Phew

English lacks a word for the feeling of relief and gratitude that you get when you finally see that everyone is ok after something bad has happened.

I've been "what-iffing" all day after a family I love as much as my own was involved in a hit and run car accident this morning. Small town - I actually drove past the bad guy's car on my way to the grocery store. He broke down on the ramp between the main road that goes past my subdivision and the nearest state road, and I drove by on the shoulder wondering what he had hit, because the guardrail was undamaged but his front end was destroyed.  Little did I know that he had just tried to drive through my friend's minivan.

Friend's husband just posted this picture of the car on Facebook.  Yikes.

He was on drugs and driving on a suspended license.

After a brief visit to the hospital everyone was released - including her kids who were in the car with her.

We move through the world every day imagining that we're safe, and that if we make good choices and follow the rules, we will be ok. But sometimes things just happen, like a bolt out of the blue, just because you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. If we allowed ourselves to think about it, we would never leave our houses.

The bystanders were kind and helped my friend and her kids. They got them out of the mangled van and called for help. Everyone will be ok. The friends I was with when I got the news calmed me down, then kept Jack for me so I could go to my friend and offer what help I could after the fact.  Everyone is ok.

But those what-ifs...  They're just too scary sometimes.

(I'm not using any names, because I don't know that my friend wants her adventures publicized, or that she has had a chance to tell her extended family yet...  If she wants to, she can reveal herself in the comments so we can all tell her how relieved we are that she's ok.)

School Anxiety

Mary Grace starts kindergarten tomorrow. 

I spent all night last night having anxious dreams about it.

The school allows parents to come for the first 45 minutes tomorrow (in real life).  In my dream, there was this elaborate greeting ritual that involved two differently colored blankets and wrapping them up in a very particular way (I know, it doesn't make any sense).  I couldn't get it right.  Some dad took me aside and tried to show me, ended up hitting on me in a very creepy inappropriate way*, and I missed her getting off of the bus, anyway.

Then I finally found her right classroom (in the dream - I know where it is IRL.  I even know which windows to peek in during the day).  I didn't recognize her.  She looked like a different kid.  She didn't like her name**.


Then it was time for lunch (which is odd, because we got her into the half day program IRL) and as we were walking to the cafeteria I threw a foam take-out container away in an air duct, causing all kinds of havoc for the school janitor.  (It looked like a laundry chute in my dream, and if I had been there in the beginning when she got off the bus they would have pointed it out to me, according to Imaginary Janitor.  "Where were you?  Everyone else knew!")  Meanwhile, MG stood next to me shrinking with embarrassment.

Then the very worst part of the nightmare happened.

She asked me to go home.

I don't remember any more of it, thank goodness.

BJ and I were talking about it yesterday, as I was trying not to cry in the playplace at the mall that she has outgrown, about why starting Kindergarten is hard for me.  He said, "She's had 3 years of preschool.  I think we've done a pretty good job of preparing her for the world." 

"I know," I replied, "but what if I forgot something?"

Thanks to the magic of Facebook, I know I'm not the only one who is struggling with this enormous change in our family.  My friends are having a Boo Hoo Breakfast at Chick Fil A tomorrow.  We'll all get each other through it.

I know it's going to be fine.  As I've often said, "Change isn't so bad, it's transition that sucks."  And I know that I only have dreams like that because I'm crazy, not because I'm psychic.  But my real fears are there in black and white - that she'll get out in the big world and she'll realize that her mom is a huge dork, that I'll embarrass her or let her down, that she won't be proud of the person we've taught her to be once she has a choice, that I've forgotten to teach her something vital and I won't be there to correct it when she's at school...  It's all pretty real.

Looks like I picked the wrong month to go off of the Zoloft.



*This is my subconscious telling me to get my wedding ring resized so I can wear it again.

**When we went to meet her teacher last week, she told her teacher that she could call her Mary if she wanted to.  HUH? 


PS - Happy birthday Gramma!!  Call me when you get up!

Aw, shucks

Someone wrote today and told me that she'd been struggling with the same issues I've been battling, and that reading this blog has helped her.

That's why I write.  The worst part of it all was when I was a new mom, and I didn't know anyone who had gone through PPD, and I felt so alone and so crazy.  It was terrifying.  I didn't see how I could ever find my way out of the dark.  Of course, now I know that it's common and treatable and survivable, but I sure didn't know then.


