I'm re-opening the name/url and anonymous comment options, with a new post On Commenting to go along with them. I hope this will prevent future problems.
Now, I'd like to respond to these two comments, asking about my projected plans for dealing with early pregnancy symptoms once I finally manage to stay pregnant. Go read the comments (they're published, now) if you want. I'll wait.
You're back? Good. Here goes.
First, I have some questions of my own, and I wish I could contact this person by e-mail to ask them privately: Why are you so worried about this issue? Are you a doctor or midwife? Did you have a lot of nausea and vomiting in your own pregnancy(ies)? Also, how much of my blog did you explore before commenting? Were you aware, when you used the word "survive" in your first comment that I've been worried lately about my risk for preeclapmsia (a life-threatening condition)? I am glad you clarified that your question was about nausea and vomiting, because from your first comment, I thought you were implying that a full term pregnancy would be likely to endanger my life. I am certainly aware that my pregnancy will be higher risk than other women, but so far, none of my care-providers have tried to dissuade me from trying again.
About the nausea issue, all I can say is that, honestly, I have been more concerned about the exhaustion I experienced, and how that will impact my ability to do things like grocery shopping and food prep during the first trimester. My PCOS/fertility diet is so limited that pre-prepared food is pretty much out of the question--someone will need to be cooking for me. The Mister and I have discussed several possible ways to deal with this situation, but which we choose will depend on how things develop once I actually stay pregnant.
To me, nausea during early pregnancy is a welcome nuisance. It means my baby is still alive. It's reassuring, every time I feel it, and it usually calms right down if I eat a small, high-protein meal or snack. I expect to be more nauseous than some women, but again, none of my care-providers have suggested that I might need to worry about excessive vomiting just because I start noticing fairly strong "hunger nausea" early in pregnancy.
I hope this answers your questions.
Showing posts with label Beliefs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beliefs. Show all posts
Saturday, April 30
Tuesday, April 5
Why I Chose to Name My Dream Babies (Esoteric)
This post has been sitting in my drafts folder for a couple of weeks, waiting for me to get up the guts to post it (because I'm often shy to share my spiritual/esoteric beliefs), and also waiting for my life to calm down to where I don't actually have a daily update I'm burning to put up every day. Things are in a holding pattern right now, so it feels like a good time. Enjoy. :-)
In the first weeks following my first two miscarriages, I didn't actively grieve. I followed my old belief system (my pre-miscarriage belief system) and told myself that miscarriage is common and probably for the best since there was probably something wrong with the baby(ies). I also firmly believed (and still believe) in re-incarnation, and by extension I believe that the soul(s) of the babies I miscarried were meant to incarnate as my children, and that they would be back. These two beliefs made me think that I shouldn't grieve. I believed that since a) miscarriage was for the best, and b) the soul(s) of my babies were not lost to me and would be back when the timing was better, there was no reason to mourn. All I had to do was wait, and do a bit more preparation for their reappearance.
Those beliefs carried me through exactly one cycle after my second miscarriage. On CD1 after my second loss, I went to pieces. I now think that the crash was so hard because I spent so many weeks in denial. I talked myself out of remembering that, during my brief pregnancies, my babies had been very real to me. They were so real, from the moment I suspected I was pregnant. The loss of those little sparks of life inside me was something I felt keenly in the moment, but tried to move on from almost instantly.
When I experienced that emotional crash, I began searching the internet for help. One thing I found was that some people name the babies they miscarry. This was an entirely new idea for me, but it resonated. Still, I struggled with my belief that the soul(s) of my babies would be back, that I hadn't really "lost" them. I don't remember how long it took, but after a while I realized that I wouldn't be naming the soul. Just like my name IRL refers to me in this particular physical body, the names I would be giving my Dream Babies would refer to them in the physical body they were building during that incarnation. Even if Astin and Ember were incarnations of the same soul, each would have had a unique personality. One might even have been a boy and the other a girl, and they could still have been the same soul, trying to incarnate.
