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.