnancy #1 didn't have a heartbeat something like, I feel so stupid, like I don't belong here. Like I came in acting like a pregnant woman but really, I'm not like all the others. The midwife was like oh no of course not. I wish she'd stayed and talked to me for much much longer, and had been there for my follow up appointment. I wish I'd heard more, you really were pregnant. This happens. It's particularly cruel. You couldn't have known. With this current pregnancy #3, I am finally feeling like 16 weeks is "legitimately" pregnant, it doesn't sound like I'm going around foolishly believing that I'm pregnant and telling people too early (I would NEVER judge anyone else as harshly as I judge myself). I've even felt like an imposter in the pregnancy loss community. I've had two miscarriages, but not 3. And I feel ashamed that I sought a support group when my losses were so early, even though no one there has ever belittled my losses. And why would I be ashamed of being spared the intensified suffering of an even later loss? A few weeks ago the pregnancy loss group held a tulip planting ceremony. I feel ashamed (sense a pattern?) that I didn't go. I didn't go for lots of reasons--scheduling conflicts, the way I don't really think of my losses as having severed a connection with a particular child, but rather a moment of cruel suffering and dashed hopes that I endured; the fact that ceremonies like this drive home for me the ways recurrent miscarriage feels different for me than the experience of later term loss; the feeling of hopefulness about this pregnancy that I've had lately since I've never experienced this trimester before, and so my thoughts have been on other things than my miscarriage grief, and I didn't want to turn them back. I feel guilty for feeling hopeful. I feel guilty for not feeling afraid. Am I just avoiding my fear? Is it growing somewhere undetected, ready to turn somehow malignant? Or do I really just not feel much? If I don't, am I like the ignorant, insensitive people not living on Planet My Baby Died that we used to talk about in the pregnancy loss group, and direct our anger toward?
Or maybe I don't feel much fear because unlike women who've experienced later losses, I am hitting milestones like 16 weeks for the first time; growing a bump for the first time; making concrete parenting plans for the first time, and maybe good fortune doesn't mean I'm ignorant or insensitive. I was raised on a steady diet of guilt and shame. It makes sense that my default setting would be to feel that again the moment I feel hopeful and good.
My therapist said that I have to really feel that I deserved the kind of love that I want to give my child, because every child deserves that, in order to be able to really fully give it to my child. I see this kind of double standard everywhere around me and it makes me mad: people who excuse and tolerate the pain of things their parents did to them, not really mourning it or giving themselves the compassion of healing from it, when they themselves would never in a million years treat another person that way. I'm talking about emotional, physical, and sexual abuse here, not small slights. Like there's one standard for what's an acceptable way to treat me, and then there's another for everybody else. Yet actually believing that about myself--that I deserved what every child deserves, what my child deserves--seems nearly impossible. And trying is very painful. But I see why I have to do it. I think about telling my child every year on its birthday--"and then they put you on my chest and I talked to you so you'd hear my voice to comfort you, because I knew you'd been through something hard," and hugging her or him and saying I love you so so much. And the instant I think of that incredibly longed-for dream, which itself makes me tear up with emotion, I feel an enormous pang of pain, knowing my mother never did anything of the kind. Knowing that she could barely remember the difference between the day of my birth and that of her other children; that the first memory she has of my life is one of resentment at my horrible father; that she said I was born at a "crabby time," that just a few years ago she dropped some birthday gesture off on my porch and didn't even bother to knock to say hello, even though all the lights were on and we were clearly home. I can barely comprehend the pain of truly facing that when all is said and done I just wasn't that special to my mom, that despite all the words she could say now in response to that statement, her actions have always spoken louder. I will never, ever, ever know how my child will feel when I tell it its birth story with love, when I cuddle my child and say I love you so much, I have loved you long before you were ever born, and I have quilts I sewed for you in 2013 to prove it. And trust me that hurts like a bitch. That fucking hurts. And that's why people like me tell ourselves that "it's different" for us versus our children in millions of subtle ways; that we keep going back and trying to please people who betrayed us and silenced us and put us down, when we would never in a million years want our children to spend that energy on someone who hurt them, we'd rather they grieve for the loss of what that person won't be to them and focus on giving ourselves the love we need, and assembling only people around us who will do the same.
So that's what I've been focusing on, now that the panic from my own miscarriage traumas has subsided. I want to love my baby and heal my damn self. I recently discovered postpartum doulas. I literally made a list of wishes for what I'd ideally like help with after the birth, and then I learned that there are actually women who do all of these things for a fee, and give you all that emotional validation to boot. I felt elated. One of the sites even said, "your mother, without all the strings attached." Doulas mother the mother. That made me cry. I told an acquaintance that I know I'll be sad postpartum because my mother won't be involved, and she was like, isn't she in town? And I lament how rare it is to find a person who doesn't automatically assume a mother is a good thing. Even years ago when I was still playing the denial game, I wouldn't have wanted her "help," I don't feel comfortable around her. And yeah, she could wash dishes and do laundry, but I'd have to beg for it, and I'd have to face how I know she favors my brothers' kids (because daughters are assumed to always take care of themselves), and how she would be near me without being attentive or affectionate or interested in getting to know me as a person, and it would have caused emotional turmoil. Post-denial, it's impossible. How could she carry me in her body and then not lift a finger to protect me from my horribly abusive father? The more pregnant I get the sadder I am about my relationship with her and horrified that she could have treated me in a way I would never treat my child.
See how I keep just assuming that this will be one day a child? I feel guilty about that, too. I know that there really is a very high likelihood that it will be, safely. I also know it's not for certain, but I have the luxury of not having experienced the opposite, and the lack of that particular trauma makes it easier to say that. Just like my child will hopefully go through life with the luxury of believing that s/he doesn't have to feel ashamed without a reason; that caregivers are generally trustworthy; that mothers are usually good to have around.
I get annoyed at how condescending much of the pregnancy info is, so cutesy and lame, like I'm an idiot. I'm not an idiot. This pregnancy brings up big, complex emotions. It does for many women, for many particular reasons. All that processing gets ignored in favor of "your baby is an avocado!"
One last thing. Cleaning out the closet that will hopefully be the baby's closet, I found a bag, thrown in haphazardly. Inside I found a stuffed Paddington Bear, I'd bought suddenly but after much anguish, on a trip to London, just after miscarriage #1, and right after I'd gotten my period after our first cycle of trying again. I thought about the pain of the miscarriages for the first time in a long time. That was such a brutally horrible time in my life. Really, getting my period that first time after trying with the OPK post-MC was almost worse than the miscarriage itself. I learned that I wasn't "owed" anything, that no rainbow was going to be shining its healing light anytime soon. I remember vividly sitting in the bath in London, and suddenly breaking out into sobs. Wails. "I want my baby! I want my baby!" I was supposed to be shopping for baby clothes on our trip. I was supposed to be nearly showing. Instead I ran out into the streets and wandered at night, wishing I could throw myself in front of a bus. I couldn't have a loving mother, and I couldn't be one, either. I was cut out from one of the most basic human relationships, in any form. I made it back that night to a worried MFP. I remember that. But I had completely blocked out that I had bought the Paddington until I found it again in a moment of forced hope for this new pregnancy. I don't feel too much fear these days anymore that the baby is/will be dead, but that doesn't mean it's easy to actively hope--to get myself to do things "as if" the baby is coming, like really clean out a closet, or, like I did today, force myself to buy a book I was holding that I really want to read to my child. I looked at his little red galoshes and toggle coat and I was astounded that even in that moment of despair, that time I remember as being one of utter hopelessness and misery when it comes to thoughts of being a mother, I took that leap of faith. That I winced and ran back after first dismissing the idea, and bought it anyway. Because I wanted this pregnancy, the one I'm having right now, the healthy one, the one that just hit sixteen weeks, the one that I told work about to schedule my leave, the one that led to the loaned pregnancy pillow I'm sleeping with and the clothes that no longer fit and the new bras and the now pretty much undeniable little bump, I wanted it so much that I was willing to commit an act of defiance of that despair. I cried, really hard, when I found that bear. For myself, having to go through that horrible time, but mostly, because I could hardly believe that bear was now, soon, if I keep doing some cleaning and reorganizing, going to decorate that deeply longed-for baby's room. This is really happening. At last.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Rainbows
A friend had her healthy, screaming baby this week after losing her daughter last year. I've been thinking about the story that inspires the term "rainbow baby" and I thought I'd go directly to the source.
Obviously, with recurrent miscarriage, I know that losses can happen more than once, even when it seems unthinkable. That's how I felt this time last year. Pregnant for the second time, so glad we were finally pregnant again after what felt like an eternity (4 or 5 months), and I just thought there's no way this could happen again. But it did. In a totally different way; the pregnancy looked doomed from the start, despite stupid doctors and nurses refusing to acknowledge that constant spotting at 5 weeks could definitely signal a chemical pregnancy. So for me, the rainbow is less a promise, a trust that I have some kind of deal with a man who controls the universe, and more a sign of remembering and hope. And I think the story fosters that reading as well. I'll see the beautiful sign and I'll remember the terrible storm that preceded it, and I'll always remember that there is always hope after the storm. Hope for something truly beautiful, that actually could only have been created in the wake of the rain.
I'm 15 weeks pregnant today, and sporting a tiny bump that's looking less and less like a thickening. If I were Princess Kate the paparazzi would definitely be in a tizzy with speculation. My breasts are huge--I look like an actress in a Jane Austen adaptation in a corset and empire waisted dress at all times--they are popping out like on a shelf! I'm usually pretty small breasted so this is a weird new development for me (I wear a lot of scarves to cover the cleavage in my lower-cut dresses because I am just not ready for this new body). I hope I'll be able to feel my baby in the next month. I am so, so, so, so grateful and happy to have made it this far. I love my baby so much. I came across this article today that fetuses react to music as early as 16 weeks. How cool! Then I read more than just the headline and it turns out that that was only if there was a vaginal speaker. Eww. No thank you. Perhaps babies ears need to be protected from such stimulation when they're at such a tender developing stage. But still. I know later on they are able to respond to sounds outside my abdomen. I also read that after the baby's born and placed on my chest, I should talk to it right away, and MFP should talk to it too, because it will recognize my voice and his voice. And this could calm our baby down after it's had a shock coming out of my body. I had never thought of that before. So beautiful.
Last week I came across the blog of a mother who just last month lost her son to stillbirth in my city. After reading through a few posts, I also saw that she seems devout and she is very anti-choice, though of course she's filled with much more despair at her own loss right now than anger or resentment towards other women; in fact, she wrote about telling her fellow anti-choice activists to have compassion and listen, though I think she meant to the supposed grief of women who had abortion, not their gratitude for the procedure. I was thinking about how pregnancy loss, I'd guess, can reaffirm the deeply held beliefs someone already has, rather than turn everybody in the same direction on any issue. For everybody, the loss hits them in the context of their own lives, and that's just never going to have the same outcome, even if we have similar griefs.
When I saw my baby on the last ultrasound a few weeks ago, crying and shaking MFP's hand, I told the ultrasound technician that it was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen, seeing that baby-looking body moving and waving, even though I couldn't feel a thing and it wouldn't react at all to the poking of the tech into my abdomen. At that point I was about 12 weeks, and most abortions occur before that point (nine in ten abortions occur in the first trimester, in fact), but still, many women have abortions at or later than I was at that stage of pregnancy. They might only have just figured out they were pregnant--who's really that vigilant about her cycle when she's not on a fertility mission?--or they might only just have finally gathered up the funds and the transportation and all of the other obstacle-overcoming means (that anti-choicers have put up in their way) to have the procedure.
