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?

Really? That again?

I will make this quick as I need to rummage through that dusty top shelf in my cupboard for the box that contains my birth certificate.

I just want to verify my middle name, because I am sure as sure that it is "worry".

Actually, that's not true. It would be my first name. Easily.

That's not true either, I just needed an excuse to use the word rummage, so came up with that whole birth certificate ruse. And I like how rummage leads to ruse and, surely then, ruin? We'll save word association for the day the psychiatrist runs out of Rohrschach butterflies.

Last Thursday evening I went to the toilet. Nothing unusual about that, except there was a little (I so hate this word) discharge left behind and it was light browny coloured. Sorry if you're squeamish...I am just getting warmed up here.

Instantly I thought that was my little embryo floating in the toilet bowl. It's amazing how irrational you get when you panic. I am not sure of its exact size, but I am pretty sure it is miniscule...and not as big as the thing I saw in the loo that day.

I spoke to mum who thankfully matter-of-factly told me that it should be alright, and if it wasn't, my period would show up as an indicator.

Since then, no period. Fine. I can breathe again and almost forget to worry. What a state of bliss that was! Shiny kitten all round!

This afternoon I went to the toilet. (I go a lot, alright? Here I was thinking I had to have an eight-month-old baby pressing on my bladder before I got the constant loo trips, but apparently no.) There was a small amount of browny blood on my knickers.

Plus all afternoon I have had very mild cramps...like the cramps I felt days before I did the pregnancy test (implantation cramps?). It's like a tautness...like there's a considerable build-up of, excuse me, Gassius Clay (gas) in your gut that just has to find sanctuary outside of your body.

So, cramps and spotting. Surely that's not good. Together? But they have both been light, so I am loathe to overreact.

A small part of me feels something could be wrong, but it's so hypothetical. Am I just fretting too much where a fret is not necessary? And through it all, I know I could ring every woman on earth and ask them about their pregnancies - yes it would be a logistical nightmare, but my neuroses make me incredibly thorough - and each one would tell me something different. So, ladies, fat lot of help you would be!

I am fine now, hours later, and there is only the slightest light brown (almost non-existent) still there. The cramps are almost gone too.

I wish the worry would as well!

Let the blood run free

Hey-ho, here we go, a trip to the bloodsuckers again this mor-ning.

That's how the nursery rhyme goes, right?

I am such a good parent.

Yep, second blood test in five days and my membership to the Human Pincushion Society has now been verified. Woo hoo, YES! I am in! You know me, the more acronyms I can align myself with, the better.

Unfortunately, my cycle seems to be in some kind of hormonal valium haze. Plainly, it's off smoking grass with some hippy Gypsies in a communal tent village in the Byron Bay hinterland. Anytime you're ready, sunshine! We got work to do!!

Yes, it is moving very slowly indeed. My blood test last Thursday did not show enough movement in the ovulation stakes, so another was ordered for today.

I should get a call from the doc tomorrow to hopefully tell me that all is well, firstly, and to then give me a date and a time.

A date and a time. To implant the next embryo, this time a frozen one.

I went off to sleep last night thinking about that; about our little embies in their icy, icy home in the city lab and how it's almost time for another transfer again.

I think my state of mind can be summed up in one simple facial gesture. Make sure your two rows of teeth are pressed against each other, open your lips to form kind of a pretend or fake smile, jut out your jaw, widen your eyes, wrinkle that forehead and breathe in audibly. Your shoulders may rise at the same time. Your palms may involuntarily turn outwards or they may indeed come flying up to your mouth in either a mock or genuine nail-biting movement.

It is a gesture that, altogether, screams: "holy shit, this is pretty freaking scary, isn't it??"
And thank god for Google images, really...when words just aren't enough. Even the enormous amount of words I seem compelled to use. Which you would think would be enough. Sadly, no. Is that Fifi Box in that photo?

Anyway, as I was thinking about the next transfer I got that familiar old feeling of anxiety. For me, it's a physical reaction. First, there's a white hot strap over the back of my skull - the left side, mostly. Does that mean anything? Then it's a queasiness sitting at the top of my stomach, where I imagine the diaphragm to be based on those diagrams we used to study in Year 10 Biology.


Ring any bells? Flashback to Year 10 Biology anyone? Stop playing with that bunsen burner! Turn the gas off! You cannot drink the hydrocholoric acid! Please note the general diaphragmal area, where my anxiety butterflies are primarily contained.

But then I really made a point to put any abnormally huge fears out and away from my mind. I think a small amount of anxiety is completely reasonable, rational and normal.

But I really have to let most of it go. Relinquish. Give it up. Disregard. Abandon.

The large doses of anxiety that threaten in my case, being as highly-strung and frankly mental as I am, are really not healthy. They are not constructive. It is that simple.

So - chill! Perspective, sanity, calm.

Perspective, sanity, calm.

I figure if I write this stuff down often enough, it will actually translate into a reality in my mind!

Time

Grrr, is it Thursday yet?
If one more person asks me how I'm feeling, I will scream!
It's all my own doing, of course, and everyone's interest is so so lovely, but I have been thinking that I wish I had kept it quiet.
I have been thinking of a friend of mine in high school actually.
She was so paranoid of failure and looking like an ass that she didn't tell anyone she was going for her driver's licence test.
Then, on the day, she actually got it - it ended up being a big surprise for everyone.
She had the Cheshire cat thing going on and we all thought she was amazing...

In our situation, everyone from close family to aquaintances at work know pretty much the minute and the hour that little embryo went in.
And, granted, I have been pretty forthcoming with all the details on this blog...
So, I can't turn back time, I can't change it...but I wonder if it adds to the worry levels.

What if something goes wrong? What if I don't get pregnant this time (sorry, broken record, I know)? I guess I have to focus on the thought that my open disclosure will mean I have a wider support net to draw on, a larger comforting blanket to wrap around me, if something...disappointing happens.

I keep asking T to rack her brains for how she felt at this time all those years ago. Did her belly ache, did her boobs hurt, did she feel sick...???

People are asking me how I feel, if I feel sick, if I am having cravings. Then I say no, because I feel really well and my normal old self. Then that makes me freak out a tiny bit inside.

Mums who have been before me are good at the follow-up soothe, saying "it's a bit early yet". And I cling to those words.

The pregnancy test is on the bathroom counter. I look at it every time I am in there and continue counting down the minutes until Thursday.