Naming each physical manifestation, each potential to be a unique individual, allowed me to grieve the loss of those potential children far more fully and effectively. It took time. I had to learn how to grieve, and how to cope with my grief. There were many other issues to complicate my experience, and many other reasons why the emotional processing of my first two miscarriages kept me from seeking treatment for four long months. Still, this one, simple thing, naming my babies, had a huge impact.
Nine months later, when I had, for the most part, made peace with what had happened, when I was feeling hopeful and ready to try again, I found that I had fallen pregnant* a cycle too soon. When I miscarried a third time, I made the choice to actively grieve, to not allow myself to spend weeks in denial, but to access and address the pain of my loss on a regular basis. I think that naming Poppy right away made a big difference. In acknowledging her uniqueness, and her reality, I gave myself something concrete to grieve for, an object, a focus for my grief. It gives me a direction for my painful feelings, and helps me to allow myself to feel them without allowing them to completely engulf me.
Don't get me wrong, grief is never easy, and knowing what is coming only makes me want to avoid the pain. My only hope is that, by not allowing myself to spend too much time, at a time, in denial, I will process these painful emotions a little more quickly, a little more fully, and begin feeling hopeful and being ready to try again sooner than if I tried to deny and ignore and avoid the grieving process, just because it hurts.
*I love the phrase "fell pregnant" or "fallen pregnant". First, it's very British, and I have a thing for British stuff. Second, it's a pretty accurate description of what happens to me. I really do "fall pregnant". If only I could figure out how to stay pregnant, then, perhaps I could get a baby out of all this "falling".
In the first weeks following my first two miscarriages, I didn't actively grieve. I followed my old belief system (my pre-miscarriage belief system) and told myself that miscarriage is common and probably for the best since there was probably something wrong with the baby(ies). I also firmly believed (and still believe) in re-incarnation, and by extension I believe that the soul(s) of the babies I miscarried were meant to incarnate as my children, and that they would be back. These two beliefs made me think that I shouldn't grieve. I believed that since a) miscarriage was for the best, and b) the soul(s) of my babies were not lost to me and would be back when the timing was better, there was no reason to mourn. All I had to do was wait, and do a bit more preparation for their reappearance.
Those beliefs carried me through exactly one cycle after my second miscarriage. On CD1 after my second loss, I went to pieces. I now think that the crash was so hard because I spent so many weeks in denial. I talked myself out of remembering that, during my brief pregnancies, my babies had been very real to me. They were so real, from the moment I suspected I was pregnant. The loss of those little sparks of life inside me was something I felt keenly in the moment, but tried to move on from almost instantly.
When I experienced that emotional crash, I began searching the internet for help. One thing I found was that some people name the babies they miscarry. This was an entirely new idea for me, but it resonated. Still, I struggled with my belief that the soul(s) of my babies would be back, that I hadn't really "lost" them. I don't remember how long it took, but after a while I realized that I wouldn't be naming the soul. Just like my name IRL refers to me in this particular physical body, the names I would be giving my Dream Babies would refer to them in the physical body they were building during that incarnation. Even if Astin and Ember were incarnations of the same soul, each would have had a unique personality. One might even have been a boy and the other a girl, and they could still have been the same soul, trying to incarnate.
Naming each physical manifestation, each potential to be a unique individual, allowed me to grieve the loss of those potential children far more fully and effectively. It took time. I had to learn how to grieve, and how to cope with my grief. There were many other issues to complicate my experience, and many other reasons why the emotional processing of my first two miscarriages kept me from seeking treatment for four long months. Still, this one, simple thing, naming my babies, had a huge impact.
Nine months later, when I had, for the most part, made peace with what had happened, when I was feeling hopeful and ready to try again, I found that I had fallen pregnant* a cycle too soon. When I miscarried a third time, I made the choice to actively grieve, to not allow myself to spend weeks in denial, but to access and address the pain of my loss on a regular basis. I think that naming Poppy right away made a big difference. In acknowledging her uniqueness, and her reality, I gave myself something concrete to grieve for, an object, a focus for my grief. It gives me a direction for my painful feelings, and helps me to allow myself to feel them without allowing them to completely engulf me.
