pregnancy neuroses, plus ca change

[mamajoan]

When I was pregnant with Isaac, the idea that he might arrive early -- the thought of having a preemie -- was just about the furthest thing from my mind. If anything, I was convinced that he would be late, as both of my mom's babies (my brother and I) were. Sure, I made note of when I passed the viability marks, but that was just because, you know, pregnancy goes on for so long, you need some milestones to help you feel like you're making progress.

Anyway, but then he did arrive early; it was quite a shock and took me a very very long time to really come to terms with it. A few months after he was born, someone told me that I needed to allow myself to grieve for what I never got: a normal end of pregnancy, the experience of those final six weeks the way most women experience them; the birth experience that I had hoped for and expected. I thought that made a lot of sense. It was a grieving process, and thinking of it that way was helpful.

This time around, I've been thinking (and mentally composing LJ entries that I never have time to actually write) about that a lot. Especially as I read tiggrrl's posts about her final few weeks of pregnancy, and similar stuff from a woman on a parenting board who is also due any day now. It has really hit me how skewed my perception of this pregnancy is, since I never got the "normal" experience of the last few weeks; I don't have a mental picture of how those weeks would go, so my mental picture of this pregnancy doesn't include them. Which isn't to say that I'm assuming Cosmo will be early, necessarily, but just that I have a different mental image of how the end of the pregnancy will go than most women probably do.

And that leads me to the "incident" last night/this morning, which I alluded to in a previous post. Basically all that happened was that I woke up with some belly pains, which turned out to be Braxton-Hicks contractions (aka false labor). I say turned out to be, because I got up out of bed and walked around a bit and had some water and it all went away, which is a hallmark of B-H: they go away if you change position or move around or drink water. (Unlike real contractions which continue to be regular and intense regardless of what you do.)

But my emotional reaction to that episode was different from what it would have been last time and what it probably would be for most women. I kind of freaked out, to put it bluntly. After I went back to bed and was, frankly, feeling just fine physically, I lay there getting very literally dizzy and light-headed with worry. Never mind the facts that there was no bleeding or other unusual vaginal discharge; that I knew intellectually that this had to have been B-H because of the way it cleared up as soon as I moved around; that it has been less than two weeks since I took the test that basically guaranteed I wouldn't go into labor for the following two weeks; that in fact the pregnancy has been pretty normal up until now and there's every reason to be optimistic about Cosmo's chances of going full-term. In the harsh light of day the entire episode seems pretty innocuous, but at 3am not so much. I lay there thinking myself into a lather until I got nauseated and had to get up again and had some diarrhea, then went back to bed again, taking a bowl with me because of the nausea. But I did fall asleep again and all was basically well.

Now it's entirely possible that the diarrhea and nausea were actually caused by something I ate, not by my worrying -- in fact, it's also possible that the pain I felt with the Braxton-Hicks was actually digestive pain heralding the diarrhea and nausea. (B-H aren't supposed to be painful.) But whatever, the point is, the whole thing unsettled me a lot. I haven't thought that I was spending a lot of this pregnancy worrying about the chances of having another preemie; but apparently some of that has been going on, if only subconsciously.

I don't know. I still feel unsettled by it all. No amount of logic can change the fact that I did have Isaac significantly early and we still don't know why, and thus, I worry. I tell myself I shouldn't, but I do anyway. And now I see the way in which I was lucky last time: I didn't spend the whole pregnancy worrying about a preemie. Okay, that didn't feel so lucky at the time, it coming as a nasty shock the way it did; but this time around, it's hard not to overanalyze and fret about every little twinge and twitch, and that way, with three months yet to go, lies madness.

Comments

[darksky23.livejournal.com]

I think I may have asked this before, and if so I apologize, but how much of a preemie was Isaac? 'Cause I was born extremely early, as well.

*sends you good thoughts for the next three months*

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

six weeks ... as you could maybe have discerned from where I wrote, "to grieve for what I never got: a normal end of pregnancy, the experience of those final six weeks the way most women experience them..." ;)

[darksky23.livejournal.com]

*sheepish grin* Yeah, I noticed that after I reread it. Are those final six weeks very different? My mom gave birth to both my brother and myself prematurely, at 24 weeks weighing 1.5 lbs.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you mean by very different. In terms of gestation, the final six weeks are primarily concerned with a) putting on fat and b) lung development. Babies born at 34 weeks or earlier are skin and bones, almost literally; they don't have a normal amount of body fat, and therefore, they often have trouble regulating their body temperatures. They also tend to have breathing problems due to undeveloped/immature lungs. And things like jaundice are common as well.

