Friday, September 19, 2008

Pregnancy Reflections

For some reason my pregnancy has been closer to the front of my mind the past few days. I'm usually able to think about it without immediately crying (or even crying at all) lately.

I made it to church this past Sunday for the first time since things got rough. I had tried to go the week before, and I made it in the door, and then started crying hard enough that I didn't want to stay. Something about being around a big group of people who know you and love you, just made me too emotional to get it under control. Ah well. This Sunday was going okay, I only got teary-eyed a few times, but I held it back and got it under control. Made it until the 2nd to last worship song, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a very pregnant woman sit down in my peripheral vision. Lasted about 10 seconds, and then I started bawling. Got it together by the end of worship. It was good to be back in church, and I felt like it was a "hurdle" that I had to get past. God and I have had plenty of conversations throughout this whole thing, but not in a "corporate worship" setting.

I've been thinking back on all my thoughts while I was pregnant. It wasn't nearly as easy as I had thought it would be (the actual being pregnant part). I started having symptoms well before I knew I was pregnant. I was nauseous off and on for the first 2 weeks, and then pretty much every day after that. Not ever enough to throw up, but enough to feel like crap. I was exhausted come evening every night. I had the most amazing sense of smell ever. I could smell EVERYTHING. It wasn't like it was bad smells, I could just detect smells way before everyone else. Plus the crying jags out of nowhere. Of course, there were all the other things (cramping, spotting, bleeding) that I am attributing to the pregnancy not going well, so I won't count those as symptoms. Of course, I would have all those back tenfold if I could still be pregnant, and will actually be excited to feel them again when I get pregnant again. I'm still not sure how to do this next time and not be flipping out the whole time expecting it to happen again. I'm kind of waiting on some revelation as time goes by. My OB says it will be natural to be worried it will happen again, but I don't want to be paralyzed by fear, which is where I am right now. Hoping that subsides as time goes by.

I have still been having "episodes" at night. I've always had problems sleep talking and/or walking (to a much lesser extent). However, almost every night I have had some kind of sleep talking/crying etc that wakes Chris up. A few nights he said that I was crying/whimpering in my sleep and he couldn't get me to calm down or wake up. Another night he woke up to me pacing in front of the bed for 10 minutes, and couldn't get me to lay down. I talked to the doctor, and he gave me some sleeping pills (the ones that start with AMB****) but they actually made it worse. Chris said I was up 4-5 times instead of just once. I don't remember any of these at all. If I take tyl.enol pm I seem to sleep through the night, but I feel very foggy in the morning and have a rough time getting going. They have been getting less lately, so I'm hoping they will go back down to normal on their own within a few more weeks.

I got a thin wooden box from the Hobby Lobby and painted it a cooper color. We are going to use it as a memory box for the pregnancy. I know it didn't last very long, but I know that I will never forget the dates in my whole life, and I think it will help to have them written down and recognized. I'm hoping that is another step that will help me feel a little more settled. Something tangible to hold on to and/or put away.

Reading back over this post, it may seem like I'm not doing as well as I am. I'm at least able to spend enough time to get my feelings down in writing. Before I couldn't even get that far. I was definitely allowing myself to feel, but I was mostly keeping it to myself and Chris. I told Chris the other night that I don't feel like I have anything left to give anyone but he and I. And I'm okay with that for right now.

***I didn't make it through this post without crying. But they are less painful tears, and more cleansing.

Reading Challenge: Fall Into Reading 2008



So, I've decided to do another challenge. With everything that has gone on, and is going on, I find myself oddly busy and free at the same time. I have a lot more to do at the house, and yet I have a lot more time to spend as I please. I don't have a lot of time to commit to outside stuff, because we never know what the school load will be for Chris. So I'm going to "try" and get the rest of the books out of the way for the 100+ Reading Challenge. So the Fall Into Reading 2008 is a perfect compliment to that challenge. It officially starts on Sept 22 and ends Dec 20th. My goal is the followng 40 books:
  1. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
  2. Calico Palace, Gwen Bristow
  3. Scarlett, Alexandra Ripley
  4. Into the Wilderness, Sara Donati
  5. A Whistling Woman, A.S. Byatt
  6. The Husband, Dean Koontz
  7. The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, Lilian Braun
  8. Queen of Babble, Meg Cabot
  9. The Shack, William Young
  10. Little Lady, Big Apple - Hester Browne
  11. The Little Lady Agency and the Prince, Hester Browne
  12. Certain Girls, Jennifer Weiner
  13. The Road, Cormac McCarthy
  14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates
  15. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  16. Bridget Jone's Diary, Helen Fielding
  17. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolover
  18. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
  19. Atonement, Ian McEwan
  20. Holes, Louis Sacahr
  21. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
  22. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman
  23. The Last Days, Joel Rosenberg
  24. The Ezekiel Option, Joel Rosenberg
  25. The Copper Scroll, Joel Rosenberg
  26. Dead heat, Joel Rosenberg
  27. Fearless Fourteen, Janet Evanovich
  28. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
  29. Storm Front, Jim Butcher
  30. Salvation in Death, JD Robb
  31. Suite 606, JD Robb
  32. The Pagan Stone, Nora Roberts
  33. Eragon, Christopher Paolini
  34. Eldest, Christopher Paolini
  35. Brisingr, Christopher Paolini
  36. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Rebecca Wells
  37. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
  38. The Fellowship of the Ring, JRR Tolkien
  39. The Two Towers, JRR Tolkien
  40. The Return of the King, JRR Tolkien

