How to retrain the brain. Seriously, how?

The internet should and must be avoided at all costs, except for blog reading.

We lost our baby at 16.4 weeks last September and I am now three weeks pregnant, the first time I have been pregnant since that horrible time.

I cannot begin to list the emotions racing through my heart and head at this point.
Lurching. That’s a good word. I am lurching all over the place, from a diluted type of joy and happiness that doesn’t last long once the anxiety and palpable fear takes hold.

And it takes hold 98% of the time, both in my conscious and sub-conscious.
Everybody tells me I will be ok this time and I have to believe it will all be fine, and that’s great. But that’s exactly what everyone else told me last year. I even believed it.

And look how that turned out.

You can’t know, you can never know for 100% sure that things will turn out well, not well or in between.

I get that, but I really do need to know this time and it’s not fair that I can’t.
Coupled with all of these emotions is another feeling, or rather, a distinct lack of feeling. I don’t feel overly pregnant. I know that’s perfectly normal, but it does not help mitigate the anxiety!

When you go through IVF, you are keenly aware of times, dates and places. You know when the embryo went in, you know exactly when you can get a blood test and you are in permanent count-down mode.

As soon as I was able, I tested – both at home and at the path lab. And as soon as I was able, I knew. We knew. Most people at work knew.

So when most other women are blissfully ignorant of the tiny being forming inside them – happily consuming vast quantities of coffee, wine and soft cheese (bitches!) - I am trudging drearily to the kettle with my decaffeinated tea bag in hand.

I know, I shouldn’t whinge...I am drinking decaf tea and shunning leftovers for a bloody good reason. A bloody fantastic, happy reason.

Back to the internet. I started reading the What To Expect book a little and had some awful flashing back at the part about testing for abnormalities, Down Syndrome etc. I read and re-read the lines that said abnormal results were extremely rare, or complications were almost unheard of in most women and mentally crossed my fingers.

At work I have been distracted these past few days with internet sites that show foetal development week by week.

On one I read today, was this: Do not panic if you do not have pregnancy symptoms, although you should contact your care provider if you suddenly lose your pregnancy symptoms.

That sentence is two things: written by someone of Irish persuasion and THE VERY DEFINITION OF AMBIGUITY!

Read it again. If you can make sense of it, please comment below.

I shall now stop time-wasting internettery and keep counting down until our first scan on July 11.

After then, no doubt the count-down will be until our 12-week nuchal scan, and after then, a new count-down will take its place, and so on. Little milestones along the way.

I can’t get too far ahead but that doesn’t mitigate the anxiety in between each one!

And the whole time I feel scared that the stress will harm my baby and worried that I am somehow sending it a biochemical message that I am ungrateful because I am spending far too much time freaking out as opposed to enjoying this wonderful news and enjoying the fact that it is there and growing.

For the first time since we found out, I actually felt tingles of warm excitement as I was going off to sleep last night, about how cool this was going to be. The first time.

It has been like I cannot allow myself to fully let this great news wash over me completely. I’ve got glad wrap over bits of me that I need to protect and keep dry.

I’ve used duct tape and plastic bags to waterproof my heart. Which is stupid, because this is good, it’s great, it’s amazing. Why wouldn’t I want this all over me, drowning me?

Simple. Because it might not last. It might not last. And no one can tell me that it will or it won’t.

But I have to accept that and just hope for the best.

So far I have been too focused on the stress and the fear and telling people “hopefully everything will be alright this time” to stop and respect how incredibly lucky we are.

Lucky for now, at least.

I told our little boy’s day care lady and another mum this week. Instantly both of them put their hands up to their faces and sort of held their breath while twisting their faces into a worried sympathy.

No congratulations, no real broad smiles.

It must be said that these two women were also there last year when I collapsed in tears while picking up my son, as it was just after we had the awful news confirmed.

They no doubt had that raw memory in mind. As I do.

My mobile rang at work today. It was a nurse from the fertility clinic following up on the transfer.

“I am pregnant,” I told her.

“Oh, that’s wonderful! You needed that good news, especially after...well, you’ve had a hard life, my dear,” she said, no doubt casting a glance at my file, sitting open on the desk in front of her.

We have to hope for the best. What is the alternative?