But I was more talking about the emotional/mental stuff that women go through in the last six weeks of pregnancy: feeling like you're in the home stretch, the final stage; reaching a point of feeling "ready" to have the baby; coming to terms with the end of your life as a childless person (assuming that it's your first baby); getting physically uncomfortable and feeling impatient like "come on already!"; and so forth. And then of course all the practical aspects, like finishing up the nursery, acquiring all the stuff you'll need, deciding on a name, making arrangements at work and finishing up necessary job tasks, having a baby shower, packing a bag for the hospital. All of that is stuff that I didn't get to do the "normal" way.

It's pretty amazing that you and your brother survived. 24 weeks is VERY early, even with today's medical technology.

[darksky23.livejournal.com]

Ohh... yes, that makes sense. It's like you expect the pregnancy to last for a certain time so you have things planned out around that time. I can see where a premature birth would throw things off.

My brother actually only lived for about a half hour, I think, from what I can remember my mom and dad telling me. He was born three years before I was. I was in the hospital for three months, and had to have heart surgery when I was three days old to put a shunt over one of the valves of my heart (so I had to have a few blood transfusions, as well), and while I was at 100% oxygen for one day my parents soon told the doctors to bring that percentage down. My dad also called me the "missing link" for a while, because I still had all my baby hair covering my body. Heh.

I guess there is a lot of development that goes on in the final weeks, things that I suppose don't really occur to me unless I really think about it. I think I remember my mom telling me that my underdeveloped lungs were a concern, as well, now that you mention it. And it makes sense, from a biological standpoint.

... But I suck at science. *chuckles*

[bodacia.livejournal.com]

As someone who, just in general, is very prone to obsessive thoughts, I can sympathize greatly. ;)

But, more specific to your situation, I think what your feeling is completely normal and to be expected. You did have this very startling and scary experience the first time around. I think it would be weird if you weren't at least a little concerned about the same outcome for this pregnancy. Chances are that everything will go without a hitch...but still.

I'm wondering...are you in touch with any other women who have given birth prematurely? Are there support groups for this? It might help to be able to talk about this stuff with others who have "been there."

*hugs*

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I know these feelings are normal and all that. I was mostly just surprised by how they hit me all at once like that, rather than having been right there all along.

I have tried a couple of online preemie support groups, but the thing is, most of the women on there had preemies with lots of problems -- in the hospital for months after birth, multiple surgeries, developmental delays, etc. etc. -- and I, for all that, got off pretty easy. We were in the hospital less than a week and Isaac was basically caught up developmentally by six months of age. So it's hard to connect with those women and hard to stick around those forums without feeling a bit like an imposter, or at least like I shouldn't complain because I had it pretty easy overall.

And anyway, I haven't seen much discussion in those forums of emotions and how to deal with them and how one feels when pregnant again and so forth -- it's more about how to deal with the various medical issues. I'm sure I could start up a thread on the emotional stuff, but it would just feel weird since so many of the members have so much more to deal with than I do.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

As someone who had a perfectly full-term baby but spent much of the last trimester on bedrest because of fears that it wouldnt' be so, I am a fan
of not freaking out, but keeping the midwives/doctors informed.

I had a known complication that tended to cause contractions and/or preterm labor (the other distinction between braxton hicks contractions and labor contractions is whether they get anywhere in changing your cervix, and mine, though they did eventually stop and remained sporadic like braxton hicks, hadmanaged to change my cervix first. Hence they kept a close eye on that kind of thing happening again. even though you don't have fibroids the size of your growing baby in there, it might be a good idea to have your medical people know it happened, just in case.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

and oh yeah, *hugs*, too.

[ima-omi.livejournal.com]

Pregnancy can really bring out all our anxieties! It definitely did for me. One thing I find useful in anxious situations (of which I seem to have too goddamn many, most of my own making, but enough about me...) is to remind myself that most of the things I worry about turn out all-right.

I echo the suggestion to keep your midwife informed, and not least because midwives, in my experience, have a wonderful way of settling the emotions. They have seen it all -- including situations much scarier than yours -- and can help you put it in perspective.

We all have moments of madness...I suspect yours are surrounded by large chunks of lucidity. Think of a page of sheet music. Even with something as chock-full of sixteenth-notes as Messiah, all around the black dots, there's a hell of a lot of white space. Look at the white space!

Goodness

[techn0goddess.livejournal.com]

Here's to many incident-free nights in your immediate future. *hugs*