I did, for a moment after the scan was over, ask myself, do I really support abortion when the fetus looks like that, can move like that? To me, the experience was so incredible, so fascinating, it looked like nothing I'd ever seen. Then I remembered: but I want this pregnancy. I feel this way because I want this baby so, so much. Another woman might feel so many different things because of the context of her life. Fear, dread, panic, grief. And I remembered too, that despite what image the technology created, the baby still absolutely 100% needed me, and what if I didn't want to be needed? We were caught in a network of mutuality, and that's what the baby needs to grow: me, on board. It's wrong, to me, to grow a child by force and shame. We have to both be on board for this pregnancy, this life, both of these lives, to work.
I'm so glad I'm working to grow my rainbow. Here's to hope.
And God spake unto Noah, I will establish my covenant with you; ... neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. ... I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. (Genesis 9: 8-17, KJV)There's been a cataclysm. God promises the people that a cataclysm like this will not happen again, and that this promise to the people will always be remembered, and every time they see a rainbow, they will know that they are remembered, and they'll remember the terrible time, and the promise that it won't happen again.
Obviously, with recurrent miscarriage, I know that losses can happen more than once, even when it seems unthinkable. That's how I felt this time last year. Pregnant for the second time, so glad we were finally pregnant again after what felt like an eternity (4 or 5 months), and I just thought there's no way this could happen again. But it did. In a totally different way; the pregnancy looked doomed from the start, despite stupid doctors and nurses refusing to acknowledge that constant spotting at 5 weeks could definitely signal a chemical pregnancy. So for me, the rainbow is less a promise, a trust that I have some kind of deal with a man who controls the universe, and more a sign of remembering and hope. And I think the story fosters that reading as well. I'll see the beautiful sign and I'll remember the terrible storm that preceded it, and I'll always remember that there is always hope after the storm. Hope for something truly beautiful, that actually could only have been created in the wake of the rain.
I'm 15 weeks pregnant today, and sporting a tiny bump that's looking less and less like a thickening. If I were Princess Kate the paparazzi would definitely be in a tizzy with speculation. My breasts are huge--I look like an actress in a Jane Austen adaptation in a corset and empire waisted dress at all times--they are popping out like on a shelf! I'm usually pretty small breasted so this is a weird new development for me (I wear a lot of scarves to cover the cleavage in my lower-cut dresses because I am just not ready for this new body). I hope I'll be able to feel my baby in the next month. I am so, so, so, so grateful and happy to have made it this far. I love my baby so much. I came across this article today that fetuses react to music as early as 16 weeks. How cool! Then I read more than just the headline and it turns out that that was only if there was a vaginal speaker. Eww. No thank you. Perhaps babies ears need to be protected from such stimulation when they're at such a tender developing stage. But still. I know later on they are able to respond to sounds outside my abdomen. I also read that after the baby's born and placed on my chest, I should talk to it right away, and MFP should talk to it too, because it will recognize my voice and his voice. And this could calm our baby down after it's had a shock coming out of my body. I had never thought of that before. So beautiful.
Last week I came across the blog of a mother who just last month lost her son to stillbirth in my city. After reading through a few posts, I also saw that she seems devout and she is very anti-choice, though of course she's filled with much more despair at her own loss right now than anger or resentment towards other women; in fact, she wrote about telling her fellow anti-choice activists to have compassion and listen, though I think she meant to the supposed grief of women who had abortion, not their gratitude for the procedure. I was thinking about how pregnancy loss, I'd guess, can reaffirm the deeply held beliefs someone already has, rather than turn everybody in the same direction on any issue. For everybody, the loss hits them in the context of their own lives, and that's just never going to have the same outcome, even if we have similar griefs.
When I saw my baby on the last ultrasound a few weeks ago, crying and shaking MFP's hand, I told the ultrasound technician that it was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen, seeing that baby-looking body moving and waving, even though I couldn't feel a thing and it wouldn't react at all to the poking of the tech into my abdomen. At that point I was about 12 weeks, and most abortions occur before that point (nine in ten abortions occur in the first trimester, in fact), but still, many women have abortions at or later than I was at that stage of pregnancy. They might only have just figured out they were pregnant--who's really that vigilant about her cycle when she's not on a fertility mission?--or they might only just have finally gathered up the funds and the transportation and all of the other obstacle-overcoming means (that anti-choicers have put up in their way) to have the procedure.
I did, for a moment after the scan was over, ask myself, do I really support abortion when the fetus looks like that, can move like that? To me, the experience was so incredible, so fascinating, it looked like nothing I'd ever seen. Then I remembered: but I want this pregnancy. I feel this way because I want this baby so, so much. Another woman might feel so many different things because of the context of her life. Fear, dread, panic, grief. And I remembered too, that despite what image the technology created, the baby still absolutely 100% needed me, and what if I didn't want to be needed? We were caught in a network of mutuality, and that's what the baby needs to grow: me, on board. It's wrong, to me, to grow a child by force and shame. We have to both be on board for this pregnancy, this life, both of these lives, to work.
I'm so glad I'm working to grow my rainbow. Here's to hope.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Let's talk about sex
I'm now officially OFFICIALLY in the second trimester. News about the chromosomal results helps reassure me that the baby is still likely growing and healthy inside me, even though I can't feel it. I know that still this is largely out of my control, but hey, hope never killed a baby. I bought my first pair of maternity jeans. Thanks to progesterone weight gain, my old jeans were already kind of getting uncomfortable before the pregnancy, so with my "thickening" turning into a teeny bump, I figured why not have something besides yoga pants to be comfortable in on the weekends. Empire waisted dresses and leggings/tights are still getting me through the work week.
I've already had many people ask me if I know the sex. Which is interesting, because the cell-free fetal DNA test we took is still only about 4 years old, and that's the only way (I think) someone could know the sex before an amnio or an anatomy scan, which would both be much later in trimester #2 than I am. We opted not to find out the sex. For now. I'm not dogmatic about much of anything, so we'll just play it by ear as we go. Next scan is the first week of November, when we'll have an opportunity to know then, if we want to. Here are reasons I've heard for learning the sex:
I do have one reason I'd like to know, though. This great local sewing shop is having a class on girl dress patterns. And while I might buy my son an Elsa dress to play dress up in if he loves "Frozen," as some moms I know have done, I probably won't put him in a dress on a regular basis. Still, how likely am I really to make time for sewing? So not a great reason.
I do, however, have reasons to *not* know, and I don't encounter people articulating these. Like I said, I don't need a "surprise" as a "help" to push at the end. However, I do anticipate having a lot of huge feelings about having a boy or a girl that go right to the core about my own assumptions about gender that after 35 years, no amount of feminism is going to just wipe away. Especially after my experience of my family of origin. Having a boy can be frightening because I relate so much more easily to women--will I relate to my son? And having a girl can be frightening because I might relate too much to her--will I see her as reliving my childhood? And I just think I might be sad one way or the other, since this may be the only child I ever have. Sad that I might never have a boy, or a girl--that I might never get to use my "girl" or "boy" name we have picked out. And I just don't think that thought will cross my mind when (hopefully) my vagina has just been stretched to unimaginable limits and I am holding my child in my arms for the very first time. And there are reasons for that, because when I find out the sex of my child, I'll be only really encountering *my ideas* about what gender means, my imagined implications of that chromosomal factoid, not anything truly revelatory about the *person* my child is. Maybe s/he'll be trans. Maybe s/he'll be small, or big, or quiet, or loud. Right now, all of his or her characteristics are equally important; her or his sex is no more important than the others. All I want to know is how healthy he or she is.
Secondly, I kind of want to challenge myself to think outside the box to attach to my child. To practice loving him or her for who she or he is, for however he or she will reveal him or herself to me, rather than what I want her or him to be. This is kind of abstract, and I would never expect someone else to feel the same way. I just kind of like it. It's like an imagination challenge. Connect with someone without knowing they are a boy or a girl. No, LOVE them. Challenge all the assumptions you have about what a boy will be and what a girl will be. No matter how hard I try, I will still gender the hell out of my child. That's what culture does to us--"it doesn't just make us all alike, it makes us alike in fine detail." I like the idea of lengthening this time for as long as feels comfortable to me and MFP, almost a sacred time, where gender doesn't matter. That's another reason I don't want gendered baby clothes. I like how little babies and children all look pretty much the same. The Puritans didn't even really say "he" or "she"--they used the pronoun "it"--until about age 7 or so, because children didn't really have a gender to them, even if they had gendered names. It seems like a special time, of multicolored onesies and sweaters and overalls and sleeper sacks, when boy/girl does't matter. Such innocence. I want to be ready for that, maybe instead of sewing dresses. I could sew clothes that either a boy or a girl could wear.
And who knows, if I am lucky enough to have a living child #2, I could then reuse all this stuff regardless of their sex! Basically, finding out a child's sex is a really, really personal decision. Some people really want to know. Maybe I will tomorrow! Some people really don't, like I feel today. I respect everyone's decision on this. I wonder if this for me also has to do with the fact that I always put off opening presents as long as possible. It might be a way to avoid intense emotion--even good emotion. That's not so great. But it's what my instinct is. I get that to some people that is weird, just like to me, gender-reveal cakes with screen-printed sonograms on them are *weird*!
Here's hoping that this pregnancy continues on healthy. B'sha'ah tovah to us.
I've already had many people ask me if I know the sex. Which is interesting, because the cell-free fetal DNA test we took is still only about 4 years old, and that's the only way (I think) someone could know the sex before an amnio or an anatomy scan, which would both be much later in trimester #2 than I am. We opted not to find out the sex. For now. I'm not dogmatic about much of anything, so we'll just play it by ear as we go. Next scan is the first week of November, when we'll have an opportunity to know then, if we want to. Here are reasons I've heard for learning the sex:
- It helps people imagine/bond with their child.
- They'd be just as surprised finding out before the birth than at the birth.
- It helps them prepare the nursery, clothing, etc.
- Other really specific reasons.
I do have one reason I'd like to know, though. This great local sewing shop is having a class on girl dress patterns. And while I might buy my son an Elsa dress to play dress up in if he loves "Frozen," as some moms I know have done, I probably won't put him in a dress on a regular basis. Still, how likely am I really to make time for sewing? So not a great reason.
I do, however, have reasons to *not* know, and I don't encounter people articulating these. Like I said, I don't need a "surprise" as a "help" to push at the end. However, I do anticipate having a lot of huge feelings about having a boy or a girl that go right to the core about my own assumptions about gender that after 35 years, no amount of feminism is going to just wipe away. Especially after my experience of my family of origin. Having a boy can be frightening because I relate so much more easily to women--will I relate to my son? And having a girl can be frightening because I might relate too much to her--will I see her as reliving my childhood? And I just think I might be sad one way or the other, since this may be the only child I ever have. Sad that I might never have a boy, or a girl--that I might never get to use my "girl" or "boy" name we have picked out. And I just don't think that thought will cross my mind when (hopefully) my vagina has just been stretched to unimaginable limits and I am holding my child in my arms for the very first time. And there are reasons for that, because when I find out the sex of my child, I'll be only really encountering *my ideas* about what gender means, my imagined implications of that chromosomal factoid, not anything truly revelatory about the *person* my child is. Maybe s/he'll be trans. Maybe s/he'll be small, or big, or quiet, or loud. Right now, all of his or her characteristics are equally important; her or his sex is no more important than the others. All I want to know is how healthy he or she is.
Secondly, I kind of want to challenge myself to think outside the box to attach to my child. To practice loving him or her for who she or he is, for however he or she will reveal him or herself to me, rather than what I want her or him to be. This is kind of abstract, and I would never expect someone else to feel the same way. I just kind of like it. It's like an imagination challenge. Connect with someone without knowing they are a boy or a girl. No, LOVE them. Challenge all the assumptions you have about what a boy will be and what a girl will be. No matter how hard I try, I will still gender the hell out of my child. That's what culture does to us--"it doesn't just make us all alike, it makes us alike in fine detail." I like the idea of lengthening this time for as long as feels comfortable to me and MFP, almost a sacred time, where gender doesn't matter. That's another reason I don't want gendered baby clothes. I like how little babies and children all look pretty much the same. The Puritans didn't even really say "he" or "she"--they used the pronoun "it"--until about age 7 or so, because children didn't really have a gender to them, even if they had gendered names. It seems like a special time, of multicolored onesies and sweaters and overalls and sleeper sacks, when boy/girl does't matter. Such innocence. I want to be ready for that, maybe instead of sewing dresses. I could sew clothes that either a boy or a girl could wear.