Don't get me wrong, grief is never easy, and knowing what is coming only makes me want to avoid the pain. My only hope is that, by not allowing myself to spend too much time, at a time, in denial, I will process these painful emotions a little more quickly, a little more fully, and begin feeling hopeful and being ready to try again sooner than if I tried to deny and ignore and avoid the grieving process, just because it hurts.
*I love the phrase "fell pregnant" or "fallen pregnant". First, it's very British, and I have a thing for British stuff. Second, it's a pretty accurate description of what happens to me. I really do "fall pregnant". If only I could figure out how to stay pregnant, then, perhaps I could get a baby out of all this "falling".
Sunday, November 7
Adoption vs. ART Part II
In re-reading my last post and thinking about it for a couple of days, I realized that I have more to say about adoption and ART. First, adoption is still a viable option in my mind. Even with all the drawbacks I mentioned in my previous post, I am completely open to adoption. Also, when I said that it is lower on my list than it was 6 months ago, that doesn't mean it's at the bottom of the list. It's just that 6 months ago, it was at the top of my list of family building options if going au natural didn't work. Some of the reason it moved down this list is due to learning that adopting has drawbacks I didn't see before, but it also has to do with learning more about ART.
What I've learned about ART in the past 6 months is that there are many levels of assisted reproduction. Honestly, up until the past 6 to 9 months the only thing I knew about was IVF. I thought you either managed to get pregnant through BD or you had IVF done. I'd never heard of Clo.mid or IUI or Met.formin or anything else on the pre-IVF spectrum. So I thought that if I couldn't get pregnant on my own, my only choices would be to either spend $$$ on IVF with no guarantees (I knew that it doesn't work every cycle) or spend even more $$$ on adoption with a higher chance of ending up with a baby. (Very naive--I know.)
I also didn't know about the weird, middle road of infertility, where a couple is fertile enough to get pregnant, but not fertile enough to stay pregnant. Honestly, it is one of the most in-between scenarios I can imagine. It's really hard to know where you fit--almost too fertile to be an IFer, but not quite fertile enough to relate to most BLMs. Multiple miscarriages from spontaneous pregnancies seems to me to be the least represented form of infertility. At least, I haven't met many other people, on-line or IRL, who've had multiple miscarriages without also needing help getting pregnant in the first place. So that possibility didn't even occur to me before it happened.
Since my miscarriages, I have learned that there are several levels of ART that women go through before IVF becomes their best/only option. I've also learned that getting pregnant and staying pregnant are two different issues, with some treatments being different and others being the same or similar. For example: I've been diagnosed with polycystic ovaries caused by insulin resistance, but I still ovulate on my own and I don't have the most common outward markers of PCOS. Someone with PCOS might need more help getting pregnant, but she and I would probably both benefit from Met.formin. Another example is clotting disorders. They don't stop you from getting pregnant, but they can cause a host of complications once you are pregnant. However, no matter which complications they experience, women with the same clotting disorder usually have similar treatment regimens.
I've also learned about immunology, and the role it plays in fertility. Sometimes it seems to prevent conception entirely, other times, it causes the mother's body to reject all the babies she does manage to conceive. I'm still researching that area, but I'm becoming more and more convinced that it's worth finding out if my immune system is causing problems. I can't imagine how much I would kick myself if I had another preventable miscarriage, just because I didn't follow through and do the immunology testing before getting pregnant again.
So my ideas about what tests and treatments are worth my while have really changed. Knowledge has played a huge role in my attitude shift. I still consider adoption to be a viable option. If having a full term pregnancy turns out to be very traumatic for me, or if I end up having a condition that leaves me with very few options for being able to carry to term, I would absolutely consider adoption. At this point in my life, I would rather adopt than live child free (though I think that is a valid option for those who choose it, as well). However, since I have learned that there are ways of treating infertility that are less invasive than IVF, and since I still want to know what it is like to be pregnant and give birth, I've mentally moved adoption down from it's former place as my second choice family building option, to somewhere in the middle of the scale. I'm still not sure I'd go as far as to do IUI or IVF. At this point, it doesn't quite make sense to me, since I've already conceived without assistance. But I am willing to take medication, even if it means giving up my dream of a homebirth, so I can at least have a chance at a biological child.
