The Ever Expanding Manda

21 weeks, 4 days and it is officially more uncomfortable to use a belt to hold up my pants than it is a pain in the ass to hoist my pants up every three steps. Breaking out the Bella Band tomorrow.

ERHMAHGERD ANERTERMER!

Yesterday's anatomy scan was both fantastic and terrible, and I've been trying to focus on the good over the bad while I processed alone the things that bothered me.

The good: We have a healthy, rambunctious little girl!

After the ultrasound, we celebrated with lunch, which were delicious burritos from Moes, picked up more prefolds and the first newborn diaper cover which is a robot design from rumparooz. Matt also picked up the mobile for the nursery that we'd been eyeing. The big happiness of seeing our little girl kicking and wiggling away, and the little happiness of oo-ing and aww-ing over the tiny diapers and dreaming of the nursery we'll be building were enough to keep me on Cloud 9 for most of the day despite the bad.

The bad: First off, we were at the doctor's for HOURS. This is really only a mild annoyance, and we had anticipated it being a long visit this time, except that in our rush to get out the door, we forgot to grab the snacks we planned on taking. Hoo boy. Apparently they were doing ultrasounds/care for a lot of pregnant ladies who both are on bedrest at the hospital as well as those coming in from the county jail so it was really busy. We finally got in for the ultrasound 45 minutes past our appointment time.

The wait was killing me! But the ultrasound went well. The tech couldn't get all the measurements that she wanted for the heart so we'll be going back in a month to try again.

By the time we got in to see the doctor, it had been almost three hours since I'd eaten breakfast, so I was hoping it would be a quick visit. My stomach was growling, but the first person to come in and talk with me was a medical student. He looked over my sugars, talked with me. I expressed my concerns that the Prozac dosage I'm on wasn't enough, and that even seeing a therapist I'm having difficulties, and described what the last couple of weeks have been like. He went to talk to the doctor.

When he came back, the doctor was with him, and she talked with me. She was concerned about the low I had, and was pressuring me to back off on my insulin dosage. I really don't want to do that, because I only ever go low when I nap in the mornings and it takes me longer to get to my morning snack or lunch. The days that I'm awake, I don't have a problem and I pointed that out. She said that my after meal sugars could even be as high as 120, but I'd really like to see them around 100. I know I have more wiggle room than I give myself but I want to keep my body on blood sugar levels as close to that of a normal person as possible. Already feeling slightly frustrated, we moved on to the subject of antidepressants.

I had mentioned before that I felt like when I was on antidepressants before, being on a low dosage of Prozac with Wellbutrin on the side worked better than Prozac alone, but that I would be open to trying another dosage of the Prozac to keep things as simple as possible during pregnancy. She said they didn't want to put me on Wellbutrin because they felt it wasn't studied well enough as far as effects to the fetus. I said, okay, I understand completely. Then she started talking about effects of Prozac and how going higher on my dosage might put the baby in danger. She kept putting her hand on my knee and saying things like, "Can't you find other ways to make you happy or less anxious?"

Really? Really? You really and truly think that I haven't thought of that? Oh? Why don't I just be cheerful instead? OH MY GOD! Well, I guess I don't need medication and therapy anymore because I'll just find some other way to MAKE MYSELF HAPPY. I ended up shrinking away, while Matt started talking. Oh Matt.

He was trying to help, but he kept saying things like, "Well, I've been working more, and when I'm home then I'm there to make her happy." and as far as my insulin went, "It makes sense to me that her sugars would be low after sleeping because the body burns more sugar asleep than when it does when you're just sitting there not doing anything and that's pretty much what she does when she's awake."

I was horrified. No No No No No NO NO! First of all, my husband makes me feel very happy. But his presence doesn't detract from my depression. My depression is not a symptom of boredom of lack of amusement or loneliness. Secondly, all I do is sit around all day!? I'm a student in college. I study, I write papers, I keep the house clean, I read, I go for walks, I cook, I am not just sitting in bed eating bon bons and watching soap operas!

Feeling thoroughly attacked, and exhausted, the doctors left the room to get my papers for so I could make my next appointment and the dietician poked her head in. Apparently from the first time I saw her, no one recorded that in the computer so she was down to see me. By this time, I was starving and starting to feel the first symptoms of a low blood sugar. It was just a little shakiness, and feeling cold. I told the dietician that honestly, I didn't think I needed to see her and that I really just wanted to leave so I could eat lunch. It had been almost four hours since breakfast at this point, and my breakfasts tend to be small and I was ravenous.

At that point, apparently everyone lost their shit. I had the dietician, the doctor, the social worker and Matt all telling me that I needed to eat crackers, asking if I wanted a snack, etc. I felt bullied. I said as calmly as I could that I just really wanted to get out of there so we could get lunch. I told Matt that I knew my body and that my sugar didn't feel too low, I wasn't dizzy, I just felt like we should grab lunch as soon as possible.