And who knows, if I am lucky enough to have a living child #2, I could then reuse all this stuff regardless of their sex! Basically, finding out a child's sex is a really, really personal decision. Some people really want to know. Maybe I will tomorrow! Some people really don't, like I feel today. I respect everyone's decision on this. I wonder if this for me also has to do with the fact that I always put off opening presents as long as possible. It might be a way to avoid intense emotion--even good emotion. That's not so great. But it's what my instinct is. I get that to some people that is weird, just like to me, gender-reveal cakes with screen-printed sonograms on them are *weird*!
Here's hoping that this pregnancy continues on healthy. B'sha'ah tovah to us.
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Living (and working) in a body
My pregnancy is 13 weeks and 1 day along. I started off the week crying with gratitude--I heard the heartbeat at the midwife's office and then got genetic testing results that my baby has the lowest risk possible of any chromosomal problem, including the type of congenital heart defect that has appeared in my family of origin. I can't believe I could be so lucky to have a baby that is as healthy as any test can possibly test for, and therefore as likely to make it to term as any other baby. We told a wider circle of friends and made an appointment to tell work. I was just overcome with gratitude--and then utterly exhausted from all the emotion.
Then the next day I got to work, feeling rested and well (which is happening a few days a week these days, which is a new thing) and realized I'd forgotten about yet another meeting; and I'd failed to respond to a colleague in a timely way about something; and I'm really behind on projects due imminently. This has been the story of the past new years (not the entire story, there have been some really good work highlights too), but I feel like I'm always apologizing: "sorry I missed that meeting," "sorry I was off email," "sorry I had to cancel," after I went through the nausea and fatigue of a first trimester of pregnancy, then a miscarriage, then complications from a miscarriage, then depression, not to mention my ongoing PTSD; then another pregnancy and miscarriage; then more complications and a D&C; then utter emotional disaster. And now, I'm healthy! Nothing is wrong! but it still affects my work, because I have to sleep for 12 hours a night in a profession where burning the midnight oil is the norm; and I have to stop and rest and eat repeatedly when others are moving straight from project to project. I'm not complaining, I am incredibly grateful, and happy with my decisions. I'm just noticing that having a child takes an enormous amount of work, of real work; far more than I ever knew, because I thought it all happened after the child was born. But what about the miscarriages, the fatigue of the pregnancy, and then god forbid, the survival of a late-term loss of a child? How do we account for that? How do we make room for that? Make time for that, value that? In work worlds that are designed with the assumption of male bodies? I mean, the answer is, we don't; women get pushed out; we get paid less; we don't even have paid maternity leave in this country (egregious!). And in a less abstract way: How do I explain why I've been a little flaky lately, when I haven't been sick? Pregnancy is healthy, and yet it mimics illness. It's certainly a health condition. Especially when I've been having to use that excuse for now, three pregnancies in a row? In the past, I've never heard of women needing to make accommodations while they were pregnant; all the examples I've seen seem to just press on, these women have seems so hardy. But my guess is it was hard, too. We just don't talk about it.
And maybe a part of me misses work being my major focus. I've made a conscious decision to make time for other parts of my life--my treatment for PTSD, my journey of trying to have a child--which I don't regret, but there was a reason it had to be a conscious decision. I like doing what I do, and I like to be as good as I can at what I do. Deliberately not trying to be perfect is hard. Harder still is allowing that of myself.
Weirdly, I've had some moments this week where I realize--fear--that now I am *that* woman. After miscarriages and struggles with trying to get pregnant again, I know what it feels like to be irrationally resentful of other people having children. And I worry that I've brought those feelings up for other people now, despite my best efforts not to. Especially now that I "announced" my pregnancy over email to more friends & family (we referred to the miscarriages). It's hard, but I remind myself that I can't take away the pain of loss and infertility, and it's stupid to try. That's where people go wrong, and I've borne the brunt of this too: trying to make others feel better, rather than allowing them their pain and bearing witness in a compassionate way. It's okay if, as I start to show, other women need to run away from the sight of me, as I once felt the need to do. I can respect the need to do that. Basically, what I'm trying to tell myself, is that I'm going to step in shit, because the world is still full of it--unfair suffering. And that's okay. I might even say or do something accidentally hurtful. I hope when I do I have the humility to respond well, and not get all defensive, and instead to see that someone is hurting. I suppose that's good preparation for parenthood too. I will screw up. That's a guarantee. But the question is whether I will be too afraid of admitting that I screwed up to bother to reflect and try something new.
Thursday, September 24, 2015
12 weeks and 2 days
I've been feeling so tired still, though nauseated less often. I have more moments where I'm surprised to feel a normal level of energy, every couple of days. I've been on fiber-watch, which is hard when carbs are the only foods that sound appealing, since regularity is hard to come by, and I want to avoid a GI meltdown like I had a week or so ago. But mostly, I'm okay. My tummy is definitely rounder, and my bras don't fit (but I keep wearing them because I haven't gone bra shopping, and it seems weird to since I'll just keep getting bigger for a while, so ouch), and I feel nothing really different inside, so you can imagine how I burst into tears of amazement, wonder, gratitude and love, shaking MFP's hand with excitement, when I saw this figure dancing so elegantly and waving little hands and legs in front of my eyes yesterday:
My baby looks like a baby. I said to the technician, this is the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. I hardly look and barely feel pregnant, and yet my baby is dancing inside my uterus, oblivious to anything outside. The tech kept pressing my belly to try to get one last measurement, and the baby had stopped moving, and wouldn't move no matter how much pressing and jiggling she did, or how much deliberate coughing and laying back and turning on my side I did. The baby was unphased. Our child is stubborn and likes to sleep a lot, MFP said; takes after us. I was so worn out from the excitement I came home and slept the rest of the day.
The geneticist at MFM suggested the NT scan even though we are also doing the more definitive cell free DNA blood test, since I have a lot of family risk factors, and we jumped at the chance. We were nervous of course in advance. We are always braced for disaster, like everything is this terrifying gauntlet we have to go through, but we joked after the scan that measured out baby to be perfectly healthy--no sign of genetic defects, thank creation--that we always forget to anticipate that after the gauntlet lies not just relief and things as they already are, but absolutely amazing dreams coming true. We get the results of the blood test, likely by mid-next week. If that's good, which looks like they very well may be, we'll tell work about my pregnancy. And maybe buy a baby book again.
Monday I'll also look for a heartbeat with the midwife at my physical, which I moved earlier because I didn't think I was getting a scan. Now I'll get two checks on the baby right after another. I hope I can get through the anxiety ok of the wait for the next one.
We shared the ultrasound baby-looking photo with MFP's family, and I liked how they all responded--teary and excited, like it was huge news. My friends were happy for me but not nearly as much--maybe because at our age babies happen all the time. I know even if I weren't estranged from my family, their response would be disappointing. There are so many of them, babies are an everyday event, and they don't really show that much emotion anyway. I felt sad after I ran into my sister who I haven't seen maybe close to two years last weekend. We just waved and smiled and she biked along and I kept walking Pupstein. I wanted to say, "I'm pregnant!" First thing. It is sad, that loss. When I think about my choices, I have no idea if I'm right or wrong, I'm just bumbling along, doing what I can with regard to my family of origin. But when I think about what I want for my baby, I'm filled with certainty that I want every adult in their life to be someone they can be real with, who won't impose a different set of standards than the one we live by in our house, where no emotion or topic is off-limits. It's hard to carve a new path. But actually, I think, even harder to stay on an old one that keeps old wounds from healing and causes sadness and shame.
Today I thought about that beautiful moving figure of a baby and I thought about what an adventure it will be to raise a baby in a house filled with love and openness and impromptu dancing with parents who have creative and engaging lives of their own to share. I felt like I'd moved to a land of dreams, even though I'm stuck living only a few blocks from the sad house I grew up in. I'm so happy, right now, I have this baby all bound up with me.
My baby looks like a baby. I said to the technician, this is the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. I hardly look and barely feel pregnant, and yet my baby is dancing inside my uterus, oblivious to anything outside. The tech kept pressing my belly to try to get one last measurement, and the baby had stopped moving, and wouldn't move no matter how much pressing and jiggling she did, or how much deliberate coughing and laying back and turning on my side I did. The baby was unphased. Our child is stubborn and likes to sleep a lot, MFP said; takes after us. I was so worn out from the excitement I came home and slept the rest of the day.
The geneticist at MFM suggested the NT scan even though we are also doing the more definitive cell free DNA blood test, since I have a lot of family risk factors, and we jumped at the chance. We were nervous of course in advance. We are always braced for disaster, like everything is this terrifying gauntlet we have to go through, but we joked after the scan that measured out baby to be perfectly healthy--no sign of genetic defects, thank creation--that we always forget to anticipate that after the gauntlet lies not just relief and things as they already are, but absolutely amazing dreams coming true. We get the results of the blood test, likely by mid-next week. If that's good, which looks like they very well may be, we'll tell work about my pregnancy. And maybe buy a baby book again.
Monday I'll also look for a heartbeat with the midwife at my physical, which I moved earlier because I didn't think I was getting a scan. Now I'll get two checks on the baby right after another. I hope I can get through the anxiety ok of the wait for the next one.
We shared the ultrasound baby-looking photo with MFP's family, and I liked how they all responded--teary and excited, like it was huge news. My friends were happy for me but not nearly as much--maybe because at our age babies happen all the time. I know even if I weren't estranged from my family, their response would be disappointing. There are so many of them, babies are an everyday event, and they don't really show that much emotion anyway. I felt sad after I ran into my sister who I haven't seen maybe close to two years last weekend. We just waved and smiled and she biked along and I kept walking Pupstein. I wanted to say, "I'm pregnant!" First thing. It is sad, that loss. When I think about my choices, I have no idea if I'm right or wrong, I'm just bumbling along, doing what I can with regard to my family of origin. But when I think about what I want for my baby, I'm filled with certainty that I want every adult in their life to be someone they can be real with, who won't impose a different set of standards than the one we live by in our house, where no emotion or topic is off-limits. It's hard to carve a new path. But actually, I think, even harder to stay on an old one that keeps old wounds from healing and causes sadness and shame.
Today I thought about that beautiful moving figure of a baby and I thought about what an adventure it will be to raise a baby in a house filled with love and openness and impromptu dancing with parents who have creative and engaging lives of their own to share. I felt like I'd moved to a land of dreams, even though I'm stuck living only a few blocks from the sad house I grew up in. I'm so happy, right now, I have this baby all bound up with me.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
11 weeks
This week came in like a lion and out like a ... relatively unthreatening, though still wild, member of the cat family. Luckily I'm here today, at 11 weeks, with no bad signs, getting close to the beginning of the second trimester. I thought to myself today, well, one way or the other I'm getting out of this first trimester soon. I hope, and I know it's probable, that I'll be on the happy other side.
I'll work backwards from today, when I'm feeling pretty good. The last two days I was able to bike to work again, and eat in a way resembling a normal person, without much nausea or gastrointestinal distress. I'm still really tired--evidenced by today's nap and yesterday's 8:30pm bedtime. It felt so good yesterday to have energy again, for the first time in a while! This is probably a result from taking it easy and resting a lot this weekend.