There is one more aspect to my change in perspective and my shift in values, and that is the emotional side of pregnancy loss. But I'll save that for another post--this one is long enough.
What I've learned about ART in the past 6 months is that there are many levels of assisted reproduction. Honestly, up until the past 6 to 9 months the only thing I knew about was IVF. I thought you either managed to get pregnant through BD or you had IVF done. I'd never heard of Clo.mid or IUI or Met.formin or anything else on the pre-IVF spectrum. So I thought that if I couldn't get pregnant on my own, my only choices would be to either spend $$$ on IVF with no guarantees (I knew that it doesn't work every cycle) or spend even more $$$ on adoption with a higher chance of ending up with a baby. (Very naive--I know.)
I also didn't know about the weird, middle road of infertility, where a couple is fertile enough to get pregnant, but not fertile enough to stay pregnant. Honestly, it is one of the most in-between scenarios I can imagine. It's really hard to know where you fit--almost too fertile to be an IFer, but not quite fertile enough to relate to most BLMs. Multiple miscarriages from spontaneous pregnancies seems to me to be the least represented form of infertility. At least, I haven't met many other people, on-line or IRL, who've had multiple miscarriages without also needing help getting pregnant in the first place. So that possibility didn't even occur to me before it happened.
Since my miscarriages, I have learned that there are several levels of ART that women go through before IVF becomes their best/only option. I've also learned that getting pregnant and staying pregnant are two different issues, with some treatments being different and others being the same or similar. For example: I've been diagnosed with polycystic ovaries caused by insulin resistance, but I still ovulate on my own and I don't have the most common outward markers of PCOS. Someone with PCOS might need more help getting pregnant, but she and I would probably both benefit from Met.formin. Another example is clotting disorders. They don't stop you from getting pregnant, but they can cause a host of complications once you are pregnant. However, no matter which complications they experience, women with the same clotting disorder usually have similar treatment regimens.
I've also learned about immunology, and the role it plays in fertility. Sometimes it seems to prevent conception entirely, other times, it causes the mother's body to reject all the babies she does manage to conceive. I'm still researching that area, but I'm becoming more and more convinced that it's worth finding out if my immune system is causing problems. I can't imagine how much I would kick myself if I had another preventable miscarriage, just because I didn't follow through and do the immunology testing before getting pregnant again.
So my ideas about what tests and treatments are worth my while have really changed. Knowledge has played a huge role in my attitude shift. I still consider adoption to be a viable option. If having a full term pregnancy turns out to be very traumatic for me, or if I end up having a condition that leaves me with very few options for being able to carry to term, I would absolutely consider adoption. At this point in my life, I would rather adopt than live child free (though I think that is a valid option for those who choose it, as well). However, since I have learned that there are ways of treating infertility that are less invasive than IVF, and since I still want to know what it is like to be pregnant and give birth, I've mentally moved adoption down from it's former place as my second choice family building option, to somewhere in the middle of the scale. I'm still not sure I'd go as far as to do IUI or IVF. At this point, it doesn't quite make sense to me, since I've already conceived without assistance. But I am willing to take medication, even if it means giving up my dream of a homebirth, so I can at least have a chance at a biological child.
There is one more aspect to my change in perspective and my shift in values, and that is the emotional side of pregnancy loss. But I'll save that for another post--this one is long enough.
Friday, November 5
Adoption vs. ART
This is a subject I have been thinking about for some time, and my opinions have changed as I have learned more about both sides of the story. I consider both to be legitimate ways of family building, and neither to be superior to the other. However, both have their advantages and drawbacks and individual perceptions of these advantages and drawbacks will vary, influencing each couple's decision of how to build their family. This post is about my opinions, past and present, naive and more informed. It is about my current opinions. I might change my mind later. Please bare that in mind as you read, particularly if you found this post in my archives.