You're not alone.  I'm here if you need to talk to someone who understands.  And there are so many wonderful resources on the web.  We're so lucky to live in this time, when we're all so connected to each other.

World Gone Mad

I saw the midwife about my migraines a few weeks ago, and she recommended that I increase my Zoloft from 25 to 50 mg, because sometimes Zoloft can prevent migraines.  It didn't, but I have kept taking 50 mg because sometimes Zoloft takes a long time to work, and she didn't give me any time frame on when to expect things to get better.  She also didn't change my prescription, so when I tried to refill it last week (much earlier than the one-month-supply allowed by insurance should have run out) I got a voicemail from the pharmacy saying, "We're trying to contact your insurance company, your refill has been delayed, we'll call you when it's ready,").  Consequently, I didn't have my medicine from last Friday till Monday of this week.

Just long enough to screw me up.

It's not a good time, historically speaking, to be off my meds.  It feels like the world is on fire, and the crushing guilt of having brought three children into a world that is so profoundly screwed up is weighing on me.  I think it's worse now that I have a draftable child.  Jack was about 2 days old when I realized that he could grow up, go to war, and get killed.  I was alone in the hospital at the time, and it hit me like a Mack truck. My head is a horrible place to have to live sometimes.  (Yay, Zoloft.)

I think to myself, "What are the odds that I can keep three kids healthy and safe until they're grown?  Statistically it's inevitable that one of them will get really sick, or really hurt, or worse, before I die.  How will I cope with that?"  The only thing keeping me sane is that my brother, sister, and I have managed so far without serious illness or injury.  If my parents did it, maybe we can too,

I think to myself, "How on earth are they ever going to have a good life, with the national debt, the world running out of oil and clean water, corrupt and stupid politicians running everything, the recession, jobs going (gone) overseas, the environment, global warming..."  I can go down that rabbit hole for hours, mentally listing everything that's wrong with the world.  The only thing that keeps me sane is thinking that the world was pretty screwed up in the 1970s, too.  My parents despaired over the world they'd brought us into (I know, I've asked) with Vietnam and the energy crisis and everything that happened in that decade, and we're ok.  And my grandparents, coming out of World War II, (or BJ's coming out of the Great Depression) probably worried about the world they'd brought their kids into, too, and they're ok.  So maybe my kids will be ok, too.

And then there are more local concerns...  My job.  Oy.  Don't even get me started.  And how long do I really think I can keep this up, with the three small kids and the working and the trying to keep the house from looking like a bomb went off?  How long can I sustain this level of activity before I crash, before I just pull the covers over my head and refuse to get out of bed for a week?  But I can't - I don't have that choice - I have to keep going for them.  For BJ.  There are too many people counting on me to be sane and functioning and somewhat cheerful, now.  I don't have the luxury of being able to check out anymore.  I feel like a hamster on a wheel, sometimes.  I run all day, yet I'm standing still.  The black cloud that follows me is that I'm letting all of them down - BJ, the kids, my family of origin, my friends, you readers.  The evil voice in the back of my mind constantly chants, "You're ruining everything.  You've let them down.  You're not good enough.  You never deserved any of this, and now you've ruined it, just like everyone knew you would, just like you knew you would.  You're a failure at this, at everything."

But then the rational part of me takes over, and says, "Everyone's fine.  You're fine.  The house isn't that bad.  The job stuff will work out.  You can't do anything about the national debt or the environment, so you might as well not worry about it until it's time to vote.  Just keep swimming, it'll be ok.  You'll feel better in a few days."  And so I put my head down, and I keep swimming, because I don't have any other choice.  I hold my kids, and I hope that they'll have a part in fixing all the things I worry about, somehow.  And when they're asleep, I whisper, "I'm sorry, for everything."

Intrusive Thoughts, Revisited

I'm over at Postpartum Progress helping Katherine fight the good fight today.  Check it out.

Have you ever had intrusive thoughts? 

Expectations

I went to the midwife on Monday, and everything's fine with the baby and me (heart rate: 144, measuring 34 centimeters at 34 weeks, my blood pressure was great, I gained another pound - total 17)... but I was so upset by something that I haven't been able to write about it until now.  Actually, I spent most of Monday night and Tuesday morning in tears.