I was recovering from being hit all at once with every possible symptom listed for this month in the "What to Expect" blah blah book that a friend recently bequeathed to me. Warning: TMI ahead, skip to the next paragraph if you don't feel like hearing about disgusting pregnancy symptoms. I had to miss work Thursday because I had such an awful night Wednesday. It might have been viral, but I suspect it might have been my system reacting to me eating in totally abnormal ways for a long time now. I think I'd been constipated and started having hemorrhoids earlier that week, and then Wednesday night I felt horribly nauseated for hours, then vomited twice in a row, then had diarrhea. I had no idea how to respond, besides rest of course, considering what I'd do for a) nausea b) diarrhea and c) constipation are completely different things. Finally this weekend I restricted myself completely to the BRAT diet, and that seems to have worked, thank goodness. I was dreaming of all the foods I haven't eaten in so long--pound cake, madelines, a croissant, donuts (you can see a theme)--and really missing being able to eat whatever I want. (All those things I miss would make me want to throw up, and would really mess my very fragile system up). Also, by the way, having hemorrhoids for the first time, not to mention tons of gastrointestinal abdominal pain, is really shitty (well there's a helluva pun) for someone who's had a miscarriage. Blood and cramps? but not *those* kind of blood and cramps? Way to freak me out.
All this came right on the heels of a really stressful morning last Wednesday. I was resting before work and I got the call from Maternal Fetal Medicine about scheduling my genetic counseling appointment. I missed the call and I immediately blamed MFP for not helping me find my phone--clearly I was incredibly stressed out and angry at myself for not being hypervigilant, since I knew they were going to call soon. Then when I called back I found I had to wait until the 18th--a week and a half away--for the test, and there was no way to get me in sooner. Yet it can take up to two weeks to get the results. At this point--already a stressful time of day because I was on my way to work--I completely overreacted. I told MFP, "Fuck you!" accusing him of not being helpful; I resented him for not having to be the one whose blood gets taken and whose phone gets called, as though I were all alone in this. I freaked out that my state is going to pass a law criminalizing us if we get bad results and make a choice to terminate. What I didn't say was that I was mostly angry at myself for not having known in advance how all of this worked so that I could get what I wanted, which is what my friend had who first told me about cell-free fetal DNA testing: a test to know as early as possible, right at 10 weeks. Turns out, actually, you can do it at 9 weeks! I still feel kind of angry, couldn't Dr. Special have referred me? Couldn't the midwives just have referred me when I first called them without waiting until they talked to me first, so that I could at least get in at MFM? I'm scared, and I want, desperately, any indication I can get about whether or not this baby is healthy, about whether I might actually have it. And when I'm scared, I feel alone (hence me being an asshole to MFP, and pushing him away), and I worry about whether I've trusted the wrong people (if I'd had a doctor like my friend's OB, would I be able to know sooner about whether the baby's healthy? Should I have somehow known this would happen and figured out a way to get in earlier?). I was late to work and I called MFP crying to apologize. I know we're in this together, I said; I'm sorry I reacted so badly and was so mean. Clearly I brought a whole shitload of other issues (my childhood, for one big one, and both miscarriages) to this one, *slight* delay.
I'm just desperate to get to the end of this trimester, to hear some sort of definitive news that it's OK to hope, to start doing things like telling work and others and making plans, and it's agonizing to wait even one more week than I have to. Admittedly, it's also scary given what my friend had to go through--getting conflicting answers, then finally having to make a decision to terminate the pregnancy based on the timeline recently shortened by our legislature to 20 weeks rather than her own timeline (fucking ASSHOLES--ok I'll get that out of my system). I was so worked up Wednesday morning, I was saying out loud to reassure myself that we'll just go to New York, where MFP has relatives, if we have to to terminate, if a law gets passed saying that we're criminals for deciding to end a chromosomally abnormal pregnancy. The thought of getting bad results at 13.5 weeks (when I could have had them as early as 11 weeks), and then having to digest and understand them, and get answers as to exactly how severe the abnormality is, and then decide what to do about a fetus I already deeply love, keeping the rest of my life in mind, and do so under the pressure of the state legislature that's about to criminalize that very choice, and while with every passing day an abortion gets more costly and less accessible--is horrifying. And that's where I live a lot of the time, thanks to past traumas and two miscarriages--in the world of the horrifying, of the worst case scenario. I know it might not sound medically accurate, but I'm not surprised I had the worst night of GI symptoms that night after such an incredibly stressful morning.
I realize that no test, no benchmark passed, is going to definitively tell me everything is going to be okay. Regardless I still have to find some kind of peace inside myself. Most of the time I feel like I'm managing the fear of another loss, rather than actually feeling happy and hopeful. My therapist asked me about that this week, and helped me focus for a minute how how intensely happy I am that I am finally pregnant again, and how grateful I am that there are no bad signs, and on how much I love this baby. I decided to go to my first prenatal yoga class this weekend. My worst panic was right before I went--maybe the baby has already died!--as though the act of going to a class for pregnant women was overplaying my hand. But I can date me feeling better over the last few days to that class. It felt good to move again, finally, after feeling so sick and tired for over a month; and I shared at the beginning that I've been nervous because I have two losses. The response was kind. And I liked how the class, when it did mention pregnancy, which thankfully wasn't that much, focused on the here and now, not the future, like, when I'll hold my baby or something. She just said at the end during meditation "Feel your connectedness to your baby," and at the beginning, "Notice the energy coming from your baby," with a couple of "hug your baby" as a way to tell you to flex your abs thrown in throughout. A lot of the times I feel like I got a call telling me, "We have your child here, don't worry, you'll see them--probably--in 9 months," and I just have to trust that my child is okay, all the time, as though it's in someone else's hands. Because its wellbeing is certainly not in *my* control, to a large extent. So it was nice to hear "feel your connectedness to your baby," because despite that feeling of being totally out of control, I recognize that right now, me and my baby are more intimately connected than I'll ever be with anyone else, or again (unless I get pregnant again). I don't believe my baby is a person--it's not--and that's what's so amazing and cool. We're somewhere in the mysterious blur between one and two, between alone and together.
I went to acupuncture this weekend too, which hopefully helped with my GI problems, and since then, I've been able to be more in the mindset of, it will probably be okay. I don't know for sure, but I recognize that probably, we will have a healthy baby. It's hard for me to stay in that place for long. As soon as I started to feel better Monday, that in itself worried me, since one of the signs of miscarriage is "sudden cessation of pregnancy symptoms." I was pro-active though, and I called MFM to ask some questions about that appointment and the timeline, and I moved up my next appointment with the midwives. I should hear a heartbeat then right around the time I get the test results back, and right when I hit 13 or 13.5 weeks--the start of the second trimester. I know that's not the finish line, but it'll be an important milestone. At that point, it would be irresponsible of me *not* to start making plans at work--pulling out of some commitments. And I'll feel more comfortable, and less like I'm being inappropriate, saying "I'm pregnant" when I'm talking about what's going on in my life. I know I might feel like an imposter ("other people get pregnant and take their babies home, but that won't actually be me") throughout this pregnancy, because that comes up with me a lot, but I'm working on easing that feeling. Right now I'll focus on getting through the next two weeks, and then the two weeks after that, and then after that...
---
One more thing. MFP and I have noticed what we affectionately call, in the voice of the trailer for a thriller, "The Thickening!" For a few weeks I've been in the, "pregnant or fat?" stage, which could also be, "pregnant or bloated from all kinds of GI distress?" stage. I know I've gained a lot of weight, even before the pregnancy, from the miscarriages and then the progesterone (and a lot of pastries...), so it's hard to tell if I'm actually showing at all yet. There's a definite thickening around my waistline. Empire-waisted dresses only these days. But, since I'm on my own personal bump-watch, I think I see a little bit of a bump. A little bit of a bump! Maybe. But kind of! I know other women might feel differently, but right now I'm looking forward to showing. At least to myself. That my baby is growing!
I'll work backwards from today, when I'm feeling pretty good. The last two days I was able to bike to work again, and eat in a way resembling a normal person, without much nausea or gastrointestinal distress. I'm still really tired--evidenced by today's nap and yesterday's 8:30pm bedtime. It felt so good yesterday to have energy again, for the first time in a while! This is probably a result from taking it easy and resting a lot this weekend.
I was recovering from being hit all at once with every possible symptom listed for this month in the "What to Expect" blah blah book that a friend recently bequeathed to me. Warning: TMI ahead, skip to the next paragraph if you don't feel like hearing about disgusting pregnancy symptoms. I had to miss work Thursday because I had such an awful night Wednesday. It might have been viral, but I suspect it might have been my system reacting to me eating in totally abnormal ways for a long time now. I think I'd been constipated and started having hemorrhoids earlier that week, and then Wednesday night I felt horribly nauseated for hours, then vomited twice in a row, then had diarrhea. I had no idea how to respond, besides rest of course, considering what I'd do for a) nausea b) diarrhea and c) constipation are completely different things. Finally this weekend I restricted myself completely to the BRAT diet, and that seems to have worked, thank goodness. I was dreaming of all the foods I haven't eaten in so long--pound cake, madelines, a croissant, donuts (you can see a theme)--and really missing being able to eat whatever I want. (All those things I miss would make me want to throw up, and would really mess my very fragile system up). Also, by the way, having hemorrhoids for the first time, not to mention tons of gastrointestinal abdominal pain, is really shitty (well there's a helluva pun) for someone who's had a miscarriage. Blood and cramps? but not *those* kind of blood and cramps? Way to freak me out.
All this came right on the heels of a really stressful morning last Wednesday. I was resting before work and I got the call from Maternal Fetal Medicine about scheduling my genetic counseling appointment. I missed the call and I immediately blamed MFP for not helping me find my phone--clearly I was incredibly stressed out and angry at myself for not being hypervigilant, since I knew they were going to call soon. Then when I called back I found I had to wait until the 18th--a week and a half away--for the test, and there was no way to get me in sooner. Yet it can take up to two weeks to get the results. At this point--already a stressful time of day because I was on my way to work--I completely overreacted. I told MFP, "Fuck you!" accusing him of not being helpful; I resented him for not having to be the one whose blood gets taken and whose phone gets called, as though I were all alone in this. I freaked out that my state is going to pass a law criminalizing us if we get bad results and make a choice to terminate. What I didn't say was that I was mostly angry at myself for not having known in advance how all of this worked so that I could get what I wanted, which is what my friend had who first told me about cell-free fetal DNA testing: a test to know as early as possible, right at 10 weeks. Turns out, actually, you can do it at 9 weeks! I still feel kind of angry, couldn't Dr. Special have referred me? Couldn't the midwives just have referred me when I first called them without waiting until they talked to me first, so that I could at least get in at MFM? I'm scared, and I want, desperately, any indication I can get about whether or not this baby is healthy, about whether I might actually have it. And when I'm scared, I feel alone (hence me being an asshole to MFP, and pushing him away), and I worry about whether I've trusted the wrong people (if I'd had a doctor like my friend's OB, would I be able to know sooner about whether the baby's healthy? Should I have somehow known this would happen and figured out a way to get in earlier?). I was late to work and I called MFP crying to apologize. I know we're in this together, I said; I'm sorry I reacted so badly and was so mean. Clearly I brought a whole shitload of other issues (my childhood, for one big one, and both miscarriages) to this one, *slight* delay.