As an uninformed young adult, I thought that if my (then future) husband and I had any trouble getting pregnant, we'd adopt. My thinking went something like this: There are so many children in the world who need good homes, why not adopt one of them instead of spending thousands of dollars on invasive medical treatments that might not even work? I also thought I'd be open to adopting an older child. I've always loved kids of any age, and I thought it would be quicker to adopt an older child than an infant. I was so set on home birth that I thought I'd rather adopt than end up with a high-risk pregnancy that required a hospital delivery. Looking back now, I think that I was very naive.
It wasn't until I had two miscarriages and started seriously researching adoption that my thoughts began to change. I learned of the difficulties that often occur in adoptions where the children "older". I learned that there are levels of what is considered "older" in adoptable children. I learned about how the foster care system's focus on reunification can create situations where, by the time parental rights are terminated, the child has so many issues he or she is no longer considered adoptable. I learned that even with infant adoptions, the child will grow up with questions about why he or she was placed for adoption. I learned how these questions can create problems when the adoption is "closed". I learned that "open" adoption is available and generally a positive experience, but that it can have it's challenges as well.
I also learned about all the investigations and paperwork and classes and so forth that are required before an adoption can take place. I learned about homestudies, fire marshal inspections, and background checks, and about age, income and space requirements. I realized that the adoption process is just as invasive as the medical process, only instead of testing and treating your body for fitness for pregnancy, the adoption process tests your lifestyle and evaluates whether you are fit to be parents. I found out that the adoption process is its own emotional roller coaster.
I began to realize that, although it may take less time to adopt an "older" child, that child may have sever issues that the family will continue to deal with indefinitely. I realized that, even in the ideal situation of an open adoption, there will be challenges specific to the child having been adopted, along with all the normal challenges of raising any child. These challenges won't all be parenting challenges. Adoptive parents and their children will have to deal with uninformed people, both strangers and friends/family. They may face prejudice or insensitivity. They will also have to consider the child's birth parents and their desires to stay in touch. Even if this goes completely smoothly, it is something that parents of a biological child don't even have to consider.
As I learned all these things, I began to see some of the attraction of finding a way to have my own biological child. Yes, the process of testing and treatment might be invasive. Yes it would be an emotional roller coaster. Yes it might risk me out of a homebirth. But once my baby was born, many the "extra" challenges would be over. (They probably wouldn't be entirely over. I haven't researched parenting after infertility much yet, but I'm guessing it brings its own challenges . . . ) I would be much like any other biological parent, regardless of how my child was conceived.
So I began to think that maybe, just maybe, the invasive testing and treatment, the possibility of a hospital birth instead of a homebirth, and all the emotional challenges would be worth it to have a child that was mine, biologically. I know that an adopted child would still be mine, but I also began to see the advantages of at least giving ART a try. So here I am, preparing to use the services of a doctor, a midwife, and an acupuncturist to get pregnant and stay pregnant. I may still decide to adopt, if testing turns up an obstacle that I'm not willing to try to surmount. But it's lower on my list of choices than it was 6 months ago. Part of the change is due to more information about the adoption process itself, but a lot of it has to do with learning more about what I want and what I'm willing to sacrifice to make my dreams come true.
As an uninformed young adult, I thought that if my (then future) husband and I had any trouble getting pregnant, we'd adopt. My thinking went something like this: There are so many children in the world who need good homes, why not adopt one of them instead of spending thousands of dollars on invasive medical treatments that might not even work? I also thought I'd be open to adopting an older child. I've always loved kids of any age, and I thought it would be quicker to adopt an older child than an infant. I was so set on home birth that I thought I'd rather adopt than end up with a high-risk pregnancy that required a hospital delivery. Looking back now, I think that I was very naive.
It wasn't until I had two miscarriages and started seriously researching adoption that my thoughts began to change. I learned of the difficulties that often occur in adoptions where the children "older". I learned that there are levels of what is considered "older" in adoptable children. I learned about how the foster care system's focus on reunification can create situations where, by the time parental rights are terminated, the child has so many issues he or she is no longer considered adoptable. I learned that even with infant adoptions, the child will grow up with questions about why he or she was placed for adoption. I learned how these questions can create problems when the adoption is "closed". I learned that "open" adoption is available and generally a positive experience, but that it can have it's challenges as well.