The OB who delivered the girls isn't practicing in our town right now.  He left the group of physicians he was with, and had a covenant not to compete, so he can't practice here until April of next year.  I considered driving about an hour to Illinois, where he is practicing, to continue to see him - he still takes my insurance - but I decided that it would be too inconvenient, especially with my fast labors.

So when we saw the midwife for the first time, I said, "Here's the deal - with my first I had preeclampsia, was on bedrest for a week, and delivered naturally at 39 weeks in 3 hours and 45 minutes.  With my second I had preeclampsia again, I also had ICP, and I was induced at 36 weeks.  My labor was only an hour and 9 minutes.  In light of all that, and since ICP has a 60-90% chance of coming back, I want to be induced at 37 weeks.  If you can't do that, or deal with all these complications as a midwife, I'll find someone who can."  I wasn't hostile about it, I was just putting my preferences and expectations out there right up front.

She said, "Well, we don't know that the preeclampsia will come back - after all you've lost 50 pounds since then.  And there's a 10-40% chance that the ICP won't come back.  We normally induce for precipitous labor at 38 weeks."

"I can live with that," I said.

On Monday I said something about 38 weeks, and she said, "39 weeks."  Apparently (according to BJ's cousin's wife who is an L&D nurse) the rules changed about two months ago.  Of course I didn't know that at the time.  I was too stunned to even question her much.  I've gotten VERY comfortable with 38 weeks over the past 7 months, and I felt like she had pulled the rug right out from under me.  Part of my disappointment was that I felt like she'd lied to me.  That part went away when I found out that the guidelines had changed.  (In fact, some insurance companies are refusing to pay for some inductions which they deem "too early," which just makes me want to spit nails). 

Part of it was that 38 weeks is 12/22 - 39 is 12/29.  It's the difference between being enormously pregnant and uncomfortable on Christmas and having a new baby at home on Christmas.  It's the difference between having BJ home for 12 days after the baby's born, and having BJ home for 5 days after the baby's born.  It's the difference between having my mom here for a while after the baby's born, and Mom going back to Florida.  I'd gotten really, really invested in the idea of having the baby by Christmas.  More than I realized, actually. 

One of these days I'm going to learn that when I have expectations, I inevitably end up disappointed.  I sometimes wish that I couldn't think in the future tense at all.  I get these ideas in my head about how things are going to be, and then the reality is never what I had imagined, and even if the reality is better than what I imagined, I get all upset over the loss of the imagined reality.


But the main component of my 'tude about the change in plans is that I'm deeply, deeply afraid of having this baby at home.  Remember all that anxiety I've been battling?  It all came right back in spades.  I cried a lot on Monday night.  Mary Grace heard us talking and said, "Mommy, if I can come along (to the hospital) I can protect you and keep you from being afraid," and I felt horrible enough for worrying her that I was able to suck it up for a while.  I had nightmares on Monday night, and lost a lot of sleep.  Then Tuesday I cried some more.  I didn't sleep well last night, either.  The last two days have sucked.

From comics.dp.cx

Even though I wanted a homebirth with MG (BJ said, "No freaking way," though), the idea of a homebirth terrifies me now.  (I also was adamantly against being induced with MG, and now I want to be induced.  I'm like the Ziggy of childbirth).  For one thing, we have new carpet and a new mattress.  For another, what would we do with the kids?  Or the dog??  For a third, who is going to clean it up?  What if there's a blizzard and the EMTs can't get to our house?

The midwife's answer to all of this was to get a shower curtain (to protect the bed), and to visualize having the baby in a calm, controlled, normal length of time.  I'm trying, but I really don't think I can visualize my way out of this.  And a shower curtain isn't going to do diddly squat if the baby doesn't breathe (pneumothorax is a complication of precipitous labor - it means collapsed lung), or if I bleed to death, or if I have a cervical tear, or if something else tears, or if the baby is brain damaged, or any of the other bad things that can happen with precipitous labor that I'm not making up.