I'm just desperate to get to the end of this trimester, to hear some sort of definitive news that it's OK to hope, to start doing things like telling work and others and making plans, and it's agonizing to wait even one more week than I have to. Admittedly, it's also scary given what my friend had to go through--getting conflicting answers, then finally having to make a decision to terminate the pregnancy based on the timeline recently shortened by our legislature to 20 weeks rather than her own timeline (fucking ASSHOLES--ok I'll get that out of my system). I was so worked up Wednesday morning, I was saying out loud to reassure myself that we'll just go to New York, where MFP has relatives, if we have to to terminate, if a law gets passed saying that we're criminals for deciding to end a chromosomally abnormal pregnancy. The thought of getting bad results at 13.5 weeks (when I could have had them as early as 11 weeks), and then having to digest and understand them, and get answers as to exactly how severe the abnormality is, and then decide what to do about a fetus I already deeply love, keeping the rest of my life in mind, and do so under the pressure of the state legislature that's about to criminalize that very choice, and while with every passing day an abortion gets more costly and less accessible--is horrifying. And that's where I live a lot of the time, thanks to past traumas and two miscarriages--in the world of the horrifying, of the worst case scenario. I know it might not sound medically accurate, but I'm not surprised I had the worst night of GI symptoms that night after such an incredibly stressful morning.
I realize that no test, no benchmark passed, is going to definitively tell me everything is going to be okay. Regardless I still have to find some kind of peace inside myself. Most of the time I feel like I'm managing the fear of another loss, rather than actually feeling happy and hopeful. My therapist asked me about that this week, and helped me focus for a minute how how intensely happy I am that I am finally pregnant again, and how grateful I am that there are no bad signs, and on how much I love this baby. I decided to go to my first prenatal yoga class this weekend. My worst panic was right before I went--maybe the baby has already died!--as though the act of going to a class for pregnant women was overplaying my hand. But I can date me feeling better over the last few days to that class. It felt good to move again, finally, after feeling so sick and tired for over a month; and I shared at the beginning that I've been nervous because I have two losses. The response was kind. And I liked how the class, when it did mention pregnancy, which thankfully wasn't that much, focused on the here and now, not the future, like, when I'll hold my baby or something. She just said at the end during meditation "Feel your connectedness to your baby," and at the beginning, "Notice the energy coming from your baby," with a couple of "hug your baby" as a way to tell you to flex your abs thrown in throughout. A lot of the times I feel like I got a call telling me, "We have your child here, don't worry, you'll see them--probably--in 9 months," and I just have to trust that my child is okay, all the time, as though it's in someone else's hands. Because its wellbeing is certainly not in *my* control, to a large extent. So it was nice to hear "feel your connectedness to your baby," because despite that feeling of being totally out of control, I recognize that right now, me and my baby are more intimately connected than I'll ever be with anyone else, or again (unless I get pregnant again). I don't believe my baby is a person--it's not--and that's what's so amazing and cool. We're somewhere in the mysterious blur between one and two, between alone and together.
I went to acupuncture this weekend too, which hopefully helped with my GI problems, and since then, I've been able to be more in the mindset of, it will probably be okay. I don't know for sure, but I recognize that probably, we will have a healthy baby. It's hard for me to stay in that place for long. As soon as I started to feel better Monday, that in itself worried me, since one of the signs of miscarriage is "sudden cessation of pregnancy symptoms." I was pro-active though, and I called MFM to ask some questions about that appointment and the timeline, and I moved up my next appointment with the midwives. I should hear a heartbeat then right around the time I get the test results back, and right when I hit 13 or 13.5 weeks--the start of the second trimester. I know that's not the finish line, but it'll be an important milestone. At that point, it would be irresponsible of me *not* to start making plans at work--pulling out of some commitments. And I'll feel more comfortable, and less like I'm being inappropriate, saying "I'm pregnant" when I'm talking about what's going on in my life. I know I might feel like an imposter ("other people get pregnant and take their babies home, but that won't actually be me") throughout this pregnancy, because that comes up with me a lot, but I'm working on easing that feeling. Right now I'll focus on getting through the next two weeks, and then the two weeks after that, and then after that...
---
One more thing. MFP and I have noticed what we affectionately call, in the voice of the trailer for a thriller, "The Thickening!" For a few weeks I've been in the, "pregnant or fat?" stage, which could also be, "pregnant or bloated from all kinds of GI distress?" stage. I know I've gained a lot of weight, even before the pregnancy, from the miscarriages and then the progesterone (and a lot of pastries...), so it's hard to tell if I'm actually showing at all yet. There's a definite thickening around my waistline. Empire-waisted dresses only these days. But, since I'm on my own personal bump-watch, I think I see a little bit of a bump. A little bit of a bump! Maybe. But kind of! I know other women might feel differently, but right now I'm looking forward to showing. At least to myself. That my baby is growing!
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
10 weeks
As long as I'm still pregnant today (I have no evidence otherwise, but having had a missed miscarriage, the thought's never far from my mind that the fetus has died without my knowing it), this is the longest I've ever been pregnant. I'm two weeks away from (one way of counting) the beginning of the second trimester, and the end of nightly progesterone (yay!).
I'm exhausted because I saw the midwife right after work today--a long day. Going back to the same OB/Midwife practice where I had two bad outcomes was a little scary. Also, I have a lot of doubts--given that I wish they would have handled some things about my miscarriages better, and that I left for Dr. Special's office because I wanted different treatment, is it even a good idea to go back here? Am I trusting my baby's health with the best place possible? I haven't really shopped around that much for a practitioner. But I'm remembering why I went with this practice in the first place. I have to give birth at a hospital with a reputation for being high-intervention, supermedicalized, but this unique practice of midwives (CNMs) delivers there. A friend had the midwives catch her two children and had great experiences with them; and their statistics--which they actually bother to publicize--are fabulous, in terms of very low rates of interventions. Plus it's just me. With my trauma history, I need personalized attention; I know I need sensitive, holistic caregivers; and I really like the whole approach of empowering women to make informed, evidence-based choices--which is all the "midwifery model of care" stuff. I like the idea of having a midwife meet me at the hospital and not leaving my side till the end, even if there's a C-section, rather than having nurses I've never met before keep coming by to stick their fingers in my vagina, or residents constantly wanting to peek in. I like knowing that if I do need surgery or another intervention, I'll be with supportive people who will help me trust that it's really needed (and not second-guess myself, hopefully, as much later). I spent a lot of time with pregnancy #1 talking to them about this practice and that's why I chose it. They seemed experienced working with women like me who have avoided doctors for years because of a history of trauma.
But...that's all well and good for labor and delivery, but what about getting me there with a live human baby? If there's a problem, will I be poo-poo'ed as I felt I was with pregnancy #2? Will I be abandoned to the OB if I need an OB and forgotten about by the midwives, instead of having someone attend to things like suggesting a pregnancy loss group? (A social worker told me about the group I ended up attending; and she was pretty surprised my OB hadn't told me about it--or handed me any info on dealing with miscarriages at all). In my desire to treat pregnancy as something healthy and avoid, if possible, an escalating cavalcade of interventions, will I miss a chance to save my baby's health, or mine? How the hell can a woman scared of another loss--an even bigger one this time--have a "natural" "holistic" pregnancy and birth with midwives?
I remind myself that it was science that led me to the midwives. I'm basing this on data about healthy outcomes and outcomes that women feel good about. And I'm a pretty good advocate for myself, especially after the losses. I will speak up if I have a concern.
Today with the midwife went well. It had its ups and downs. The downs were at the beginning, when the midwife asked me to recount the two previous miscarriages, which in a way I was glad to re-tell, because they were both complicated and awful, but she was sitting at a computer and having computer trouble. I got annoyed. Is that how it's going to be? You're not going to read my chart in advance and I'm going to have to tell you about these horrible experiences repeatedly while you type into a computer? Then the midwife-in-training shared that she had had four miscarriages, and has a healthy daughter, and that she feels for me. I really appreciated that. As the appointment went on--standard prenatal health information, no doppler or exam--the midwife asked me a bit about my anxiety and trauma history, and I shared that it's just helpful for me to share that to let my providers know that I might take a little bit of time to trust people, and I really like midwives because they seem to be about empowerment, and that helps me feel safer. She validated that, and she understood why I hadn't had a pap in many years, because I've been avoiding it. Then later she said that she expects me to call more often, she wants me to call anytime I might want a check, and she expects that they'll see me more often because I've had two losses. I got a little teary (as I often do with my hormones these days), and she rubbed my back, and said it's definitely okay to be extra nervous and to be crying in their offices, and really put me at ease. I told her my concerns about being told "it's probably okay" when I'm worried it isn't, and she said definitely to keep calling back and ask to talk to a midwife if I ever feel like there's a problem. At the end she asked if I needed a hug and she gave me one. I like that she kept the previous miscarriages in mind as she was talking to me. I said that this would be my first visit to this office where I had a good outcome; where I came in pregnant and left pregnant, and she gave me a high-five. I got teary again thinking that maybe this really will be the one that ends up in a baby.
Medically, I got some helpful advice on what to eat, since these days nothing feels edible, but at least if I have a few things I can make sure I'm getting my protein and calcium. I got a million blood tests and a urine test; and I scheduled the dreaded pap test along with a general physical (breast exam--I hate that, that's why I've avoided it for years, but I did lose a half-sister to breast cancer that appeared while she was pregnant, so I'm going to do my best to face down this fear; and MFP will be there with me; also I scheduled it with this same midwife, at her suggestion, since we've already had a conversation about my history and my issues with it) for four weeks from now, and at that exam, they'll have the doppler out to hear the heartbeat. But no scans. THAT is the difference between midwives and OBs; they don't do ultrasounds. Right now I'll only have an anatomy scan at 20 weeks. Can I really trust enough that I'm still pregnant, that I'm OK, without a scan? Given that the second trimester is new to me, maybe I can approach it with fresh associations. Also, for me, the scans themselves make me incredibly nervous in advance, and I have to take a long time afterward to come down emotionally from the anxiety. We'll see how this goes. This is a tough time--no movement, I'm hardly showing at all, and no scans, either.
But there's always the possibility of getting a scan at MFM--Maternal Fetal Medicine, where I'll go for genetic testing. I should get in in the next few days...I'm anxious about it (this seems to be a theme). I am hoping to get the cell-free fetal DNA blood test, a very new (2011) and simple blood test that's more accurate than anything else in telling you whether the baby is healthy. A friend told me about it. It could also tell us the sex, but I don't want to know right now, I think. I'm 35, which means I have a 1 in 350-ish chance of having a child with Down's syndrome, and a higher risk in general of having a child with any kind of chromosomal abnormality. I wondered if I could take some reassurance, in a way, from my previous miscarriages, as though they were signs that my uterus was being choosy about only growing chromosomal healthy embryos. It's surreal that I'm undergoing genetic testing at the very time there are attacks on women who choose abortion after getting results that indicate Down's. Obviously, I am 100% opposed to these cynical ways of doing nothing to help people with disabilities, yet placing them on the front lines of an effort to attack women. I have always approached this with this book in mind, which talks about one family's experience of disability, and which says that most parents of children with Down's just don't want to engage with the genetic testing debate because it does absolutely nothing to help their children--no funding for the specialized care they'll need, no greater access to educational opportunities. Also, the author made a point I hadn't thought about before: that finding out earlier about a child's condition can be really helpful; it can help you make sure you have the necessary medical attention at the ready, as well as connections to support. And I'm sure that having consciously chosen to parent a child with a disability can only help the parents and child in the years ahead. The truth is, I honestly don't know what I would do. The decision would involve MFP. Like most women, as studies show, I would likely terminate. But I also am already deeply attached to this fetus. Frankly, I just want to fucking know. And there are so many other things I'm worried about besides Down's. There are chromosomal disorders that make it impossible for the fetus to even live to term, or live more than a short time after birth. Given my age and my history, I will feel a lot more confident doing basically responsible things like re-arranging work responsibilities for the spring, and buying some new, bigger bras or clothes, and in general, telling people beyond super close friends that I'm pregnant, once I hear back about these test results.
