It occurred to me last night that this pregnancy, in some respects, makes me feel like I did while carrying N---anxious, uncertain, lost. Fortunately I'm medicated because I think otherwise I'd be really, truly clinically depressed.
The surprise of the pregnancy factors in. The fact that I was sickly during the class I took from Jan-March. The fact that I had to push my second class up to the summer when I had planned to take it leisurely when N was in kindergarten this fall. The fact that G is a mere babe in arms and yet I will have another babe in arms as well to look after. And now the gestational diabetes. I, of course, knew it was a possibility, but since I didn't have it with G, I just thought maybe it was a fluke with N.
And then there's just being a mom to 2 kids and being with them constantly. I can't stand being with myself constantly, and I've had almost 36 years to get used to it. And the summer--no routine, no structure.
I guess what made me really notice that my mood is down is last week when N had a little virus. She ran a low-grade fever for a couple days and just felt run-down. No biggie, but I started ruminating on whether she had leukemia and was imagining all kinds of worst-case scenarios. Now this was common-place thinking before I was on meds. My brain only operated on intrusive, horrible thoughts and catastrophic thinking.
I am seriously thinking when I go in Thursday for the fetal echocardiogram, I am going to ask to find out the sex of the baby. On some level, I think the not-knowing is keeping me from coping as well as I think I could. Right now, I cannot plan, I cannot do anything except plod. And I feel out of control of everything. So, for me, I think grasping a little nugget of control might be a good thing (even though I know there is really no control; just delusions of control).
My down mood, the stress of the kids and class, the summer's lack of structure, the nebulousness of what life will be like with 3 kids, the unknowns of N's adjustment to kindergarten---all of these are weighing on my mind. And I feel unable to bond with this baby....like it is another unknown burden with which I have to contend. I don't like feeling this way.
I know this too shall pass. I know that these are mere inconveniences, and I am fortunate beyond words to have the life I have. People like to say, "God never gives you more than you can handle." I think god knows I cannot handle much.
1 comment:
Bummer on the glucose test. But it WILL be better this time...you will not go overboard with the diet, you are aware of your dark moods, etc etc. Experience will help you ;)
And I did not want to find out the gender with #3. I had boy stuff and girl stuff, so why bother? And we'd found out with the other two, so I thought it would be fun to do something different. Until Jeff pointed out that he thought I was just using it as one more way to deny that #3 was coming. And sure enough, once I found out it was a BOY not a "maybe boy maybe girl" I was forced to imagine how bedrooms would work in the future and I could get out the boy clothes and picture the baby growing up into a boy like Andrew and it really really made me face all that shit. It made it "real" for me...finally...after 20 weeks of throwing up and feeling movement.
But that was just me. I know you don't have the same issues with #3 that I did...you are much better prepared :) And I still on some level wish that I had had at least one pregnancy where it was a total surprise at the end. Not to be...
Good luck. Next week will be better...or maybe the next week...but soon it should bounce back up. That's life, right?
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