By the time everyone let me leave, they'd given me a cereal bar, as well as instructions from the doctor to go to the lab and get a jug so I could do a 24 hour urine collection "to see how damaged your kidneys are from the diabetes" (really doc, you couldn't find some other way to word that?) and I was just mentally exhausted. The happy high from the ultrasound had been utterly smashed.

I cried on the way to the lab, pulled it together long enough to get the jug and a nun's cap, and then cried on the way to the car. Matt got mad at me on the way to the car, because as I was trying to explain why I was so upset, he felt like I was attacking HIM. So in the middle of the hospital, he stopped and started yelling at me. Fantastic.

I felt ganged up on, treated like I was stupid or a child, felt like the doctor had pulled the "you don't want to hurt your baby, do you?" card on me, and generally awful. It took a lot to take the day back from the sudden cloud that had covered everything.

After the doctor, we drove into Mechanicsville to the pharmacy because I needed a refill on Prozac, as well as more insulin. Walmart has changed which generic insulin they carry (AGAIN) so I need my doctor to change the prescription for my insulin so that insurance will cover it. We went ahead and bought a vial out of pocket because I can't just go without it.

I'm apparently also out of refills on my Prozac which no one caught, so they had to fax the doctor to get the refill order for that. So we went all that way for essentially nothing. I also forgot to get more prenatals. I have a few days more of prenatals and Prozac. I'll be calling today to check on the status of my prescriptions to see if they're ready, and if not call up to the clinic myself. Just more frustration yesterday to add to everything.

But happily it's over and I'm trying to put it behind me. At least I have my little Lori to keep me company and make me feel better every time she lets me know she's there.

Sorry, all out of fucks today

I missed my Centering appointment today. I couldn't sleep last night, and ended up passing out early this morning, waking up just before I would realistically need to be getting to the hospital, so I called up and said I was having car trouble. Now, my car has been acting odd when it's really cold lately, but I didn't even bother going out to check. I just stayed in bed. It took a great deal of effort to get myself to take my insulin and go downstairs to eat, and then I just went back to sleep. I couldn't bring myself to eat lunch, until my sugar dropped low later in the afternoon. Even then, I didn't have much motivation to eat anything.

This lasting feeling and the fact that it's keeping me from doing things I need to do (like homework) means that I will likely be asking for a higher dosage of antidepressants on Friday when I see the doctor. But I'm not completely convinced that the problem is a chemical one, that I'm just not on a high enough dosage.

I think the problem is that I'm just simply out of fucks to give.

Don't get me wrong, the reason why I eventually got up and ate, and the reason why I'm forcing myself to work on that paper for class now is fully because of the baby. I do care about my unborn child, but that seems to be the only motivation that gets me to do anything lately. If it doesn't harm the baby, I tend to just let it go without a care. I don't like feeling this way, but it just seems easier to sleep, away from my anxious thoughts.

5 days

Five days until the anatomy scan. I'm hoping this week will prove busy enough to keep my anxiety from rising too much. Monday I have the final items for GISHWHES to collect for my team, a therapy session, and a paper to write. Tuesday I'll be voting, and doing my reading for the next week of class. Wednesday means more reading, and my Centering meeting. Thursday will be devoted to rest, video games, and a little homework. The ultrasound and my prenatal appointment is scheduled for the morning on Friday.

I'm just going to try and take a cue from my goldfish and Dory and just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

Depression: The Musical

Last night, the Braxton Hicks I've been feeling turned suddenly quite painful, although it wasn't so bad that I was really too worried. That is, until I began to feel waves of nausea along with them. It was bad enough that I couldn't sleep, and instead just tried to be as quiet as I could while Matt slept and surfed the internet. Matt ended up waking and tried to initiate sexy-time, during which a contraction/nausea came strong, I ended up in a panic attack, and in the middle of crying I blurted out, "I want to go to the doctor."

Matt took me to the hospital immediately, and from the E.R. we were escorted to labor and delivery. I felt silly, mainly because I wasn't having any bleeding or evidence my waters had broken. But I couldn't get out of my head every story about pre-term labor or miscarriage that I'd read where the woman had been having contractions and they'd been brushed off as Braxton Hicks and then when things turned south and shit hit the fan, there was always the same sentence in the story. "These contractions felt different. They hurt."

The nurse looked for the baby's heartbeat on the Doppler, and it took a couple of minutes to find. While there was only silence and static, I fretted and panicked, but eventually she did find the heartbeat. I wanted to cry with relief when she did, but Blasto managed to make me feel better instantly by kicking the Doppler. "Par for the course," Matt commented with a smile.

