My body has been kind of pissing me off the last couple months. Other than the pregnancy, for the last few years my body has been almost clockwork on a 30 days cycle. Since the miscarriage that cycle's been a little bit off, and in odd ways.
As in every other month I've been a week late. Which is stressful and hard to deal with. When I want to be pregnant being late can't help but spark this little bubble of hope in me. Then you add in the fact that the PMS stretches on and I'm moody which could mean and I'm really starting to think and hope that maybe again? Then a trip to the bathroom completely dashes everything.
It's hard having my body play tricks on me. The roller coaster of hope and expectation is hard enough on its own. Of course it makes tracking cycles and judging what I'm supposed to be expecting and when I'm supposed to be expecting it somewhat monstrous. To add to that all, I've also been under the weather off and on more than usual for the last few months. I've been cycling off and on through some pretty extreme exhaustion that's been overwhelming when I'm in the midst of it, and I've probably thrown up more in the past six months than I have in the entire past six years.
Something I really had no way of understanding before is just how consuming the idea of getting pregnant can become. I'll never properly know whether the miscarriage has made this roller coaster of hope and waiting more emotional for me, but I somehow think it has. Bait and switch, you know? Now, even though I have some huge fears and part of me feels oddly ambivalent about having a baby I've got this drive in the back of my mind and an inability to push it from my mind.
Yeah this rollercoaster is very very hard, and being late, those last theys, is the worst part of the waiting game. Hope is inevitable, and if you're me, denial of the obvious goes in the mix as well. As in : " I feel something in my belly that resembles cramps a lot. Oh but cramping is also common in early pregnancy. It still could be. Please please let it be."
ReplyDeleteI am so jealous of people that are able to plan and control this, who go like : "let's try for a second baby this Autumn. We should go on a trip together too, because it might be the last we time we can make it before I'm pregnant again", and then bam. Come January and these people are pregnant. True story.
I am able to cope with this entertaining myself, focusing in the present, actively searching joy and doing things that make me happy. I am getting good at distracting myself and making up a protective bubble against the tragic abyss of despair I would fall into if I let those thoughts stay for long. But then, people get pregnant and my bubble gets broken. In the last 3 days I have found out of 1 friend expecting her 3rd baby, an excolleague from work expecting twins, another girl expecting her 2nd baby, and a colleague from Mark expecting his 2nd.
Pregnancies do happen, all the time. Why not to us? is a thought that I have to suppress or else I would turn into a crazy person.
Oops I meant days I don't know how I managed to do that.
DeleteThat's a whole lot of pregnancies to find out about at once. I'm glad you've got some good techniques lined up to help you deal with all the mental and emotional bits. It seems lately like everyone is going about growing babies, but I wonder if maybe part of that is that it's so on my mind.
DeleteYou're not alone in the denial either, I do the same thing. Maybe it's an extension of the strength of my hope but it definitely makes the inevitable moment of "oh, no baby this month" all that much harder.
Oh definitely, as soon as something makes it to your mind your brain goes on "alert" mode and you are more conscious of it, so you start seeing that everywhere.
DeleteI hope this rollercoaster will soon be over. BTW I am not sure if you read this piece? I found it somehow helpful... these conversations need to be happening.
Thanks for sharing that link. :) It's true that these conversations need to be happening (which is why I keep posting about things) and that post definitely gets at a lot of the things I would tell someone who isn't sure how to respond to the topic. I definitely could have used that right when things happened and even now it's helpful.
DeleteHi Sheryl, I find my way over here after your comment on my blog.
ReplyDeleteThis is something I can really relate to. My periods have not been back to a regular rhythm since the miscarriage. They are usually at least a week late and it's that horrible week of wondering, is this just my body figuring itself out still or am I actually pregnant again?
I've been trying not to get too emotionally tied up with it, but then I remember something I heard the author Brene Brown say - that if we numb ourselves to the pain, we also numb ourselves to the joy.
So I guess this is just one train ride I have to ride out! And I think somehow giving my body some slack, realising it's recovering too still, helps me be patient, even when I really would love to be pregnant already...