It’s been a really hard couple of weeks. We’re fine; we’re all fine, me, Marmite, Max and the girls etc etc but none the less, we’ve been through the mill and back over the last week or so. It’s been horrible. It’s inevitable, I suppose; the girls are busy, work and therefore Max are busy. Owning a toyshop is bliss (ha! but not exactly high profit!) but Xmas has to be good and last week we found ourselves having to turn parts of our business off in order to deal with a variety of difficult happenings; that’s going to have hurt – and frankly, we need it busier than it is right now too. We’re surviving but combinations of things mean we’ve missed a good week of trading at our full potential. And it is tough out there – as we all know. Let it just not snow; so long as we don’t lose the last ten days like last year, so long as it picks up a bit more, we should be okay.
But most of all, I just lost my cool. Last week had endless unbloggable stuff in it, stuff that really hurt and stuff that has been hanging over us for a while as an unspoken worry. Luckily that bit at least came to nothing, so far as anyone can tell. Clean bill of health. It takes a good bit for Max to lose several nights worth of sleep – and we both just lay awake, completely reeling from a situation we just couldn’t control. And I lost it. I got so upset, so utterly beside myself with distress, that all the protective layers I had built up to let myself believe all would be well just slipped away and I can’t get it back. I lay awake all night, my heart pounding and my brain whirling and I just got into such a panic that not being able to control all the stress was going to kill the baby. It was horrible; for two days and nights I just had my head pounding with the sound of my pulse, my blood pressure up and my brain full of the type of frustration and worry that just leaves no room for being calm.Nothing we did helped enough. If it went quiet I was convinced it was dead, if it was moving, I just assumed it was dying a horrible death thanks to my state of mind and body 🙁
I don’t think I realised until then how much I had forced myself to believe Marmite was safe in there and now I’ve lost it, I can’t get it back. It only has to go quiet for a hour and I think it is dead now.I worked so hard to overcome that in the early weeks.
On top of that, the consultant appointment brought all my birth worries to a head in a way that I just don’t quite know how to achieve control over. I’m in such a panic about it that I can’t even think about it without crying now. If anyone suggests to me that to have a section is sensible, I automatically think they are trying to tell me nicely that I killed Freddie, or that someone else missed something and I should have worked out by now that he should be alive and here. I’ve got a visit to the labour ward booked and I just can’t think about even walking past the room he was born in without crying and I can’t stop dreaming horribly about operating theatres. I am stuck between a rock, a hard place and several people hitting me with big sticks – and I’m one of them. Everything has been scraped away from my surface and all there is left is me, a dead baby, a not yet dead baby and a horrible big event that could go one of several million ways, none of which especially appeal. Not being able to communicate all this fear, even when I hand over a very comprehensive list, to the people I need to find a way for me is very frustrating. I wish I could get them to see how very not clear cut it is, how very huge all the consequences feel.
Right when Max, knee deep in work computers that all started failing, needs me to just hold it together for a few more weeks, I’ve fallen into a heap. As he put it “You seem like someone who has had a scary cat locked in a big box and now the lock has broken and you can’t keep the cat in.” Then he looked a bit pensive and asked “Is there any chance we could just truss the cat up until Christmas is over?” And I really know what he means; he’s tired, harassed, feeling under huge pressure, a bit let down and hurt and a bit angry and I’m just one thing too many. And I hate being needy and bothering him; the net effect of all of that is I sleep badly, he sleeps badly, I try to hold it in to stop him worrying, I sleep worse, he wakes up, I get stressed because I’ve woken him and he gets stressed because he knows how stressed I am.
And then on top of that there are all the gym/dance/school/panto/every-bloody-other-thing things to deal with.
Oh, we’re a barrel of laughs right now, I tell you. I feel like the line in Apollo 13:-
“Uh, what have we got on the spacecraft that’s good?”
“I’ll get back to you, Gene.”
😯
What is good about being 29 weeks pregnant tomorrow?
Well, all things being equal, in 10 weeks time I ought to be curled up in a bed with this little one breathing away beside me.
I get Braxton Hicks and have had for a while, which I never had with Freddie.
I have a head down baby (I think that’s good, breech would be helpful in the decision making process though).
I have a baby who communicates with thumps and bumps, seems to know where the exit is (a little too well!) and is apparently ‘perfectly average’ according to the growth scan and weighs about 2lb 6oz. That caught me out – never had a growth scan before and in my head I was still thinking less than a lb.
I’ve not put on much weight and people keep telling me I look really well. Terrifying, high maintenance pregnancies when I can’t eat or sleep must be good for my complexion 😆
And… oh… I have lots of very good friends, a great sister who spent most of the week digging me out of bogs and troughs and pits with her skills and knowledge and empathy (how a baby sister ends up with skills and 4 children I just don’t know!) a brother I cost $300 by telling him to play Dragonvale (I think he’s forgiven me!) and well… nothing too much else matters too very much. I might even have the very beginning of a coping plan. And really, when all said and done, I just have to get through another 10 weeks, the most terrifying day or two of my life and then… we’ll see.