They hooked me up to a contraction monitor and brought me water and a specimen cup so I could try and pee. They said that they wanted to check for a UTI because that might explain the upturn in contraction pain and nausea. I ended up being clear. I had a cervix check, where the doctor said I was still tightly closed. Everything is fine. The final decision by the doctors is that I'm likely just having Braxton Hicks with an onset of round ligament pain at the same time, which is upping the intensity. They gave me a checklist of what to look for to know things are bad enough to come back into the hospital.

I feel dumb for keeping Matt awake and wasting everyone's time. The doctor gently suggested that I might want to work on my anxiety with a counselor. When I mentioned I'm seeing a therapist she patted my shoulder and said, "Good." So I feel dumb and crazy at the same time.

Since we got home, all I want to do is sleep and cry. Everything is fine! Why do I feel like this? Maybe this is an indication that I need to up my Prozac dosage. Or maybe it's just an indication that I probably shouldn't skip a week with my therapist again. I don't know.

I think I've got Matt freaked out. He's been handling me with kid gloves, it seems, and kept waking me up this evening to see if I would eat. I feel almost like he's walking on eggshells around me, and I don't like it. But the only thing I can think to do about it is to just go back to sleep. 

Braxton Hicks are full of dicks

For the last couple of days I've been having Braxton Hicks contractions, just mildly. I've read that they can be brought on by dehydration so I've been trying to keep myself even more hydrated. Consequently, my bladder is often more full than normal. So I woke up at 4 am the other night feeling decidedly damp. On top of this, I was contracting, and because I've been having some digestive issues lately, it felt more strongly than usual. For a moment, half asleep, I thought I was miscarrying. The wetness between my legs felt like waking up to a heavy menstrual flow, and add in the cramps and I promptly lost my shit. I scurried to the bathroom, relieved when I saw that I wasn't bleeding. The only thing I can think of is that maybe I wet myself a little in my sleep? Or maybe the natural pregnancy discharge was heavier? Ugh, pregnancy, why are you so gross?

That moment of panic where I thought I was losing the baby has stayed with me, abiding ever since. I feel a pit in my stomach when the Braxton Hicks come back, I feel nauseous and sick all the time. I've felt really distant from Matt since it happened, too, but I can't bring myself to talk about it out loud. I just have this mounting feeling of doom that gets worse every day. I can't help but feel like bad things are going to happen on Wednesday when I have my next Centering meeting, that there won't be a heartbeat on the Doppler. I feel like Friday we'll be looking at a scan of a dead child instead of a happy, kicking baby. Even though I feel movement every day. In fact, even now I feel Blastocyst kicking away in there. Why can't I shake this? I feel so dumb and angry with myself that I'm worrying for what is likely no reason at all.

In that moment when I woke up and thought I was miscarrying, my world was spinning out of control. I don't know how I managed to get to the bathroom without waking Matt and our roommates up. My brain was screaming at me. I am being decidedly uncool.

I don't want to be my friend today.

A week feels like forever

We have one week left to go until we have our anatomy scan and hopefully will find out the gender of Baby Blastocyst. I'm feeling movement every day, and most days I have at least once where I can feel the movement on the outside of my belly. I tried to get Matt to feel, but I'm not sure he did. He's not even sure, either. Oh well. With the way we snuggle at night, I'm sure he'll be getting kicked soon enough.

Last night I had a panic attack, though it was honestly not that bad. I could breathe through it all, though I couldn't contain my crying. Matt and I went to get intimate, it didn't work well, and I ended up feeling bad. Of course in that moment of body loathing, I had a sudden striking of fear that if my body can't even effectively have sex, and my organs are, let's face it, lazy bastards, how could I possibly expect this pregnancy to end well? I had a sudden feeling of certain doom surrounding the baby's survival, and felt very strongly that my body was going to kill it, even if for no other reason than thinking about this baby makes me so very happy and creating a family with Matt is all I want. And well, looking at the track record of things I get really excited and happy about and then looking forward to see how they end up...

Even this morning, the lingering feeling of pessimism remains. I am at least trying to stay hopeful. At the last Centering meeting we had, the doctor said something to one of the other women that has stayed with me. She's about a month ahead of me, 22 weeks when we had our meeting. She suffered a loss from incompetent cervix before, going into labor and losing her baby at 20 weeks. She admitted that she was most scared of it happening again, despite being monitored and treated this time around, and that she feared holding another dead baby more than anything in the world. He said, "You're only two weeks away from that 24 week milestone. I know you're scared about going into labor early, but you're so close. If you can just make it a week and a half - to that 24 week mark, you're not looking at a dead baby. You're looking at a NICU baby, and that's something to be hopeful about." He then went on to talk more about infant survival rates for premies. So maybe if I can make it one more month, four more weeks, I'll stop having these nightmares, stop having this sudden rushes of fear and doom.