She's up...and she's down again.

This morning, as I was working, I was thinking that I am soooo happy right now.  I am not feeling unbearably ill.  I am not seriously uncomfortable like I was a couple of weeks ago.  I know what I am struggling with and what I have to do to fix those issues.  I’ve switched to an OBGYN that I trust.  I know our baby boy is okay and I even got to see a cute little profile picture of him.  I can feel him kicking away.  My baby registry is complete (except for clothes) and my shower is in the works.  This morning, I was relishing how good my life is right now.

Then, the doorbell rang at lunchtime and everything changed.  Our mailman had a certified letter that I needed to sign for.  I couldn’t imagine what it could be.  Well…it was a letter from Dr. B informing me that she could no longer be my physician and that she would transfer my records to Dr. C.  The letter is dated over two weeks ago, before I even requested that my records be sent to Dr. C.  Clearly it is back-dated to two days after my last appointment with Dr. B and, for whatever reason, the back-dating is making me mad.  It could have been a typo, but in my head I’ve come up with as theory that she is covering her butt for not dictating my anatomy scan for the last two weeks.  Being “broken-up” with is making me mad…even though I was breaking-up with Dr. B anyways (can we say junior high?).  Even though it is obvious that the letter is a form letter, the snotty tone of the letter makes me mad.  I know that this isn’t personal but every word seems personal to me.  And…worst of all…is the fact that Dr. B had time to send me that letter by certified mail but not to send my records to Dr. C or to dictate my anatomy scan report.  I’m so mad. 

“Mad” may not even be the right word.  What I feel is more like anxiety mixed with indignation.  My hands are shaking (even though it has been a couple of hours now since I received the letter) and my stomach is sick.  The Prince can’t understand why this is upsetting me and he thinks I should just fight paying Dr. B for transferring my records, as she didn’t do it in a timely manner.  I tried to explain to him that I don’t want to prolong my dealings with Dr. B’s office and fighting about a bill is pretty much the worst thing I can imagine having to go through right now.  I just want to completely forget about all things related to Dr. B.  The Prince is right that I am completely over-reacting.  The problem is…I truly can’t help it.

That seems to be a common thing for me right now.  I am fine, happy even, most of the time.  But then something small happens (like finding out the exact date that our baby will likely be born) and I end up on the verge of a panic attack.  This isn’t like anxiety I’ve experienced before.  In the past, my anxiety was always a response to some traumatic situation, conflict or negative thoughts.  This new “pregnancy anxiety” is silly and illogical.  It comes out of nowhere and (thank God) it goes away as quickly as it comes on.  The problem is…it comes.  Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night with my heart pounding, covered in sweat, sure that something awful is about to happen.  I have no idea what that “something awful” is, and I barely remember the feeling the next morning.  But, I still have these “episodes” periodically.  I feel like a mad person.  I know there is no reason to feel this way, but refocusing my thoughts or talking through the issue isn’t helpful at all when there is nothing to talk about.

Is this normal during pregnancy or am I becoming mentally unstable?  I’m high-strung normally…but this seems excessive.  I'm sure in a couple of hours, this post will feel silly to me.  But I would still love some reassurance that this has happened to other women during their pregnancy...and that it goes away.

A Letter To An Old Friend...

Welcome back Anxiety, my old friend.  I would say it has been too long, but, in truth, it hasn’t been long enough.  I thought we had an understanding…that you would leave me alone, at least for the next month, so I could enjoy being pregnant before you moved in and ruined it.  You did not live up to your end of the bargain.  Instead, you have crashed my party like an unwanted guest that just won’t leave.  You’ve left me shaking and gasping for breath, as my chest gets tighter and tighter.  You have me writing a blog post at 2:00 a.m., because, for the second night in a row, you won’t let me sleep.  You have my stomach in knots and my mind racing, and it isn’t fair.  I wasn’t supposed to see you so soon.

I understand that The Prince opened the door to you the other night, but I am really irritated that you leave him alone when it isn’t convenient for him to deal with you, and yet you follow me around at work, and while I’m eating, and while I’m trying to sleep.  Even my dreams aren’t safe from you…and I’m not the one that invited you in.  You cause me so much pain, yet you are so easy to embrace and so difficult to kick out.

At least I’ve learned a lot about you over the last three years.  I know that you’ve gotten comfortable in my life the last couple of days, at least in part because I have allowed myself to consult Dr. Google on everything I fear about being pregnant and being a mother.  That stops today.  No more Googling…anything!  I also know that you are taking advantage of my fear of doing yoga this early in the pregnancy.  I know how you hate it when I do yoga, as yoga makes it difficult for you to stay with me.  Well…tomorrow I am going to add an additional morning walk to my current brief lunchtime walk…and I’m going to use my “walk time” to breathe you away.  I don’t care that it is raining straight through next week, I like the rain.  And nothing is going to stop me from walking away from you.  Oh, and in three weeks, yoga is coming back too…so be forewarned.