I also learned about all the investigations and paperwork and classes and so forth that are required before an adoption can take place. I learned about homestudies, fire marshal inspections, and background checks, and about age, income and space requirements. I realized that the adoption process is just as invasive as the medical process, only instead of testing and treating your body for fitness for pregnancy, the adoption process tests your lifestyle and evaluates whether you are fit to be parents. I found out that the adoption process is its own emotional roller coaster.
I began to realize that, although it may take less time to adopt an "older" child, that child may have sever issues that the family will continue to deal with indefinitely. I realized that, even in the ideal situation of an open adoption, there will be challenges specific to the child having been adopted, along with all the normal challenges of raising any child. These challenges won't all be parenting challenges. Adoptive parents and their children will have to deal with uninformed people, both strangers and friends/family. They may face prejudice or insensitivity. They will also have to consider the child's birth parents and their desires to stay in touch. Even if this goes completely smoothly, it is something that parents of a biological child don't even have to consider.
As I learned all these things, I began to see some of the attraction of finding a way to have my own biological child. Yes, the process of testing and treatment might be invasive. Yes it would be an emotional roller coaster. Yes it might risk me out of a homebirth. But once my baby was born, many the "extra" challenges would be over. (They probably wouldn't be entirely over. I haven't researched parenting after infertility much yet, but I'm guessing it brings its own challenges . . . ) I would be much like any other biological parent, regardless of how my child was conceived.
So I began to think that maybe, just maybe, the invasive testing and treatment, the possibility of a hospital birth instead of a homebirth, and all the emotional challenges would be worth it to have a child that was mine, biologically. I know that an adopted child would still be mine, but I also began to see the advantages of at least giving ART a try. So here I am, preparing to use the services of a doctor, a midwife, and an acupuncturist to get pregnant and stay pregnant. I may still decide to adopt, if testing turns up an obstacle that I'm not willing to try to surmount. But it's lower on my list of choices than it was 6 months ago. Part of the change is due to more information about the adoption process itself, but a lot of it has to do with learning more about what I want and what I'm willing to sacrifice to make my dreams come true.
Thursday, October 28
Anger at God, Questioning, and Other Things BLM's Do
Several people have been posting about this lately, so I thought I'd join the conversation. You can read the posts that inspired me here and here. I found myself making similar comments on both posts, so I thought I'd turn my thoughts into a post.
First, I'll admit that I ask "Why me!!?" a lot. Why did I grow up with the desire for lots of babies (I wanted so many that I planned to start having them as soon as I finished collage), and then not meet my Mr. Right (DH) until I was in my mid 20's? Why do some people who aren't even planning babies get pregnant and carry to term so easily, while I have two back to back miscarriages when I'm (finally) ready to conceive and prepared to raise a child? Why would I be given the kind of personality that would make me want to have a home birth like my mom, and then (maybe) end up with some condition that causes miscarriages unless I use a treatment that will risk me out of home birth? In case you haven't picked up on it yet, there are a lot of It's-Not-Fair!'s flying around with the "Why me!!?" stuff.
But when I think about all of this more rationally, sometimes I think I must have needed to learn something from the experience. I try to look for the lesson and learn it. I think experiencing two miscarriages has given me more compassion, and it's harder for me to be quite as judgmental now towards other people as I used to be. I try to accept the life I'm living right now and look for bright spots. And when I feel resentful of parents with living children, I try to remind myself that I don't know their story. I comfort myself with the thought that 1 in 4 women experience at least one miscarriage, and 1 in 8 couples experience infertility. Even though I wouldn't wish my pain on anyone else, it is still comforting to know that I am not actually all that rare, and that there are other women out there who can commiserate.
Nevertheless, I still avoid most moms with living children. My envy and resentment are too close to the surface, and I'm not a masochist. I stick to the few people who know my story and are understanding and supportive.