I know there's no magic moment when I go from "in danger" to "safe." I have to live with that. But I do hope this feeling of being an imposter goes away--not feeling like I'm pregnant "enough" to go to prenatal yoga class, or to buy a baby book or something--if I'm in the second trimester and I have healthy test results. Well, if it doesn't go away I hope it lessens. I guess what I hope is that trust grows. I suppose that's the theme of this post. Trust in myself to advocate for myself and to make good choices about my health care; trust in my caregivers to be compassionate, skilled, competent and kind; and trust in my body, that I will do the best I can in this pregnancy. I think about women who've suffered stillbirths and I realize that that last one--trust in my body--may just never happen. I guess it's trust that I'll do everything in my control, at least. Maybe I can't trust that I'll bring a baby home--it still seems almost impossible; even as we're reading packets from the hospital about packing a baby outfit; that seems so outlandishly unrelated to what I'm doing now, just trying to continue this pregnancy another week at a time. But I would like to trust enough to *hope* I can bring a baby home. Hope never killed a baby. Maybe it's even time to hope enough to start knitting for mine.
I'm exhausted because I saw the midwife right after work today--a long day. Going back to the same OB/Midwife practice where I had two bad outcomes was a little scary. Also, I have a lot of doubts--given that I wish they would have handled some things about my miscarriages better, and that I left for Dr. Special's office because I wanted different treatment, is it even a good idea to go back here? Am I trusting my baby's health with the best place possible? I haven't really shopped around that much for a practitioner. But I'm remembering why I went with this practice in the first place. I have to give birth at a hospital with a reputation for being high-intervention, supermedicalized, but this unique practice of midwives (CNMs) delivers there. A friend had the midwives catch her two children and had great experiences with them; and their statistics--which they actually bother to publicize--are fabulous, in terms of very low rates of interventions. Plus it's just me. With my trauma history, I need personalized attention; I know I need sensitive, holistic caregivers; and I really like the whole approach of empowering women to make informed, evidence-based choices--which is all the "midwifery model of care" stuff. I like the idea of having a midwife meet me at the hospital and not leaving my side till the end, even if there's a C-section, rather than having nurses I've never met before keep coming by to stick their fingers in my vagina, or residents constantly wanting to peek in. I like knowing that if I do need surgery or another intervention, I'll be with supportive people who will help me trust that it's really needed (and not second-guess myself, hopefully, as much later). I spent a lot of time with pregnancy #1 talking to them about this practice and that's why I chose it. They seemed experienced working with women like me who have avoided doctors for years because of a history of trauma.
But...that's all well and good for labor and delivery, but what about getting me there with a live human baby? If there's a problem, will I be poo-poo'ed as I felt I was with pregnancy #2? Will I be abandoned to the OB if I need an OB and forgotten about by the midwives, instead of having someone attend to things like suggesting a pregnancy loss group? (A social worker told me about the group I ended up attending; and she was pretty surprised my OB hadn't told me about it--or handed me any info on dealing with miscarriages at all). In my desire to treat pregnancy as something healthy and avoid, if possible, an escalating cavalcade of interventions, will I miss a chance to save my baby's health, or mine? How the hell can a woman scared of another loss--an even bigger one this time--have a "natural" "holistic" pregnancy and birth with midwives?
I remind myself that it was science that led me to the midwives. I'm basing this on data about healthy outcomes and outcomes that women feel good about. And I'm a pretty good advocate for myself, especially after the losses. I will speak up if I have a concern.
Today with the midwife went well. It had its ups and downs. The downs were at the beginning, when the midwife asked me to recount the two previous miscarriages, which in a way I was glad to re-tell, because they were both complicated and awful, but she was sitting at a computer and having computer trouble. I got annoyed. Is that how it's going to be? You're not going to read my chart in advance and I'm going to have to tell you about these horrible experiences repeatedly while you type into a computer? Then the midwife-in-training shared that she had had four miscarriages, and has a healthy daughter, and that she feels for me. I really appreciated that. As the appointment went on--standard prenatal health information, no doppler or exam--the midwife asked me a bit about my anxiety and trauma history, and I shared that it's just helpful for me to share that to let my providers know that I might take a little bit of time to trust people, and I really like midwives because they seem to be about empowerment, and that helps me feel safer. She validated that, and she understood why I hadn't had a pap in many years, because I've been avoiding it. Then later she said that she expects me to call more often, she wants me to call anytime I might want a check, and she expects that they'll see me more often because I've had two losses. I got a little teary (as I often do with my hormones these days), and she rubbed my back, and said it's definitely okay to be extra nervous and to be crying in their offices, and really put me at ease. I told her my concerns about being told "it's probably okay" when I'm worried it isn't, and she said definitely to keep calling back and ask to talk to a midwife if I ever feel like there's a problem. At the end she asked if I needed a hug and she gave me one. I like that she kept the previous miscarriages in mind as she was talking to me. I said that this would be my first visit to this office where I had a good outcome; where I came in pregnant and left pregnant, and she gave me a high-five. I got teary again thinking that maybe this really will be the one that ends up in a baby.
Medically, I got some helpful advice on what to eat, since these days nothing feels edible, but at least if I have a few things I can make sure I'm getting my protein and calcium. I got a million blood tests and a urine test; and I scheduled the dreaded pap test along with a general physical (breast exam--I hate that, that's why I've avoided it for years, but I did lose a half-sister to breast cancer that appeared while she was pregnant, so I'm going to do my best to face down this fear; and MFP will be there with me; also I scheduled it with this same midwife, at her suggestion, since we've already had a conversation about my history and my issues with it) for four weeks from now, and at that exam, they'll have the doppler out to hear the heartbeat. But no scans. THAT is the difference between midwives and OBs; they don't do ultrasounds. Right now I'll only have an anatomy scan at 20 weeks. Can I really trust enough that I'm still pregnant, that I'm OK, without a scan? Given that the second trimester is new to me, maybe I can approach it with fresh associations. Also, for me, the scans themselves make me incredibly nervous in advance, and I have to take a long time afterward to come down emotionally from the anxiety. We'll see how this goes. This is a tough time--no movement, I'm hardly showing at all, and no scans, either.
But there's always the possibility of getting a scan at MFM--Maternal Fetal Medicine, where I'll go for genetic testing. I should get in in the next few days...I'm anxious about it (this seems to be a theme). I am hoping to get the cell-free fetal DNA blood test, a very new (2011) and simple blood test that's more accurate than anything else in telling you whether the baby is healthy. A friend told me about it. It could also tell us the sex, but I don't want to know right now, I think. I'm 35, which means I have a 1 in 350-ish chance of having a child with Down's syndrome, and a higher risk in general of having a child with any kind of chromosomal abnormality. I wondered if I could take some reassurance, in a way, from my previous miscarriages, as though they were signs that my uterus was being choosy about only growing chromosomal healthy embryos. It's surreal that I'm undergoing genetic testing at the very time there are attacks on women who choose abortion after getting results that indicate Down's. Obviously, I am 100% opposed to these cynical ways of doing nothing to help people with disabilities, yet placing them on the front lines of an effort to attack women. I have always approached this with this book in mind, which talks about one family's experience of disability, and which says that most parents of children with Down's just don't want to engage with the genetic testing debate because it does absolutely nothing to help their children--no funding for the specialized care they'll need, no greater access to educational opportunities. Also, the author made a point I hadn't thought about before: that finding out earlier about a child's condition can be really helpful; it can help you make sure you have the necessary medical attention at the ready, as well as connections to support. And I'm sure that having consciously chosen to parent a child with a disability can only help the parents and child in the years ahead. The truth is, I honestly don't know what I would do. The decision would involve MFP. Like most women, as studies show, I would likely terminate. But I also am already deeply attached to this fetus. Frankly, I just want to fucking know. And there are so many other things I'm worried about besides Down's. There are chromosomal disorders that make it impossible for the fetus to even live to term, or live more than a short time after birth. Given my age and my history, I will feel a lot more confident doing basically responsible things like re-arranging work responsibilities for the spring, and buying some new, bigger bras or clothes, and in general, telling people beyond super close friends that I'm pregnant, once I hear back about these test results.
I know there's no magic moment when I go from "in danger" to "safe." I have to live with that. But I do hope this feeling of being an imposter goes away--not feeling like I'm pregnant "enough" to go to prenatal yoga class, or to buy a baby book or something--if I'm in the second trimester and I have healthy test results. Well, if it doesn't go away I hope it lessens. I guess what I hope is that trust grows. I suppose that's the theme of this post. Trust in myself to advocate for myself and to make good choices about my health care; trust in my caregivers to be compassionate, skilled, competent and kind; and trust in my body, that I will do the best I can in this pregnancy. I think about women who've suffered stillbirths and I realize that that last one--trust in my body--may just never happen. I guess it's trust that I'll do everything in my control, at least. Maybe I can't trust that I'll bring a baby home--it still seems almost impossible; even as we're reading packets from the hospital about packing a baby outfit; that seems so outlandishly unrelated to what I'm doing now, just trying to continue this pregnancy another week at a time. But I would like to trust enough to *hope* I can bring a baby home. Hope never killed a baby. Maybe it's even time to hope enough to start knitting for mine.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
9 weeks
Yesterday I heard a heartbeat again, and saw that my little one had grown enormously in just the two weeks since the last scan. No wonder I've been so tired and nauseated! I placed the pictures from the three scans next to one another--5 weeks just to confirm the pregnancy; nearly 7 to hear the heartbeat for the first time; and yesterday. The growth is amazing. First there's just a little black oval where there's clearly a gestational sac in my uterus, but the embryo is too small to be seen; then there's a little white tadpole-shaped embryo inside a much, much larger dark sac, and yesterday, there was this big kidney-shaped sac and a white form that, to me, looks actually kind of like a baby! With a round head curled over a body, and maybe even two little white spots for feet I can discern (or imagine) and little arms too.
It's truly amazing how much has happened in only a month. If I ever need to convince myself to rest when I feel like it, I'll remember this. Today the embryo officially became a "fetus," which is exciting, because I've never reached that stage before; and after my appointment, I "graduated" from Dr. Special's office to the midwife. She told me to definitely bring the baby back to meet her. Because...there will be a baby at the end of this? I can actually hope?! During the scan, the fetus actually scooted away from the ultrasound--what? It can move?! how cool!--as we were listening to the heartbeat, which was perfect, and which we recorded again, this time without the interruption of me bursting into tears. But I did really start crying, and needed multiple tissues, once we were saying goodbye to the office and the nurse handed me my little "parting gift":
It's truly amazing how much has happened in only a month. If I ever need to convince myself to rest when I feel like it, I'll remember this. Today the embryo officially became a "fetus," which is exciting, because I've never reached that stage before; and after my appointment, I "graduated" from Dr. Special's office to the midwife. She told me to definitely bring the baby back to meet her. Because...there will be a baby at the end of this? I can actually hope?! During the scan, the fetus actually scooted away from the ultrasound--what? It can move?! how cool!--as we were listening to the heartbeat, which was perfect, and which we recorded again, this time without the interruption of me bursting into tears. But I did really start crying, and needed multiple tissues, once we were saying goodbye to the office and the nurse handed me my little "parting gift":
A baby spoon. Because we very well at this point might have a baby, who will someday need a little tiny spoon. Even now, after two miscarriages and two years of trying, my eyes redden at the thought. I was even thinking, you know, at this point, all we can think about is how much we need this baby to be healthy and survive and come home with us, but this baby really needs *us.* Even if we wanted to just kind of ignore it and not think about it for a while, it needs us to attach to it, it needs us to love us with all our might, it needs us to get ready to bring it home, it needs us to learn how to take care of our fears so that we can take care of *it*.