I won’t have you ruining my “happily ever after.”  I know you have the power to do it, but I’m not going to let it happen.  I’ve worked too hard, and waited too long, to have this moment of joy taken away from me.  And, I know that if I let you rest in my home, even for a little while, it will be even harder to make you go away.  So, you need to leave now.  I know you can’t be ignored, but you can be starved.  Our home will have a “no anxiety-fueling policy” from now on.  You’ll see how strong The Prince and I can be when we need to be.  Now leave me alone and let me sleep, so I can keep you at bay tomorrow.

Your Former Friend,

The Princess

                                           



Darkness Falls Over the Land

Occasionally in a fairy tale, something will go wrong and to emphasize how bad things are becoming for the hero, the author will tell you that “darkness fell over the land.”  Very spooky.

I don’t know about you, but there have been so many times during my fertility journey that darkness fell over my land.  I would be going about my business, chewing my nails through my 2 week wait and WHAMO!  I would get the phone call from the nurse that my beta test came back and it was negative.  Immediately, a darkness would fall over me.  If I was at work, I would usually have to leave work because once the sobbing started, there was no getting it to stop.  I would go through all of the stages of grief over and over in rapid succession, thinking I was finished with a step (i.e.- bargaining), only to find myself promising to start going to church or to volunteer more time to charity if God could only make the test wrong…if I could just be pregnant a little later than expected.  Then, inevitably, the day would come (for me, usually more than a week after I stopped the progesterone) that I would get my body’s confirmation that I was, indeed, not pregnant…again.  For me, that final nail in the coffin usually would plunge me fully into the abyss.

I fear depression…actual clinical need-to-take –medicine-to-function depression, because I experienced it when I was younger.  It is like being in the darkest room imaginable, where you can hear the sounds of life going on around you but you can’t see even a speck of light that would allow you to orient yourself to the outside world.

The darkness that I call depression now is not quite the same.  I feel myself getting close to the edge of the cliff into darkness and I know if I fall down I might not get out of bed for two days or I might not be able to stay focused at work if I can drag myself there.  But I don’t need medication and the darkness always passes.  Still, feeling myself at the edge is scary.  And it is easier than ever for me to get there now. 

I also frequently have to watch as the darkness creeps over my friends.  It breaks my heart because there is very little you can do to help lift that darkness for someone else.  Like a fog, it rolls in, sucking out all of the happiness and positive energy, and rolls out, leaving you exhausted but alive. 

I’ve found it helpful to remember that there is a purpose to the darkness.  First, the darkness leaves you alive and stronger than you were before.  It hurts so badly, but it doesn’t kill you.  And, as clichéd as it is, the saying “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is absolutely true.  The second thing about the darkness is that it is somewhat predictable.  You can usually feel when it is coming and brace yourself (at least a little). Although no amount of will power (or at least not my brand of will power) stops the darkness in its tracks, if I feel it coming and I turn to my support systems and get myself back to yoga and meditation practices, I can sometimes make the darkness bearable and maybe even shorter in duration.  The third thing I will say about the darkness is that it isn’t all bad.  It feels like it is when you are surrounded, but the darkness is actually a totally natural response emotional trauma.  It’s there for a reason.  A lot of what that darkness is made of is grief and sorrow – two emotions that need to be allowed to run their course before a person can truly move beyond a psychological trauma.  In that sense, the darkness is cathartic and necessary.

I’ve just made it through a darkness.  Reading back through my posts, I can see that the fog was still dissipating, even though I had thought I was fine.  I’m starting to move beyond nervous, and beginning to get a little excited about starting our donor egg cycle.  There’s still moments of panic, but now I can breathe them away more easily than before.  For months, I’ve spent a good portion of times under the cloud cover.  It feels good to know that I am slipping into sunny weather, again.

So, the next time you see the clouds rolling in, (to quote the ever-wise Little Orphan Annie), just tuck in your chin and grin and say “The sun will come out tomorrow.”  Because just like in the fairy tales, the clouds will eventually roll away, allowing that sun to shine and the birds to sing.  Hope will flourish again, when you are ready for it.  And you will appreciate it all the more because you remember what the opposite side of hope feels like, making the sunny days that much sweeter.

Overcoming Obstacles

I am awake at 2:00 a.m. again, feeling the familiar crushing feeling of panic in my chest.  No particular reason for it, but it’s there all the same, like a visitor no one invited.  I even worked out yesterday.  Yeah, me…I joined a gym and walked one and a half miles…not much, I know.  But it’s one and a half miles more than I walked the day before.  I thought that would help my sleep, anxiety and weight.  Apparently not so much for the sleep and anxiety, and the effect of walking on my weight remains to be seen.