A new acronym

We are all agreed on my love of acronyms, yes?

FYI, they're OTT and I refuse to keep that on the DL or the QT.

Oh, please, I am not going there again. I don't have the energy. I have never been this tired in my entire life...and that includes the time I stayed up with my best friend in Year 8 for THE ENTIRE NIGHT to witness the exact moment when the street lights were switched off.

CRASH-BANG-KABOOM-KERPLUNK-SMASH-POW-SHAZAM!

Wow, did you feel that? Get me Bruce Willis and Liv Tyler into emergency sequel talks, stat, Armageddon is back. And she's angry.

That's right: that was the very last pregnant woman complaining of tiredness the world could take. Apparently, the earth's core is pre-programmed to crack and erupt if a certain pre-determined quota of whingeing pregnant women is reached. Me back there, just then talking about being (whisper...tired) pushed the planet past its tipping point. So, go home to your loved ones, people...this is your last day on Earth.

Anyway, I am not going to go there with the moaning about the dead weights on my eyelids. Not tonight, I am buggered. Oh shit! I went there, didn't I?

Look, I am vainly trying to get back to the point of this post. What's it called again? Right...a new acronym.

FG.

Any ideas? Let me shed some of that dawn street light on the subject for you.

Fertility Guilt.

Akin to survivor's guilt, but not the initials of that dimwit played by Tom Hanks in that atrocious movie. (Sorry Robin Wright, I love you despite your choice of husband, but that really was a bad flick.)

So, I am pregnant. I am elated and a thousand other things right now. I also feel some guilt. Guilt when telling my new little e-community peeps who are still clinging white-knuckled to the TTC rollercoaster, one many have been on for longer than my two-year-old has been alive. Guilt when posting an "I'm pregnant" comment on a TTC support group over at Aussie Mummy Bloggers. Part of me felt heartless doing that. I am sorry if I caused anyone any pain. Or jealousy. Of course, that was never my intention.

Look, I was raised Catholic - we got guilt covered. But I know that I am someone who would feel twinges of jealousy while starting to hum absent-mindedly "What About Me?" had I received similar news.

Isn't that atrocious. But it's the truth. Let me tell you, my over-arching emotion would be genuine joy for anyone who gets good baby-growing news. No doubt. But there would be twinges of some negative stuff too, I won't lie.

But it's like the way I feel about comparing development milestones in your kids. There is no point twisting yourself in knots if your toddler has not mastered toilet training, say, as quickly as "everyone else" you know: they all get there in the end. So too, will many of you reading this. I cannot know it will happen for all of you, no one knows that. But I do know that I have never laughed as much as I have these past few weeks, I have never jumped on Jay for random cuddles as often I have in recent times and I have never felt as loved as I have by all those physically and electronically around me...and I know that helped.

The good stuff. Focus on it. Use it, trust and try to let go. Alright, somebody stop me before I use the phrase "at the end of the day..."

May I please leave you with today's random observation from me.
Those backwards signs on the front of cars that belong to a business. You know the ones. Stickers that spell out words, but they are stuck on in reverse.


"Jokes" like this may seem harmless, but a 2009 NSBP* study found they are actually responsible for extending dyslexics' admission times to psychiatric wards by an average of 13.9months.

Why do you only ever see them the wrong way around? When do you ever see them in your rear view mirror, at which point, you are stunned and amazed at their twisty-reversy genius? Answer? Never. You only ever see them on the front of a car on the other side of the road coming towards you. Then you almost have an accident staring at the ridiculous letter formations trying to activate a deep, dark recess of your brain to actually decipher what the hell it says. It's the same dark recess that was particularly active during your tweens when such astounding items as invisible ink (imagination/perception), magic sand (spatial engineering) and elastics (physics/fractions/geometry) were commonplace in daily life. I saw one this morning, it was "CINAHCEM ELIBOM". I was like "whaaaaa?" as I craned my neck to catch it as it went past. Stupid thing was, I looked in my rear view mirror to get a better look - at the BACK of the car. I actually did that. Of course, there was nothing there. Haha, isn't that ridiculous? Alanis should so have written about that instead of freaking fly-streaked chardonnay.

eyB.
*National Society for Bullshit Prevention