It feels so good to allow myself to truly hope. Although I noticed last night and this morning I got irritable--I wonder if there is a part of me that is also afraid of this becoming real, at last. Afraid that I'll forget about my own pain from my own childhood and the losses from my own family when I'm trying so hard to give my child all the love s/he needs. Afraid that there won't be time for myself, for me to feel vulnerable and to take care of myself, now that there's a baby coming. MFP actually pointed out my irritability to me and wondered about this, and he's right. I don't want to try to be some kind of invulnerable parent; to forget about my own past and put my own healing journey aside in this process. I think that would actually in the end make me a worse parent, even if it means making time for myself and taking care of myself in the short term. But I definitely don't think this will be easy. All I know is I want to love this baby with all of me, with my whole heart, even the parts of me that wish that I had the kind of family of origin that I'm going to give my child.
I snapped at MFP when he expressed fear that maybe this still won't work out. Clearly I just wasn't even letting myself admit that I'm still afraid, too. As though acknowledging the fear would make it more real. But it won't. Yes, anything could happen still at this point. I'm still not in control. I'm getting attached, I'm loving this baby, and that opens me up to enormous heartache. That reminds me of how, after miscarriage #1, MFP and I were talking about how we entered this game of parenthood, and we learned what a heart-wrenching, brutal, and amazing game it was. You open your heart to get totally gutted. You open your heart to feel love and hope and joy that you never expected to feel. I'm proud of us for choosing to try out this game, for being brave with our curiosity about it. And here we are, still playing it, another round this time, and we are vulnerable as hell. We are taking a risk to love, even at this early stage; we can't help it. It's funny though; we're vulnerable, but I have to remember how much more incredibly vulnerable my baby is. She needs us to get through it; he needs us to stay calm and keep loving even in the face of fear. But also not to get really resentful with each other like I did when MFP expressed fear!
Symptom-wise, I read that this week the nausea and exhaustion might peak. I'm definitely feeling brutally exhausted, and the nausea is near-constant. Life marches on though, I still have tons of work to do. It's hard to accept that I need to rest as much as I do, to be kind to myself about it. Like when I see ants crawling all over the garbage that needs to be taken out when I'm on my way to work. But fuck it, so I have a messy house. I'm growing a baby.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
8 weeks 0 days
I am 8 weeks pregnant today. My second ultrasound with Dr. Special is on Monday, and if that goes well, I get transferred to the midwives (and coordination with the Dr. Riskys at Maternal Fetal Medicine since I'm over 35). Yesterday I felt really nauseated--I've been feeling it especially in bed. Today I felt fine, but it might be because I've been too busy with work to notice my body. Now I'm exhausted. I did my annual employee health assessment today for our health plan, and I had to tell the nurse I am pregnant. She says it's so easy to take blood from a pregnant woman, she loves it, since we gain 20% of our blood volume. And indeed it took a bit for my finger prick to stop bleeding, I guess we pregnant women are just bursting with it. She didn't say anything about my BMI either, likely thanks to the pregnancy. It has skyrocketed since last year. I have definitely already gained weight with this pregnancy--I can tell by the way my clothes don't fit--but I know it was climbing before this. Taking progesterone causes weight gain, and being unsuccessfully pregnant for half of 2014 sure as hell wasn't kind on my body. I've been meaning to post about miscarriage/infertility and body image. As if going through this doesn't already create a really difficult relationship with my body, then on top of that I have to be a woman in a world that prizes only one type of body--one which is very much not resembling a fertility goddess (runway models seem to all be chosen to look like prepubescent girls, so not reproductive figures at all). Such competing demands--look thin and nearly boyish, but you have to be a mother to be a fully realized woman--and motherhood is about hips and bellies and breasts and curves and stretch marks and nausea and fatigue that makes it impossible to devote the amount of energy women are expected to devote to meticulous dieting and exercising. Well competing demands make sense when the goal is oppression.
So I'll have to come to a different relationship with my body through this. One hopefully of gratitude. I'm glad I'm alive and healthy, and I'm so glad I'm pregnant. None of that was really in my control; I can only help or hinder. I do want to raise my child with a good relationship to their body, and to food and exercise; with an ability to resist pressures to live up to some sort of external standard. I have to start by being that way myself. My clothes don't fit? Buy new ones. Eat for health, don't give in to excesses of either self-denial or eating to soothe anxiety. Exercise because it feels good. It's hard though; especially as I've aged the pounds layer on; and then with the progesterone and the miscarriages; sometimes I wondered if I should be more hands-on about my weight. A friend and I joke, it's always hard to tell: science or patriarchy? Like, is this science or patriarchy telling me to do this? Sadly the two are often intertwined. Well it doesn't matter now! Fuck it, I'm giving my body over to pregnancy. If I need to rest, I'm resting. If I feel like eating or not, I will or won't. Obviously I'll eat as safely and healthfully as I can, but I will hopefully not be thinking much about appearance until after I have a baby. And even then--my body will likely always reflect the life I've lived, up to and including motherhood. Man I hope so, certainly.
The baby whose birth was betted on was born, healthy and the mom is healthy too. This is their fourth. I used to think family size was about choice, and in many ways it is, or can be. But now all I see is, what luck! To have four healthy children! What amazing luck! And to get pregnant right after a miscarriage, twice, and go on to actually have the child. I suppose doing all of this younger helps increase your luck. I just think of the women I know who have lost children to stillbirth. I think of myself, two miscarriages in a row--this pregnancy could have easily been my second; I could have had a nearly nine-month old by now. I think of the women I know suffering cruelly from infertility. MFP doesn't really get my envy of women who've had several healthy kids. He says, "but you don't want their life! You have a great life!" It's true, I want my life. My choices. But I'm envious too of the ability to count on the arrival of a healthy baby as more likely than not. And maybe I'm hopeful too. So hopeful that my baby will keep growing from its tiny tiny size and actually become a squirming, healthy miracle. I wish this journey had been easy for me, but I'll take it however it comes.
So I'll have to come to a different relationship with my body through this. One hopefully of gratitude. I'm glad I'm alive and healthy, and I'm so glad I'm pregnant. None of that was really in my control; I can only help or hinder. I do want to raise my child with a good relationship to their body, and to food and exercise; with an ability to resist pressures to live up to some sort of external standard. I have to start by being that way myself. My clothes don't fit? Buy new ones. Eat for health, don't give in to excesses of either self-denial or eating to soothe anxiety. Exercise because it feels good. It's hard though; especially as I've aged the pounds layer on; and then with the progesterone and the miscarriages; sometimes I wondered if I should be more hands-on about my weight. A friend and I joke, it's always hard to tell: science or patriarchy? Like, is this science or patriarchy telling me to do this? Sadly the two are often intertwined. Well it doesn't matter now! Fuck it, I'm giving my body over to pregnancy. If I need to rest, I'm resting. If I feel like eating or not, I will or won't. Obviously I'll eat as safely and healthfully as I can, but I will hopefully not be thinking much about appearance until after I have a baby. And even then--my body will likely always reflect the life I've lived, up to and including motherhood. Man I hope so, certainly.
The baby whose birth was betted on was born, healthy and the mom is healthy too. This is their fourth. I used to think family size was about choice, and in many ways it is, or can be. But now all I see is, what luck! To have four healthy children! What amazing luck! And to get pregnant right after a miscarriage, twice, and go on to actually have the child. I suppose doing all of this younger helps increase your luck. I just think of the women I know who have lost children to stillbirth. I think of myself, two miscarriages in a row--this pregnancy could have easily been my second; I could have had a nearly nine-month old by now. I think of the women I know suffering cruelly from infertility. MFP doesn't really get my envy of women who've had several healthy kids. He says, "but you don't want their life! You have a great life!" It's true, I want my life. My choices. But I'm envious too of the ability to count on the arrival of a healthy baby as more likely than not. And maybe I'm hopeful too. So hopeful that my baby will keep growing from its tiny tiny size and actually become a squirming, healthy miracle. I wish this journey had been easy for me, but I'll take it however it comes.
Saturday, August 22, 2015
In my life
Earlier this week, I was writing an email to a woman I met in the pregnancy loss group who lost her daughter to stillbirth last year, and as soon as I pressed send, I saw an email in my inbox from someone inviting me to join a betting pool for the time and sex of the birth of their child. I was livid. Apparently, this is a thing people do. I googled it expecting there to be rants and screeds about how insensitive this practice is, but no, there are websites devoted to "baby betting pool." I can't even imagine the rage that a person who'd lost a full-term baby would feel hearing about someone betting on their child's birth. How about I bet on whether or not I'll miscarry a third time? Or whether my baby will have genetic abnormalities? Or whether I'll have a stillbirth? Or whether my baby will be born with a grave illness or birth defect? Anybody want to take bets on that? I suppose it's a way to get other people "involved" in your child's appearance without actually fostering meaningful emotional connection with others and your family. But regardless, the hubris is astonishing. The aura of invincibility; the insensitivity to how, at least for others, a childbirth would be precious and miraculous and not a time for betting--people like me who've had recurrent miscarriages, or people suffering infertility, or people who have watched their children die.
I feel fine today, just fine; only a slight tickle of maybe nausea; not that tired. For the past few week I've been going to bed at like 8pm; I've felt absolutely woozy with tiredness. I feel so afraid. My baby was healthy and growing on track on Monday; heart beating away, growth measuring on target; what if it has died already? Unlike before hearing the heartbeat, now I have waves of fear, rather than sheer panic, but still, they're there. Going through a missed miscarriage is a really horrible thing.
My thoughts turn to 9 days from now, to the next scan--will the baby have survived? Will we hear "I have bad news, there's no heartbeat" again? And what about after that? I've been googling prenatal testing instead of working this morning: I guess I'm glad I'm 35, because I can get the new, extremely accurate and extremely early test for genetic disorders. What if, like a friend of mine, we find out that our baby has a severe disorder? What if I have to have an abortion? This woman I know had such a terrible time trying to find answers, and the genetic counselors did all kinds of obfuscating, and then she had to face the fact that we live in a horrible state that gives you such a short window to make a decision on a pregnancy, it was awful. Just so you know, in case you're a judgmental asshole, the fetus, it turned out, had severe defects incompatible with life. What if that happens to us? And what about stillbirth? I have so many risk factors for stillbirth. It's my first child. I'm over 35. I've had trouble conceiving. What if I don't get enough screening? What if I'm not vigilant enough? What if my baby dies inside of me, at a much, much later stage in pregnancy than before? I have so little trust. The fact that healthy babies are ever born seems almost impossible given all the things that can go wrong that I now know from direct witnesses. Such a miracle. Do I really deserve such a miracle? Or is my life one that is going to be marked out for suffering when it comes to children? (Well, I've already suffered). I just talked to a coworker yesterday who shared that his wife had three miscarriages before having their first of two healthy children. There are other success stories, I know.
The older sister of this baby whose birth is being betted on said on her first day of school that when she grew up, she wanted to be "A Mommy." Like her own mother presumably, who doesn't work outside the home. Who has had lots of children much younger than me. And now this little girl is being raised with the idea that "A Mommy" is a profession, something separate from doing what her father does or what I do for a living. Or a scientist or an astronaut or a social worker or a teacher or a business person or a pirate or a ship captain or a magician or a lawyer or a programmer or a princess. It hits my own insecurities. I want a different path from my family of origin. I want to be in touch with my feelings, to refuse to accept or excuse abuse, to have real love and security in my life rather than only the appearance of it. So I've separated from "Mommy" that way. And I always knew that I wanted motherhood to enrich my life, not define it. I want MFP to be as much a co-parent as me. Yet I see myself struggle with motherhood, and I wonder, maybe I chose something other than "Mommy." And the truth is, I did. But I had hope, that I could have a mind, a life outside the home, an equal partnership AND a child. I've sought my models for family outside my own family, and even though I've found lots of them, it's always hard, for anyone who tries to do something different, to not let those first examples of relationships speak the loudest.