I really don’t have anything particularly useful to say save for (((hugs))).
(((((hugs))))
Skills *and* four children??!! Do I?? 🙂
Also – $300???
You know, I did a quick mental double check then. I think I need a photo with all 4 of them!
More (((hugs))) I hope you build back up at least a few layers. 🙂
Sending you love and hugs. Nothing much else I can say
Merry I wish I could say something to help but I know there is nothing that can be said. The only thing I can think of even vaguely saying anything useful about is the sleeping. I sleep badly. When MM went through a stage of waking up at night it caused me to sleep even less. I went and slept on the sofa for a few nights so at least we were only up when we were up and not when the other person was too.
I felt this way not too long ago. Thought I was going to lose my mind those last weeks. It;s not very helpful, but the only way out is through. Use whatever means necessary to cope. I’ve no idea how many sweets and cheeseburgers I consumed in the last few weeks in my attempts to preserve my sanity. I highly recommend the Peaceful Sleep Now and Fear Clearing hypnobabies tracks (http://www.hypnobabies.com/mylink.php?id=4058). The Fear Clearing isn’t available for download, but if you are interested perhaps I could figure out how to send it your way. Lots of love. Wish we could sit and chat a while but there is a whole lot of land and water between us.
Oh honey, I just wish I could wrap you up in a big blanket of love and tell you everything is going to be ok, but I know, I know so well how you are feeling now. I know that feeling of trying to keep sane, trying to protect everyone and yourself, and feeling like if you just let go the world will spin off it’s axis.
I finally lost it big style on my consultant at 36 weeks, but even then I held back some of the total crazy.
Sending you, Marmite, Max and the girls so much love. You will get through the next 10 or so weeks, you will. x
I’m so sorry that you’ve had a really difficult couple of weeks. I hope you can capture and truss that cat back up. I do love Max’s description and I’m sorry that all the fear and anxiety has chosen this moment to rear its ugly head when you already have so many other things to deal with and a busy time of year for the business to boot. Sending love x
I do love Max 😀 Sending you lots of love 🙂 xXx
I’m here, I read this and I cannot leave without telling you that. Hugs (of course), a little bit of meditative calm and a huge amount of love to you, from me. x
Lots of love x
Lots of love, Merry. I read this last night and couldn’t think of anything helpful to say, so decided to sleep on it, and still, I have nothing. One breath at a time, is what I say to myself when one hour or even one minute feels too long. I can do one breath. xxx
Dear Merry, and marmite and all of you. If only I had a magic wand that could magic all or some of this away. How about a mantra – something to say to yourself, even if that’s through gritted teeth and floods of tears? “I am looking forward to meeting my baby/son” or “I’m planning to birth my baby gently” might fit the bill or even “I can do it”. I know I found this approach really helpful in my first pregnancy, when every conversation and thought seemed to be about the things that might go wrong, rather than the things I was hoping for in labour/birthing. Adopting a mantra (mine was ‘I’m planning to birth my baby gently, at home) just helped me shift on to the positive stuff. I realise that your negatives are lot bigger and louder than mine, but it might help grow the slivers of hope enough to get that cat back into its box. Sending you warmest wishes… x
Oh Merry, any of that alone would be enough to make for a rough couple weeks but money/work and birthing decisions and whatever else is going on sounds pretty horrible. Do what ever you need to get through it and remember I’m sitting here with plenty of time on my hands to read emails if you need to vent.
“I am stuck between a rock, a hard place and several people hitting me with big sticks – and I’m one of them. Everything has been scraped away from my surface and all there is left is me, a dead baby, a not yet dead baby and a horrible big event that could go one of several million ways, none of which especially appeal. Not being able to communicate all this fear, even when I hand over a very comprehensive list, to the people I need to find a way for me is very frustrating. I wish I could get them to see how very not clear cut it is, how very huge all the consequences feel.”
This really said it all for me. I feel for you, as I feel like it was just yesterday I was there myself. How on earth I made it here to the other side, I’ll never know.
xo
Thinking of you Merry, this whole pregnancy after a dead baby thing is hard enough without a bunch of other stresses thrown in. Also, I’ve found that the farther along I get the harder it is to relax about the quiet times, I find myself forever wondering if she’s okay in there and can’t take it even when she’s moving but just not as much as I would like. Hoping the next 10 weeks go by quickly for you and that you make it through relatively unscathed. Sending love your way. xx
Hang on in there Merry. Nothing else to say except I hope the very best for you. x
Like Sally mentioned, the same words struck me. I’m always desperately sad to find those who understand the overwhelming confusion, sadness, and desperation that accompanies not only pregnancy after loss, but a pregnancy where any birth plan feels unsurmountable and no compromise seems to fit.
Thinking of you often.