* Authors in purple are authors I've never read
* Books in orange are books I've read before

Friday, September 05, 2008

Hollow

A lot has happened since I last posted. We drove back from GA on a Sunday (Aug 10). I had suspected that something funky was going on with my cycle because my period hadn't really started. I had already taken a pregnancy test before we left for vacation, and it was negative. However, I took another test when we got home. To my great surprise, it was positive. I was unbelievably happy and surprised. Since I hadn't been expecting this, I hadn't thought of a way of telling Chris. He was getting ready for bed, and was watching TV in bed. I just walked in and turned the TV off and handed him the test. All he said was WOW for about 5 minutes. There were tears and laughing and smiles.

So I was happy pregnant for about 2 days. And then I started having some spotting and cramping. On Thursday (Aug 14) I went to the ER and then did an ultrasound and some blood work. We were there almost the whole day. They were able to see the gestational sac, and it looked like my HCG level was good. I just took it easy the next day, and then on Saturday went back to get a second blood test. I was still spotting a little bit, but not a lot. But on Sunday morning I started bleeding much heavier and passing clots. We went back to the hospital and went to Labor and Delivery Triage. They did another ultrasound, and blood tests. My levels were still going up, and they could still see the gestational sac. They said it was too early to see a heartbeat, but wanted me to come in later that week for a viability ultrasound on a more sophisticated ultrasound machine. On Wednesday I had a follow up appointment for the ER visit with my OB. They did ANOTHER ultrasound, but didn't see anything new. But the doctor told me that he suspected that when they got the blood work back, it would show that my levels weren't going up like they should, and that I was probably in the middle of a miscarriage. I had been bleeding some everyday since Saturday night. Needless to say I was devastated. My doctor told me not to give up yet, but he wanted me to be prepared. But he called me that night to say that my levels were still going up appropriately. I went to the viability ultrasound that Friday. They could still see the gestational sac, and measured a fetal pole about 2 mm. They also were able to see a sub-chorionic hemorrhage right next to the gestation sac. They suspected that this is what was causing the bleeding. The baby wasn't big enough to measure a heartbeat yet, so they scheduled me for ANOTHER viability ultrasound the next Friday. At this point, my emotions are just all over the map. I had started the grief process only to have some give me hope. I didn't want to get too excited, and then have that pulled away at the last minute. I had all the normal pregnancy symptoms (nausea, soreness, tiredness). Which made me hopeful.

On Friday August 29th I had another viability ultrasound. I had actually had my original "screening"appointment at my OB the day before, and they had taken another blood sample. At the ultrasound they checked the results of the blood work, and my hcg levels were still going up, but not nearly enough. When they did the ultrasound, they could see that the gestational sac had collapsed. My doctor came in and told that I had had an incomplete miscarriage. I could either go home and let it finish on its own, or they could give me some medicine to finish the process. I went ahead and got the medicine. I had been dealing with this for so long, the idea of it going on any longer would make me crazy. I needed some closure so that I could start to deal with everything. Friday was invariably the longest day of my life. So much pain emotionally and physically.

Since then I have had some okay days and some bad days. I'm trying to just let myself feel everything without judging myself. I haven't really gotten angry. It is mostly just extreme sadness and frustration. I have been having some nightmares, so I'm thinking about talking to the doctor about sleeping pills. I haven't really been able to think very clearly about the future. I know that we are going to wait at least a few months so that everything can heal appropriately (emotions and body).

Most of the time I'm just feeling kind of hollow.