I feel marginally better today (mainly due to finding out that the midwife didn't lie when she said 38 weeks initially), but I might just be exhausted.  I'm trying to convince myself that Claire's labor was so fast because they induced me with Cytotec, and that I shouldn't expect this labor to be that fast again if I go into labor naturally.  I'm also trying to convince myself that the 4 hours between when they put in the Cytotec and when they broke my water "count" as labor, even though they didn't hurt and I've never thought of them as labor - I was mainly just hanging out in the hospital wondering if that twinge might have been a contraction.  I can totally get to the hospital in 5 hours and 9 minutes, or 3 hours and 45 minutes.  It's the less-than-an-hour scenario that scares me.  I'm hoping that my friend Tammy, who dreams about babies with surprising accuracy, is right when she predicts that I'll go into labor on my own on 12/15 and have a boy (12/15 is 37 weeks - the leading edge of "term").  I'm trying to remember that I have a chance of going into labor before Christmas on my own, and if not, I'm trying to get excited about a different reality for Christmas this year - mainly not having to miss all the parties leading up to Christmas.  After all, if she's not concerned enough to induce me, and if going to labor before 39 weeks on my own is so rare, then there's no reason for me to sit at home all month not having a baby.  We'll just take our shower curtain with us.

I know this is a stupid reason to be upset.  The baby is healthy.  I've been healthier than anyone expected me to be throughout the pregnancy.  I'm trying really, really hard to count my blessings.  And I'm trying to let go of all my expectations. 

Hanging in there

Hello, incredibly neglected blog readers.

I'm still here. 

I'm still having a lot of anxiety, a lot of intrusive thoughts.  I've spent a lot of time crying lately.

It's so stupid because I want this baby so much (we tried for a year!), and I love my family, and I'm so, so lucky...  I don't know why I'm ruining it for myself. 

It is what it is.  It is not in my control.  I don't choose this.

I'm spending a lot of time reading about anxiety, particularly anxiety during pregnancy and postpartum.  I'm spending a lot of time doing breathing exercises.  I'm doing housework, because when the house is a mess, the anxiety gets worse (in the form of "I'm a terrible mother, look at this house!  What a failure I am!" etc.). 

It's weird that at my most-crazy, my house is cleaner than ever, isn't it?  I've made my bed every morning for over three weeks - I didn't ever do that before.  (Part of it is because our bedroom is downstairs now, but still.)


I've realized that I was probably misdiagnosed last time - I think it has always been anxiety.  I don't think it was ever classic postpartum depression.  I could go into the reasons why, but to mentally tally them up so I could list them would be hard right now, so I won't.  But I think this is the same as what happened when I was pregnant with Mary Grace.  And it must just be part of how I do pregnancy.  With Claire, I could focus it on her because I had ICP and there was a risk that she could die - so I had an appropriate outlet for my anxiety (not to mention 100 mg a day of Zoloft!).  Now, because this pregnancy is healthy (and I'm so grateful that it is!) I don't have that appropriate channel or outlet.  And as we get closer to the point at which it all went wrong with Claire (32 weeks) the anxiety gets worse.  I'm waiting for the ICP shoe to drop, or the preeclampsia shoe to drop, and it's maddening.

I'm not sleeping well, or resting well during the day.  I'm taking the kids out a lot less.  Most afternoons we stay close to home.  Thank goodness they have friends in the neighborhood, so they aren't completely bored out of their skulls.  I'm going to try to take them to get new shoes this afternoon.  We'll see.

The midwife and I are meeting every two weeks, now, in light of what's going on.  She gave me her cell phone number today.  I told her I'd try really hard not to call her at 3 am to ask stupid questions.  She's so great, though, she probably wouldn't mind if I did.

This is temporary.  I just have to keep breathing for the next 3 months, and then the first 6 months after the baby comes, and after that things will be fine again.  I know they will.  Things got fine again after Mary Grace was born, and I never thought they would.  They'll be fine again by next summer, next fall at the latest.  This is just a season.  I'm managing it all so much better this time than I did when I had Mary Grace.  I'm not being stubborn like I was then, when I refused to admit that I was struggling.  I'm getting help to manage it.  I'm leaning on BJ, and on my family and my friends.  I'm learning new ways to cope with intrusive thoughts.  I'm being proactive, and not waiting until I'm at my wit's end to react. 

I'm doing everything I can. 

I've only gained 5 pounds (at 26 weeks!).  I'm measuring one week ahead (27 cm).  My blood pressure is fine.  I did the glucose tolerance test today (yuck!) and we drew a liver panel, too, to check on the ICP.  I've got another blood draw tomorrow for bile salts, but for that one I need to fast, so we couldn't do them all at once.  The baby, thank goodness, is healthy and strong, his or her heart rate was 140 today in spite of the massive dose of glucose.  Everything would be going perfectly if I could just get out of my own head.