Redemption

Another gal from my childbirth class just delivered and sent out a very joyous email to everyone. It really hit me, how inadequate I feel whenever I see something like that. The quiet litany begins: she didn't have to struggle for years to have her baby. She didn't have losses (that I know of). She didn't gain fifty pounds, only to grow some five-pound baby everyone's shitting themselves over. Oh no, she got a nice vaginal birth the way she wanted.

Fuck her, says the still bitter IFer.

I know why I still feel this way. Because I'll never be able to send out an email like that. Not that I don't have every intention of giving birth and coming home with a live child (with any luck at all). It's that for me, no matter how crappy my birth experience, if Bruiser makes it and is basically healthy, there will be no words. It's going to be something like the motherfucking fall of Barad Dur. The end of an entire reign of terror and darkness.

How do you send that kind of redemption around in an email? "Hi, guys! I just wanted to let you all know that my years of torture, exile, and depression are at an end! I no longer look grimly at my life and wish for a case of wine and a dozen mini-cheesecakes to get through the day! So take me off your suicide watch, peeps! Oh, and the L&D nurses were just so great! Good luck, everyone!"

It's just not going to happen. Because I'm so close to success, and I still feel like a bloody failure. Because when I see him, alive and kicking, it will mean I am finally, finally free of this fear.

A Brilliant Grasp of the Obvious

Hey! I've figure out this great thing that makes all things better.

It's this wacky thing called sleep. Apparently, when you're nine months pregnant you need to do a lot of it.

And when you do, you discover you are no longer convinced you are a failure for growing a small baby and that impending doom seems a lot less inevitable. You don't find yourself bawling your eyes out because you just. cannot. bear any more struggle with the terror that's been haunting you day in and day out for the last, oh, two years.

I came home from our gig last night (which went really wonderfully--I really sang my ass off) and collapsed into bed. Then, my guy, in a rare move, went out for a very brief time with his high school buddy. Which woke me up and kept me from sleeping. When he returned, I plummeted swiftly into meltdown, thinking about how everyone keeps commenting how great or cute I look, but they have no idea about the darkness I wrestle with, the fear. That the pregnant lady eating an ice cream cone with pigtails is begging the divine on a regular basis for a living child.

Yet sleep has changed all that--and perhaps getting it off my chest and being loved on by my confused yet comforting guy. Bruiser is going to make it, he's going to be fine, and a whole new type of worry and anxiety can begin, one I feel far better equipped to manage.

Well, at the very least, it will be a new kind of anxiety.

The Tragic and the Banal

I've been clearing up a lot of banal details lately, disentangling myself from various engagements and employment, finding a pediatrician (we're going with a quirky gal with extensive training in infant care), cleaning up and organizing baby stuff and our erstwhile guest room (where my SIL will soon be moving--yeah, I know, we're crazy. Good thing she's awesome.)...

But something is weighing on my mind--besides my hopes that Bruiser manages at least another pound in the next four weeks.

[Warning: do not read if you're in a delicate place right now]

One of the gals from our childbirth class, a vibrant and very funny single mom (by choice? by default?), passed away recently, from a very serious and rare complication of HELLP. Her baby was born early but is doing well. But she rapidly went downhill due to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, again a rare complication of a rare complication.

My heart is just aching for her family and her little girl. I can't believe someone so alive, so lively could suddenly and inexplicably die.

...or perhaps a leprechan?

So, Bruiser is still doing well. Taking practice breaths, moving like crazy, good heart rate, growing at a consistent clip. He's just really, really small according to the ultrasound. Which is funny because my husband and I are pretty big and were big babies.

Am I having a hobbit?

My blood pressure was lower than last week, my placenta is about the same (still Grade II), no serious edema, nothing else to indicate problems (i.e. no protein in my urine). So, while the words "modified bed rest" have been tossed about, the word "induction" has been taken off the table for the time being. Sigh of relief.

I am performing at a big music festival Friday and Saturday, for about an hour each time. After that, I am going to put myself on semi-bed rest. I need it; I crave it.

One more week until we're term. Despite all the BS, I feel very, very lucky.

ETA: I just discovered several studies that show that being the survivor of a vanishing twin increases a kid's chances of being small. So maybe he's not a hobbit; he's just missing his twin.

Breadcrumbs

For any of my IF sisters following this trail, I want to share something my doula--who keeps confirming her title as the coolest doula ever--shared with me after I emailed her an update of our appointment. Her two cents: 1) placentas after 30 weeks are often grade ii, no biggie; 2) unless your b/p is actually over 140/90, you don't have high blood pressure and the most recent ACOG standards say that is more important than whether your b/p is rising from its previous levels; and finally 3) the method used to evaluate my fluid level (AFI) is a lot more likely to give a diagnosis of low fluid than the single deepest vertical pocket method (SDVP) according to the latest studies (this is the method you'll get if you have multiples, as AFI doesn't work for twins and up). Finally, she noted that a reactive NST trumps all: the baby is kicking it (literally).

