Same old stuff

Disclaimer. I'm beginning to sound like a broken record. Ok, still sounding like a broken record. If you're tired of hearing it about how pre-partum depressed I am and the same tired reasons, don't feel like you have to read. I'm questioning the wisdom of continuing to blog in these last weeks because it's become clear to me that my fears are entrenched and my mood isn't changing.

I'm still in a four-month funk. Smack dab in the middle I guess. I still feel a little distanced from the pregnancy. Everything seems on track. Everything seems fine. No one is worried about my baby except me. But still, the funk persists. I feel like I did when I was approaching the NT scan. So nervous that it was making me upset. So upset that I had to just forget that I was pregnant for a while. Little harder to do now with the LO kicking and squirming and my baby shower on the horizon and everyone's well-wishes and comments and stories. I am clearly a pregnant person now. Visually. Physically. There's a baby in there. I can feel him. I know about where his arms and legs are. I can identify limbs by where I'm getting socked. I can even feel his little feet through layers of belly. It's amazing. It thrills me. But I can't let go.

This week when a work acquaintance that I hadn't seen in over a year asked me (not wanting to be too forward) "what's new?" I talked about how hot it's getting. Not about the baby. What's wrong with me? I haven't put a single post up about my pregnancy on FB. I could say it's because I'm trying to be sensitive, but the truth is I'm just scared. Scared to count my chickens.

I just had my 32-week appointment. Fundal height is 32. Baby's head is down. Heartbeat sounded slower to me, w/ no accelerations, but sounded fine to the OBG. We didn't listen very long. The baby was being pretty quiet and I know the hb slows as the pregnancy progresses. The kid won't have a rate of 150 his whole life. But every time she says something's fine I have flashbacks to a year ago when she was telling me that my elevated HCG of 44 several months post-miscarriage must be the result of a second pregnancy. When the level was still 44 two days later she was convinced we had caught the hormone levels at 44 going up and then again at 44 going back down two days later. A second failed pregnancy, she concluded. Now I understand that when you hear hoofbeats you should look for horses and not zebras. But when you're on safari and you hear hoofbeats and then you see stripes, and then you conclude that somone must have painted stripes on their horses, you are delusional. I'm worried about the lengths she goes to to convince me that everything is fine. I want to believe her and everyone else telling me not to worry. I can't.

Instead I make desperate attemtps to control the other aspects of my life and my pregnancy making myself and everyone around me somewhat miserable. Example: my parents made me a sandwhich with lettuce from their garden the other day. I wouldn't eat it, I found the tinyest speck of dirt after a careful examination and concluded that if I took a bite I'd be fretting about toxoplasmosis for the next two months. Another example: I had been planning a mani/pedi trip with some girlfriends - I had been looking forward to it for ages and I was the one making all the arrangements. And a couple days before the trip one of my friends asked, in all innocence and sensitivity, are you sure you want to go? Implying that I might be concerned about fumes or something. I went from super excited to hopelessly fixated on the tiny possibilities that something could go wrong - bacteria, infection...PTL, fetal demise, I couldn't stop my brain from going there. And even though I've had two pedi's during this pregnancy I suddenly couldn't cope with the idea of going. At the last minute I made up some excuse about having to work. This is depression. Paranoia. Anxiety. I'm pretty sure I'm a good candidate for a 'peace-of-mind' amnio or anti-anxiety meds. But I'm so close. I'm going to suffer through. And if I get a chance to hold a healthy baby in my arms I will know it was all worth it.

I keep telling myself that we'd know something by now. If something serious was wrong, there would be signs by now. We've come so far and everything is SO on track. But then I realize that's how it goes in a lot of tragic stories. There is always a tragic story to match my experience. I go on google sometimes just to get a 'fix' of reassurance. There are so many good stories out there. But there are some bad ones too and sometimes I get bitten in the a$$. I'm kind of over it though, it's getting so close and so real that no one else's stories are going to matter soon. Because I will know the ending to my own. I won't have to rely on statistics or signs. I will know.

It's hard to keep up the charade of bliss. It really feels like I'm pretending when I'm talking about daycare options or things I'm planning to buy for the baby. My SIL is making my shower quite the event and it makes my stomach turn a little. She's having her husband hang awnings on the house! ??? And she and my mom have been out shopping a couple times just for decorations, favors, etc. They are so excited. I wish I was. This is all I ever wanted. But at the heart of it, I want my baby to be healthy.

The bigger he gets and the closer I get to meeting him, the more practical I've become. He is my baby. No matter what. I love him. And I will take care of him. What scares me is the thought of losing a baby, watching my baby suffer, and what that would mean for my life. My marriage. My family. It happens.

I try to tell myself that I'm worried about nothing. An infinitesimal chance. Try to tell myself that some people without a CPC on their baby have a higher chance that theirs will have T18 than I do, just by virtue of their age or because their screening results didn't turn out quite as perfectly as mine did. I try to tell myself that no one has a guarantee, not me and not the women who are enjoying their pregnancies and their showers and decorating their nurseries. I try to tell myself that I'd be worried even absent the CPC. Worried yes. Depressed no. I'm a different person than I would be if I knew all was fine. If the biggest things I had to worry about were labor pain, not eating raw cheese and avoiding car accidents.

In other interesting news, my OBG, the one whose piss-poor handling of my miscarriage and GTD has haunted me for a year, that I haven't managed to break free from, is going to be gone for three weeks in august. Sabbatical. Chances are that she won't deliver me (score). AND, it also means that I'll be getting a different obg for those weekly appointments leading up to the birth. Which means a second opinion on just about anything I want to ask about (ahem, CPC). Losing your OBG at the end stages and having an unknown in that role would probably terrify most women. I, on the other hand, am thrilled.