I find that I frequently don’t know how to overcome certain obstacles…and I’m not even talking about the biggie- infertility.  The little obstacles keep tripping me up. 

In fairy tales, that just doesn’t happen.  The heroes of the tales are faced with challenges and they decisively conquer those obstacles with ease.  What is wrong with me that I can’t do the same?  All of my careful planning and obsessive researching is not getting me over the little hurdles being placed in my way.  I can’t even sleep…that’s not even supposed to be a hurdle.  That’s supposed to just happen.  Then again, so is getting pregnant.

A lot of times in fairy tales, the princess just waits for someone else to overcome obstacles for her, so that she can be saved.  There’s a lot of “deep sleeping” or going about a normal life until the prince comes to rescue her.  If only I could just sleep until I magically become pregnant…leave all of the worry and heartache on someone else’s plate.  Instead, I have to come up with some plan of action (hopefully one that will actually work) and find the strength to implement that plan.  Standing in front of my obstacles, staring at them, is not helping.  Apparently G.I. Joe’s “knowing is half the battle” slogan does not apply to infertility and everything that comes with it. 

I wish my prince would step in and make it all okay.  He has been especially distant since finding out on Friday that we are about a month away from me starting the medications to get the donor cycle going, and less than two months out from an embryo transfer.  I’m scared and I think he’s scared.  I think a lot of my panic comes from the fact that he acts like he isn’t committed to this, after encouraging me to commit, and now it is too late to back out (not that I want to).  I want compassion and encouragement, but I am getting long periods of silence and no physical contact at all.  He always seems irritated with me and if I try to address how he is acting, he retreats even further.  I wish he could recognize his feelings of fear for what they are and work through them, instead of putting up a wall (yet another hurdle) between us at the beginning of each ART cycle.  Then again, I’m lying awake, writing a blog in the middle of the night because I can’t work through my own fears and worries.  So I guess I shouldn’t be doling out the judgment and advice just yet.  Right now, we both need some rescuing.

Once Upon a Time (Part 3) - Living in the Now

This morning, I was sitting in the waiting room of my fertility center and an overwhelming feeling of sadness washed over me.  I started to think about all of the times in the past that I’ve sat in that room, full of hope that my dreams were about to come true, only to be disappointed shortly thereafter.  After five minutes of waiting this morning, feeling badly for myself, I started getting that familiar nervous sickness in my stomach.  Before I knew it, my heart was pounding and my mind was racing about what was to come.  What if my “mock cycle” wasn’t going well and the use of an egg donor was going to be taken off the table as an option for us?  Or, what if the mock cycle turned out okay, but we don’t get pregnant, even with the use of donor eggs? 

Starting to panic, I looked around the waiting room.  There were four men sitting around, waiting for their significant others, and they were all doing something - playing videogames, texting, laughing during a phone conversation with someone.  I’m not proud to say that I immediately became irritated with these men, thinking “How can men be so unaffected by something so serious?”  And then I realized, those men were simply “living in the now.”  Men, as a general rule, don’t spend time obsessing about the past or worrying about the future.  They can get in a huge fight with their best friend one night and the next day they relate as though nothing ever happened, without so much as a discussion or apology.  I asked a guy friend one time how men were able to let things go so quickly and he replied “Why wouldn’t you?  What good does it do me to carry that [crap] around?”  For him, it was that simple.  There was no benefit in him living in the past, so he didn’t.

My fertility center is great about offering mind-body connection programs to patients, many of which address the importance of “living in the now.”  Some programs I find too “out there” for my liking, but a lot of them have been very helpful during this fertility journey.  For example, I love my fertility yoga classes.  I never feel as calm and happy as I do walking out of my weekly yoga class.  The focus in the class that I go to is not on twisting yourself into a pretzel.  Rather, the focus is on being in the present.  That means, accepting when thoughts of the past or worries about the future come into your mind, but instead of following those thoughts down their usual spiral, just acknowledging them and letting them go in peace.  Through yoga, I learn to feel what my body is telling me, where the tension is being held, and how to release it.  I remember to "just be," without judgments or expectations.  And, at least for the one hour a week that I commit to those principles, I am at peace.

I once read that spending too much time in the past leads to depression, and spending too much time in the future leads to anxiety.  That is why we should all strive to stay in the present.  I think that is true, although slightly over-simplified.  I think it is okay to think about “Once Upon a Time” and to learn from past experiences.  Depression doesn't become a concern until you get stuck in the emotions of the past, like I did this morning in the waiting room.  I also think that it is okay to look at the future, make plans and have dreams.  But it is the attachments to expectations and fears about the future that can get you into trouble with anxiety.  I have a long way to go in my pursuit of living in the now.  More consistent yoga and meditation practice would be a great start.  Does anyone else have ideas about how to stay in the present?  I would be so grateful if you would be willing to share.