The moral of the story? Keep questioning. Watch out for the climate of anxiety that seems to haunt this process in the U.S.

I think docs are unwittingly--and with the very best of intentions--treating women who have dealt with infertility with kid gloves, making them more likely to react to a test and worry about results that are within normal ranges but not exactly perfect. After all, they know what's at stake and most likely long to do everything they can. That's seriously noble, but it leads, as I think it's doing in my case, to some concerns that are more faint shadows of potential problems than actual difficulties.

Good news/bad news

Well, first the good: Bruiser has grown perfectly since our last u/s. While he's definitely no sumo wrestler, he's getting to be a good size.

Bad news: my fluid is very, very low normal (i.e. 6) and appears to be falling, my placenta is degrading somewhat, and my blood pressure is rising.

All this made the midwife want to do a NST (non-stress test). Bruiser, again, was perfect: reactive and had great heart rates.

So we're going to be seen weekly from here on out. If things start looking worse, that will increase to twice a week. If things really go south, it may be time to discuss induction. But hopefully by then I'll have passed the 37-week mark.

Frankly, I'm a whole hell of a lot less worried than I was. Because, again, it's just me and my wacko body, going crazy. But Bruiser's doing a damn fine job, despite this. Could it be? Could we really be about to get a live baby out of this mess?

I Heart My Fetus

So, when I was all tied in knots last week? The very next day, the dude decides it's time to launch a movement campaign akin to David Byrne in his big-suit-wearing heyday.

Another odd thing: Being terrified about my body hurting Bruiser somehow made him more real. This whole experience has felt so bizarrely surreal at times. To the extent that I find myself thinking, "Wow, it would be great to be pregnant," only to realize that, wait, I am pregnant! That habit of mind from the years of IF is still with me (or my short-term memory is completely and utterly shot and I need to be treated for pregnancy-induced dementia).

I have been so overwhelmed with love for this little fetus/soon to be full-fledged person with legal rights. I can't believe I'm going to have the joy and privilege of raising him.

Six weeks or so, and we meet face to face. Holy shit.

Now with Planning!

Besides your comments and my husband's incredible tenderness, the only thing that really helps me is planning. And I've got a plan.

1. Rest. I've been overdoing it, I think. Not that I've been digging ditches or mining coal, but doing way too much intense and demanding intellectual work. I'm forcing myself to have 2-3 hours of nap and rest time every afternoon.

2. Nutrition. I've always eaten very well, but now I think I might need to eat more and as healthy as possible. I'm craving berries, tomatoes, and fish/meat, so I figure that's what I need to be consuming in large quantities.

3. Water. Perhaps a bit more hydration will help.

4. Taking it a bit easier in the pool and at the gym. I'd worked up to 1000 m per workout, and was pushing my heart rate up above 140 bpm. That might not be so great an idea at this point in the pregnancy.

Any other crazy suggestions? Funny things your grandma's bus driver's oral hygienist's niece's friend did?

Tests, Failure, and Pomegranate Juice

Why does it feel like every time I get any kind of test to evaluate Bruiser--even the simple u/s we got yesterday--I end up getting smacked down by an anxiety tsunami? We did the u/s to track this mysterious, likely meaningless echogenic patch in his heart, but he refused to budge for the tech. Instead, she did a bunch of measurements and he's running two weeks behind.

This isn't the tragedy that it would be in the first or second tris, of course, and our midwife was good at explaining that (after I'd burst into tears while we were waiting to meet with her in the exam room). My amniotic fluid is on the lower side of normal, which can affect the read out. It's a new machine. Bruiser was in some kind of deep yogic wad (fortunately head down) with feet and arms in a distinctly fetal knot, and was hard to capture (we never did get that blasted heart shot). There's a variation of at least 10 oz to either side, which would still put him into the very normal range. My placenta looks fine, as do my uterine measurements. On and on, the justifications and possibilities go.

Of course, they provide relief--my consistently abnormal body is not about to kill my baby, as I had first feared, and who since the test has decided to exhibit spectacular bursts of movement on a regular basis. But they still don't take away the anxiety: another two weeks, and we'll see if he's grown appropriately. If not, closer monitoring, and most likely worst case scenario would be early induction, though, as my midwife said, "There's no way I'm going to induce you at 33 weeks." I still feel I'm failing, yet again.

And I feel the keen edge of loss, which is always there and makes any little question mark loom huge. Loss is like pomegranate juice: You can think, abstractly, you know what it's like, but until you've tasted it, you don't really know for sure. But once you do know how it tastes, you can never forget it, though you can't describe it to anyone who hasn't tried it. And if you've had to drink it every day, like some of our ALI sisters out there, its flavor lingers everywhere.

So I'm battling the terror that I'm about to be served another glass of pomegranate juice. And this time, it's not my well being or sanity that's at stake; it's a small person's life.