Pre-partum depression

I've fallen out of love with pregnancy. I feel of course indescribably fortunate to even be pregnant, I feel so very lucky to get to feel my baby kicking and to be displaying a little bump. I still can't quite believe it's happened to me on most days. I still can't get over having a reason to take prenatals and use belly oil. I even had a couple weeks of sheer joy between 19 and 20, thinking I'm out of the first trimester woods. Everything is going well, I. am. happy. But things have been different since my last appointment.

I've been able to digest the news of the CPC with some semblance of grace, I think. I'm not running in for more tests (so far) or crying myself to sleep (very often). I'm done googling (mostly). I'm choosing to trust the doctors, have some faith, and move on. But after almost two weeks of letting that all sink in, I'm starting to realize, things will never be the same. My pregnancy is not going back to normal. It's like when we enter this community in the first place, when we loose the state of ignorant bliss in the throes of something going wrong - be it infertility or miscarriages or whatever it is that draws us down to the deep end.

It's not that I'm not hopeful. I fully grasp that the odds are in my favor that my baby is fine. My current attitude about it all is that "The baby is probably fine. He might not be, but he probably is. That's the case for pretty much everyone who goes through pregnancy. There is nothing I can do about it. I just have to keep going." I even went as far as ordering nursery bedding and decorations. But compare that to a long cheerful post I had almost completed about nursery themes and decisions and ideas and excitement that I had almost completed when I found out about the CPC. I'm not posting it now. It doesn't reflect how I feel anymore. Sometimes I feel like I made the order 'just in case.' Just in case my baby is ok. Just in case he makes it into my arms, out of the hospital, and stays with us for a while.

Christ, the decorations are even gender neutral. DH lobbied for this all along, thinking if it's gender-neutral we could use it for our next baby. I kind of wanted something for the boy that he'd really like for a number of years (most gender-neutral themes, I've noticed, will probably be outgrown (especially by a boy) in about 2 years), it would be his room after all, and we'd probably want a new theme if and when we had a second child.

But things feel different now. Gender neutral seems the way to go for a lot of reasons.

I've been resistant to planning for the arrival. In the first half of the pregnancy it just felt premature. Then I got to 18 weeks, 19....cue the flurry of planning and decisions and signing up for classes, I even registered for a few things, I was even nesting I think - I cooked a lot more and hand some angst about getting things clean and ready... And then the CPC revealed itself and now I feel like I've stagnated again. I feel sluggish about coming up with a list for my shower, lazy about remodeling our two spare rooms, about finishing the registry.

I feel like I want to retreat back into forgetting it all for a while. My face doesn't light up anymore when someone notices I'm expecting. I AM expecting, I am excited, but it's a more muted excitement. Because I've made a little unexpected journey into the world of being on the wrong side of the statistics. I hate when I read something like, "CPC's are really common, they happen in about 1 out of every 100 second trimester ultrasounds. And don't worry, because there's a 99% chance that the baby is fine!" So a 1% that he's not. I thought 1 in 100 was so common (it is). I just lost that bet. How am I supposed to get excited about having to make it again? I think the chances are more like 1:400 if nothing else is known. And with my NT results they're probably even better for me. But I'm losing patience with numbers.

I feel like an imposter again. Smiling and nodding during those conversations that involve day care experiences and advice on what to register for. I'm putting off more and more decisions until after the birth. I suppose I will smile and nod through my shower and my baby prep classes too. And I will hope. But I feel like I've lost some crucial part of me that allows in joy. I hope to regain some of it as the pregnancy progresses. T18 in boys is pretty destructive, I hope I can take some solace in making the usual milestones because my chances do get better with each passing day. Each kick and each weigh-in and measurement. My hope is that if all goes at least normally from here on out and I show up at the hospital at 40 weeks the first thought in my mind won't be this damn CPC. I hope by then I'm even more over it. Even if I won't be able to relax until I have that baby in my arms.