The fact that I'm even thinking about motherhood, about what kind of family environment I want to raise my baby in, is an achievement. We invited some hope into our lives after we heard that heartbeat. My therapist said to me this week that I just have to decide whether I believe this is true: "I have to have a relationship with an extended family in order to have a happy life." Do I believe that for my child? No. I have to start thinking about what kind of messages I want to raise my baby among. Do I want my child to stay faithful to the appearance of love rather than the feeling and the practice of it? Do I want my child to maintain relationships just because they think they're supposed to and they're afraid of disappointing people, rather than because they are meaningful and fulfilling? Basically, do I want to raise my child to be vulnerable to abuse or to be secure enough in themselves to seek out love and safety? And maybe even to speak out against it and protect others, even when it's unpopular? That's a no-brainer. Except it's hard not to hear the guilt of my first messages, which definitely said "family is more important than self or safety or good feelings or the truth or anything or anyone else" both implicitly and explicitly.
What I'm trying to say is I'm loving my baby already. I love him or her. I have a firm place in my heart, in my home, in my life, and in my body where my child can go, and I'm working on making that even firmer. It's a powerful thing to tell someone, I have loved you since you were an idea. And my child, if creation-willing, she arrives, will know I love him that way. At night we started singing to the little embryo. I wanted to take some time to attach to it each day. What lullaby would I sing? I didn't know what, but then "In My Life" came out. I imagine singing this to my little embryo, my fetus, and then my newborn. Then maybe my toddler, both MFP and I curled up with him as we put her to bed. And I'll say, I sang this to you when you were only a centimeter big. Maybe my newborn will recognize my voice when I hold her or him in my arms. I should be so lucky. Knock on wood. B'sha'ah tovah. It does help me feel some emotions about this pregnancy besides fear though.
There are places I remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all
But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more
I feel fine today, just fine; only a slight tickle of maybe nausea; not that tired. For the past few week I've been going to bed at like 8pm; I've felt absolutely woozy with tiredness. I feel so afraid. My baby was healthy and growing on track on Monday; heart beating away, growth measuring on target; what if it has died already? Unlike before hearing the heartbeat, now I have waves of fear, rather than sheer panic, but still, they're there. Going through a missed miscarriage is a really horrible thing.
My thoughts turn to 9 days from now, to the next scan--will the baby have survived? Will we hear "I have bad news, there's no heartbeat" again? And what about after that? I've been googling prenatal testing instead of working this morning: I guess I'm glad I'm 35, because I can get the new, extremely accurate and extremely early test for genetic disorders. What if, like a friend of mine, we find out that our baby has a severe disorder? What if I have to have an abortion? This woman I know had such a terrible time trying to find answers, and the genetic counselors did all kinds of obfuscating, and then she had to face the fact that we live in a horrible state that gives you such a short window to make a decision on a pregnancy, it was awful. Just so you know, in case you're a judgmental asshole, the fetus, it turned out, had severe defects incompatible with life. What if that happens to us? And what about stillbirth? I have so many risk factors for stillbirth. It's my first child. I'm over 35. I've had trouble conceiving. What if I don't get enough screening? What if I'm not vigilant enough? What if my baby dies inside of me, at a much, much later stage in pregnancy than before? I have so little trust. The fact that healthy babies are ever born seems almost impossible given all the things that can go wrong that I now know from direct witnesses. Such a miracle. Do I really deserve such a miracle? Or is my life one that is going to be marked out for suffering when it comes to children? (Well, I've already suffered). I just talked to a coworker yesterday who shared that his wife had three miscarriages before having their first of two healthy children. There are other success stories, I know.
The older sister of this baby whose birth is being betted on said on her first day of school that when she grew up, she wanted to be "A Mommy." Like her own mother presumably, who doesn't work outside the home. Who has had lots of children much younger than me. And now this little girl is being raised with the idea that "A Mommy" is a profession, something separate from doing what her father does or what I do for a living. Or a scientist or an astronaut or a social worker or a teacher or a business person or a pirate or a ship captain or a magician or a lawyer or a programmer or a princess. It hits my own insecurities. I want a different path from my family of origin. I want to be in touch with my feelings, to refuse to accept or excuse abuse, to have real love and security in my life rather than only the appearance of it. So I've separated from "Mommy" that way. And I always knew that I wanted motherhood to enrich my life, not define it. I want MFP to be as much a co-parent as me. Yet I see myself struggle with motherhood, and I wonder, maybe I chose something other than "Mommy." And the truth is, I did. But I had hope, that I could have a mind, a life outside the home, an equal partnership AND a child. I've sought my models for family outside my own family, and even though I've found lots of them, it's always hard, for anyone who tries to do something different, to not let those first examples of relationships speak the loudest.
The fact that I'm even thinking about motherhood, about what kind of family environment I want to raise my baby in, is an achievement. We invited some hope into our lives after we heard that heartbeat. My therapist said to me this week that I just have to decide whether I believe this is true: "I have to have a relationship with an extended family in order to have a happy life." Do I believe that for my child? No. I have to start thinking about what kind of messages I want to raise my baby among. Do I want my child to stay faithful to the appearance of love rather than the feeling and the practice of it? Do I want my child to maintain relationships just because they think they're supposed to and they're afraid of disappointing people, rather than because they are meaningful and fulfilling? Basically, do I want to raise my child to be vulnerable to abuse or to be secure enough in themselves to seek out love and safety? And maybe even to speak out against it and protect others, even when it's unpopular? That's a no-brainer. Except it's hard not to hear the guilt of my first messages, which definitely said "family is more important than self or safety or good feelings or the truth or anything or anyone else" both implicitly and explicitly.
What I'm trying to say is I'm loving my baby already. I love him or her. I have a firm place in my heart, in my home, in my life, and in my body where my child can go, and I'm working on making that even firmer. It's a powerful thing to tell someone, I have loved you since you were an idea. And my child, if creation-willing, she arrives, will know I love him that way. At night we started singing to the little embryo. I wanted to take some time to attach to it each day. What lullaby would I sing? I didn't know what, but then "In My Life" came out. I imagine singing this to my little embryo, my fetus, and then my newborn. Then maybe my toddler, both MFP and I curled up with him as we put her to bed. And I'll say, I sang this to you when you were only a centimeter big. Maybe my newborn will recognize my voice when I hold her or him in my arms. I should be so lucky. Knock on wood. B'sha'ah tovah. It does help me feel some emotions about this pregnancy besides fear though.
There are places I remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all
But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Pregnant over 35 Manifesto
We know we are high-risk. We know the statistics: everything will be harder for us. Getting pregnant, having a healthy pregnancy, having a healthy labor, having a healthy baby. We know.
We also know that we are happy, excited, and proud about our choices.
We are more mature than we were one, five, ten, fifteen years ago. We know more about who we are. We know more about what we want. We've been through some shit. We've survived it. We've gotten bruised, but also strengthened. We are very, very strong.
We've had a lot of time to think about whether or not we want to be a parent, and we know the ways to prevent it. We are choosing this deliberately, purposefully, thoughtfully. Some of us have struggled for years already through infertility and losses to get here. For this group of us, this pregnancy is planned. It is wanted. We fought hard for it. It is a victory.
We are established in our lives. We know that for every year a woman delays having her first child, her maximum lifetime income rises by 10%. Now you might say all we care about is money. Yes, those of us who have careers are proud of them. Those of us who have the benefits that come from financial security are happy that we do. But what that statistic tells us is that fewer of us will be raising our children in poverty. More of us can afford to provide for our children in ways that can foster their thriving, even if a crisis hits. We also know that divorced women make up one of the most impoverished groups. We are creating security for ourselves and our children. We might even live longer.
We are more likely, as a group, to raise our children without the threat of violence. Studies show that nearly one-third of mothers spank their babies under the age of TWO, and this was consistent across class distinctions and races. The only control that consistently showed which mothers were less likely to spank their tiny infants and toddlers was age of the mother. With every year increase in age, a mother is less likely to spank her baby. Maybe that's because we're tired. We're tired of fighting the little battles; we're tired of feeling the need to be completely in control. Maybe we're tired of the way we were raised, tired of the custom of treating children like little prisoners that need to be kept in line, and we're more excited, now that we're older, to get to know them as the individual people that they are instead. Maybe we're more secure in ourselves, and we've been through intensely difficult experiences, and we can draw on our pasts to face the difficulties of parenting without losing our cool. Maybe we're at a time in our lives where we're more ready to listen. Regardless of why, this is our record. This is a statistic we don't hear when we hear we're "high-risk." We would like a world that also recognizes that twenty-something mothers are at "high-risk" of hitting their babies, and we should shower those mothers more support when they're overwhelmed.
We trust in science, and we know our history. We know our friends, our colleagues, our mothers, our grandmothers, and our ancestors have been having children in their late thirties and forties for centuries. Millennia. Maybe some of them were the wise women, the midwives, the "witches," the matriarchs, who taught women about their bodies and held the secrets of planning and stopping pregnancies for years before male physicians caught up so that we could lead full, productive lives that included experiencing the miraculous power of motherhood. We know that we're not new, we're not a "trend," we are part of a long and unbroken line of women who invite motherhood to enrich us, but not define us. We understand that that scares people, and so they might judge us, or begrudge our choices. We respectfully don't care. We're too excited about the fact that a new chapter of our lives is just beginning.
We also know that we are happy, excited, and proud about our choices.
We are more mature than we were one, five, ten, fifteen years ago. We know more about who we are. We know more about what we want. We've been through some shit. We've survived it. We've gotten bruised, but also strengthened. We are very, very strong.
We've had a lot of time to think about whether or not we want to be a parent, and we know the ways to prevent it. We are choosing this deliberately, purposefully, thoughtfully. Some of us have struggled for years already through infertility and losses to get here. For this group of us, this pregnancy is planned. It is wanted. We fought hard for it. It is a victory.
We are established in our lives. We know that for every year a woman delays having her first child, her maximum lifetime income rises by 10%. Now you might say all we care about is money. Yes, those of us who have careers are proud of them. Those of us who have the benefits that come from financial security are happy that we do. But what that statistic tells us is that fewer of us will be raising our children in poverty. More of us can afford to provide for our children in ways that can foster their thriving, even if a crisis hits. We also know that divorced women make up one of the most impoverished groups. We are creating security for ourselves and our children. We might even live longer.
We are more likely, as a group, to raise our children without the threat of violence. Studies show that nearly one-third of mothers spank their babies under the age of TWO, and this was consistent across class distinctions and races. The only control that consistently showed which mothers were less likely to spank their tiny infants and toddlers was age of the mother. With every year increase in age, a mother is less likely to spank her baby. Maybe that's because we're tired. We're tired of fighting the little battles; we're tired of feeling the need to be completely in control. Maybe we're tired of the way we were raised, tired of the custom of treating children like little prisoners that need to be kept in line, and we're more excited, now that we're older, to get to know them as the individual people that they are instead. Maybe we're more secure in ourselves, and we've been through intensely difficult experiences, and we can draw on our pasts to face the difficulties of parenting without losing our cool. Maybe we're at a time in our lives where we're more ready to listen. Regardless of why, this is our record. This is a statistic we don't hear when we hear we're "high-risk." We would like a world that also recognizes that twenty-something mothers are at "high-risk" of hitting their babies, and we should shower those mothers more support when they're overwhelmed.
We trust in science, and we know our history. We know our friends, our colleagues, our mothers, our grandmothers, and our ancestors have been having children in their late thirties and forties for centuries. Millennia. Maybe some of them were the wise women, the midwives, the "witches," the matriarchs, who taught women about their bodies and held the secrets of planning and stopping pregnancies for years before male physicians caught up so that we could lead full, productive lives that included experiencing the miraculous power of motherhood. We know that we're not new, we're not a "trend," we are part of a long and unbroken line of women who invite motherhood to enrich us, but not define us. We understand that that scares people, and so they might judge us, or begrudge our choices. We respectfully don't care. We're too excited about the fact that a new chapter of our lives is just beginning.
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