I also keep looking for answers to why this happened. Biological answers. Ones that involve a concrete, treatable cause of miscarriage. My life is one big question right now. I just don't know why I miscarried two babies. Mostly I am just learning to live with that question in the back of my head. "Why did it happen? Was it a clotting disorder? Immunology? Structural problems? Hormonal imbalance? Something else? Will testing reveal a cause? Will that cause be treatable? Etc. ad infinitum. I'm realizing that life is a lot more uncertain than I ever realized it was. And I'm trying to let go of controlling more than what I do in this moment. I'm trying to allow myself to act with hope for the future and still accept that the future may unfold in unexpected ways.
In terms of faith and God, I believe that there must be a plan for my life that is so big I can't see or understand it from a human perspective. That doesn't stop me from getting really angry at God sometimes. Personally, I think it's normal to be mad at God in situations like this, and that God can probably handle my anger better than if I directed it at myself or another person. So I don't beat myself up if sometimes I'm angry at God.
Do you struggle with these kind of questions/issues? And if you do, what has helped you cope with them so far? I'm really interested in how other people deal with these issues. From what I've read in other people's posts and the comments on them, although the emotions/struggles/issues are often similar, coping methods can be very different from one person to the next.
First, I'll admit that I ask "Why me!!?" a lot. Why did I grow up with the desire for lots of babies (I wanted so many that I planned to start having them as soon as I finished collage), and then not meet my Mr. Right (DH) until I was in my mid 20's? Why do some people who aren't even planning babies get pregnant and carry to term so easily, while I have two back to back miscarriages when I'm (finally) ready to conceive and prepared to raise a child? Why would I be given the kind of personality that would make me want to have a home birth like my mom, and then (maybe) end up with some condition that causes miscarriages unless I use a treatment that will risk me out of home birth? In case you haven't picked up on it yet, there are a lot of It's-Not-Fair!'s flying around with the "Why me!!?" stuff.
But when I think about all of this more rationally, sometimes I think I must have needed to learn something from the experience. I try to look for the lesson and learn it. I think experiencing two miscarriages has given me more compassion, and it's harder for me to be quite as judgmental now towards other people as I used to be. I try to accept the life I'm living right now and look for bright spots. And when I feel resentful of parents with living children, I try to remind myself that I don't know their story. I comfort myself with the thought that 1 in 4 women experience at least one miscarriage, and 1 in 8 couples experience infertility. Even though I wouldn't wish my pain on anyone else, it is still comforting to know that I am not actually all that rare, and that there are other women out there who can commiserate.
Nevertheless, I still avoid most moms with living children. My envy and resentment are too close to the surface, and I'm not a masochist. I stick to the few people who know my story and are understanding and supportive.
I also keep looking for answers to why this happened. Biological answers. Ones that involve a concrete, treatable cause of miscarriage. My life is one big question right now. I just don't know why I miscarried two babies. Mostly I am just learning to live with that question in the back of my head. "Why did it happen? Was it a clotting disorder? Immunology? Structural problems? Hormonal imbalance? Something else? Will testing reveal a cause? Will that cause be treatable? Etc. ad infinitum. I'm realizing that life is a lot more uncertain than I ever realized it was. And I'm trying to let go of controlling more than what I do in this moment. I'm trying to allow myself to act with hope for the future and still accept that the future may unfold in unexpected ways.
In terms of faith and God, I believe that there must be a plan for my life that is so big I can't see or understand it from a human perspective. That doesn't stop me from getting really angry at God sometimes. Personally, I think it's normal to be mad at God in situations like this, and that God can probably handle my anger better than if I directed it at myself or another person. So I don't beat myself up if sometimes I'm angry at God.
Do you struggle with these kind of questions/issues? And if you do, what has helped you cope with them so far? I'm really interested in how other people deal with these issues. From what I've read in other people's posts and the comments on them, although the emotions/struggles/issues are often similar, coping methods can be very different from one person to the next.
Monday, October 11
Paradigm Collision
I am reeling. It's as if there has been some kind of internal value-system earthquake. There is some major internal upheaval going on and the shock waves are really effecting my emotional state. And not in a good way.