And it's not that I'm anxious to find out because it would change my mind about the course of this pregnancy. I of course can't bear the thought of watching my baby go through prolonged suffering but he is his own little being. I'm not religious but I love my baby and he is quite alive and kicking and for me the only option is to let nature take its course at this point and do everything I can to make sure this little guy feels loved and comforted his whole life. If I found out tomorrow that he had T18 it wouldn't change my mind about going to term and meeting him and doing whatever I could to cherish the time we have together. I'm just anxious to know because I want to know what to expect. How to prepare. This is not like waiting to find out if it's a boy or girl. Or waiting to find out what color hair he has or even whether he has an extra digit or a deformed toe. It's waiting to find out whether I will have a healthy child or whether his life will be difficult and short. I realize nothing is guaranteed, I could lose a healthy child in childbirth and T18 babies sometimes survive for quite a while. But chances are, these are the possible outcomes I'm looking at. Chances are. Statistics seem so arbitrary sometimes.

Now a disclaimer. I realize, despite all this drama, that I may be making a mountain out of a mole hill. And I genuinely genuinely hope that I am. I hope this is nothing. But paranoid or not I am having a hard time digesting the information. And digesting the fact that I am going to have to 'sit with it' - without knowing a thing more, for four more months. I am really spilling my guts here, I'm being totally honest about how I feel, how my fears are running wild, and I think this is a place I can feel safe doing that. I made the mistake of being honest at lunch today with V and C and it was C (normally the one I consider my closer friend) who really hurt me. They both know about the CPC. C's first comment when I told her last week was 'how are you even at work!' - apparently she thought it would be well within reason for me to take a day off after such news. Neither of them are particularly concerned now that they know the full story and the remote odds. But it's MY baby, it's MY journey I have to weather the outcome so I still worry about remote odds. Excuuuuuse me.

C asked today at lunch whether I was enjoying the pregnancy at all, the belly etc. I said, honestly, I love feeling him kick, I don't mind the belly, but I'm not really enjoying the pregnancy anymore. Not since a couple weeks ago. Her response? Instead of being sympathetic she gets all psychoanalytical on me and goes, accusingly, "Do you ever enjoy worrying about things?" I felt wounded. I knew what she meant, she might as well have said "Astrid, I think you're just worrying about this so much 'cause you're bored." She thinks this falls into the category of "there's always something to worry about" and that I'm just not letting it go because on some subconscious level I want it that way. I think my face reflected the pain of realizing that not only didn't she understand, she seems to have wanted to use the situation to insult me or to inflate her own sense of self-worth. She was probably congratulating herself at first for being so direct! What I really needed in that moment was their reassurance "Oh Astrid, don't be ridiculous, this is nothing, you really need to stop worrying." But instead I get this alienating accusation - I'm making stuff up to worry about. She backpedaled at my response, "I mean not in a rude way, just, you know, like do you ever just have something to worry about just so, you know, you have something to think about..." I said incredulously, wind taken out of me "Yeah, I liked worrying about what nursery theme to pick out. This is different." I had a hard time looking her in the eye for the rest of the meal.

As a last thought (sorry I know this is dragging), I do appreciate the concept of pre-partum anxiety relating to post-partum depression. I am cognizant of the possibility - I was before this whole episode. I can be high-anxiety, I realize that about myself. But I also know about a phenomenon that a close friend of mine (who is similar to me in the hi-anxiety respect) went through and that I've always anticipated in myself - there is such a thing as post-partum relief. For a lot of people the stress comes once the baby arrives. For her, and I'd be willing to bet for me and others like us that there is a perverse sense of relief and well-being once the baby is out, safe and sound, once all facts are on the ground, once the mom has her body back and her baby is breathing air. Just thinking about the bliss that it would bring me to hear my baby cry for the first time makes me tear up. I know myself pretty well, and I have a feeling it will do nothing but good for my sanity to be with my baby when he's on the outside. I have a feeling it will improve the situation rather than make it worse. I hope I don't sound too "it can't happen to me." I never think that way anymore. Actually I don't think I ever did. So for me to have a confidence that it will be better on the other side says a lot. And it's encouraging. Just don't know what to do with myself for those long months in between. I told C (before today's lunch episode) that I would be trying to distract myself with work and TV. And that still sounds pretty good.