I went to see the first in a series of specialists today. I plan to consult at least three doctors before making any decisions. It was both good and bad. On the good side, he took his time, answered all my questions, and ordered the tests to find out if I have FVL or another clotting disorder. But on the bad side, he's still a doctor, and as his patient, I would give up a good deal of my autonomy in exchange for treatment that could save my next baby. It really brought home to me the fact that I'll have to undo years and years of mental programming before I can come to terms with the realities of OB-managed prenatal care & hospital birth.
That programming started when I was very young. For as long as I can remember, I've known the story of how I was born at home. Around that story, I formed the beliefs that birth is natural and normal and home birth is better than hospital birth. (Very idealistic and black & white, I know. I see that now.) As a young adult, I became fascinated with birth, and for a while I studied home birth midwifery. I even spent a few months working as a birth doula in hospitals and apprenticing with a local midwife before deciding that midwifery wasn't the right career for me. However, I got to compare the realities of home birth versus hospital birth first hand, and these experiences only intensified my desire to have my own babies at home.
Now, if it turns out that FVL is indeed the culprit that caused my miscarriages, I'll be planning a hospital birth instead. Because I know I can't face the emotional pain of another unnecessary loss, when there is treatment available. Instead, I'm going to face the emotional turmoil of rearranging my whole value system when it comes to pregnancy and birth. Which is going to be very hard to do, because I can't just slap on the new belief The Most Important Thing is a Healthy, Living Baby; I also have to root out the old belief that Home Birth is Best and all the little off-shoots of it. There are so many off-shoots. Many of them are even based on solid research. But since that research was done on healthy women, it won't apply to me if I have FVL.
I never thought I'd be here. I know, I've said that before, but tonight I'm hurting, and I could use some support. Even if you can't understand my desire for a home birth, I hope you can understand that it's the colliding of paradigms, and the upheaval in my value system that hurts so much. I don't know how to successfully make this 180 degree shift. All I know is that I need to if I am going to stay sane. The truth is, my values have changed, having a healthy baby is more important to me now than where I give birth. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean it's easy to let go of the old dreams.
I went to see the first in a series of specialists today. I plan to consult at least three doctors before making any decisions. It was both good and bad. On the good side, he took his time, answered all my questions, and ordered the tests to find out if I have FVL or another clotting disorder. But on the bad side, he's still a doctor, and as his patient, I would give up a good deal of my autonomy in exchange for treatment that could save my next baby. It really brought home to me the fact that I'll have to undo years and years of mental programming before I can come to terms with the realities of OB-managed prenatal care & hospital birth.
That programming started when I was very young. For as long as I can remember, I've known the story of how I was born at home. Around that story, I formed the beliefs that birth is natural and normal and home birth is better than hospital birth. (Very idealistic and black & white, I know. I see that now.) As a young adult, I became fascinated with birth, and for a while I studied home birth midwifery. I even spent a few months working as a birth doula in hospitals and apprenticing with a local midwife before deciding that midwifery wasn't the right career for me. However, I got to compare the realities of home birth versus hospital birth first hand, and these experiences only intensified my desire to have my own babies at home.
Now, if it turns out that FVL is indeed the culprit that caused my miscarriages, I'll be planning a hospital birth instead. Because I know I can't face the emotional pain of another unnecessary loss, when there is treatment available. Instead, I'm going to face the emotional turmoil of rearranging my whole value system when it comes to pregnancy and birth. Which is going to be very hard to do, because I can't just slap on the new belief The Most Important Thing is a Healthy, Living Baby; I also have to root out the old belief that Home Birth is Best and all the little off-shoots of it. There are so many off-shoots. Many of them are even based on solid research. But since that research was done on healthy women, it won't apply to me if I have FVL.
I never thought I'd be here. I know, I've said that before, but tonight I'm hurting, and I could use some support. Even if you can't understand my desire for a home birth, I hope you can understand that it's the colliding of paradigms, and the upheaval in my value system that hurts so much. I don't know how to successfully make this 180 degree shift. All I know is that I need to if I am going to stay sane. The truth is, my values have changed, having a healthy baby is more important to me now than where I give birth. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean it's easy to let go of the old dreams.
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