A little cheese with that whine?

Like Julie, I’ve been feeling reluctant to talk about how I’m doing. I’m not in that happy a place, and as I mentioned before, I have a sort of infertile’s version of “survivor’s guilt.” So don’t read any further if you don’t want to hear me whine a bit. I don't know how to do that cool hiding thing Julie did, so you'll just have to move to a different page if ya don't wanna read any more...

So I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m so resistant to the unbearable fatigue I’m currently experiencing from this pregnancy.

By resistant, I mean, that up until a few days ago I was still trying to do normal things, like work all day long, and walk the dogs, and go to my meetings and hang out afterwards until late on a weeknight. I just wasn’t willing to believe that the tiredness was real.

Even when I read in several books that the early symptoms of pregnancy like fatigue can be much worse when there is more than one fetus involved; even when I know that the amount of fertility hormones I’m still taking (3 2mg Estrace tablets a day, 2.5cc of Progesterone in Oil, and two ‘shots’ of progesterone gel daily) can create the symptoms all on their own, without an actual pregnancy to boot, I STILL think I can act normally.

I finally succumbed over the weekend, and didn’t push myself at all. My husband wanted to chase a train on Saturday, and while he photographed it, I slept in the car. Then we saw an early movie and were home at 8pm on Saturday night.

Sunday I was going to do nothing, just lay around and watch TV, but instead we went to our little secret swimming hole (it’s in a tiny corner of a huge national park) with friends, including the sixteen month old daughter of our neighbors (oh yeah, her mom came too) and that was nice and relaxing. We got home around 6pm and I fell asleep on the couch waiting for Six Feet Under to come on HBO (I did rouse for the show).

Yesterday I sought out an empty dorm room (thank god I work in a tiny college with the dorms right here) and crashed for my lunch hour.

Ironically, all this sleeping doesn’t make me feel any better. I still feel tired as hell, and I still feel utterly, horribly nauseous all the time (I lost four pounds last week, but that’s a good thing).

So, as I was saying, I’ve been trying to figure out why I was so resistant to all this sleeping, and I’ve finally figured it out.

It’s exactly like depression.

Well, maybe not the nausea, although when I’m depressed I tend to binge on horrible things (like Hot Chips with milk—yummy!) and feel gross from that too, so I guess it kind of is the same.

Contributing to this feeling of depression is my fear, and lack of acceptance, of my pregnancy. While I have moments where I look at merchandise on line, or spend an hour looking through those infernal baby name books, I am still holding my joy in reserve.

I’m not sure what I’m waiting for; although the main thing seems to be the CVS testing we’ll be doing in mid-August. I’m also awaiting my 8-week and 10 week scans, because I’m so sure one of the twins will vanish. I haven’t called the birth center we want to use, (if it’s twins, we will have to be in a hospital and not the center itself, but a midwife from the center will be with us and we’ll have a good chance of a vaginal delivery, plus they’ll do all the prenatal care) because there are so many uncertainties this early. I feel immobilized, like you do in a dream. I can’t seem to move forward.

Will I ever enjoy this pregnancy? Last night as I crawled up to bed I said to my husband, gloomily, “By the time these kids are born, I will have felt like hell for nearly two years, and then the babies will be here and I’ll never get to feel good again. My life is ruined.”

That’s the spirit, right? I can hear the groans of those of you that would give anything to be in my shoes right now. But it’s so hard to just put one foot in front of the other these days, and process all these feelings. I promise

Comments

[Anne]

1.

Cecily when you brought up that the pregnancy symptoms you’ve been feeling remind you a bit too much of depression all I could do was nod my head (not on the pg feelings at any rate just the depression ones). I wish I could offer some sort of advice or words of wisdom but all I can really say is I hear you. I’ve just recently come out of a depression episode that just left me paralyzed with indecision/fear, I felt so powerless and unable to make a choice/decision/a plan and some of the decisions that I felt that I needed to make also felt like they were out of my hands, they were things that were of the nature of; if this than this, and the waiting around for things to actually happen was killing me.

I really think that your resistance to accepting your pregnancy symptoms is just a means of protecting yourself, it’s like you are waiting for the other shoe to drop and the waiting is making you feel helpless because it seems that there is not a whole lot you can do about it. I don’t know, I mean I don’t want to sound all know it all or that I know what makes you tick. It is just that when I read your post well it made a lot of sense to me and I wanted to let you know that I don’t think what you are doing is strange or out there in anyway, in fact I think it is very normal especially given the circumstances. And like I said I hear you.

[laura]

2.

DO NOT Feel bad at all because it is not all hugs and puppies. I am sure that most women who have ever been pregnant have hte worry about how their lives will change. Why shouldn't you. Yes you have had to work much much harder but you are still entitled to feel down. I am not even PG but you get me tired and nausius and even King Kong would know to avoid me.

[Jen P]

3.

not a single groan at all. Just wishing the best for all involved and hoping that those dorm beds are soft!!

[Sam]

4.

I'm with Jen, not one groan. More like a "you go, girl". I had a dream I was pregnant last night, and in the dream I dared not say anything, for fear I would jinx it. It's like we have become so superstitious.
I know, for one, that you are loving your nausea and fatigue, even as you complain.

[Monica]

5.

I hope I don't sound like some know-it-all because I'm far from it, but please know that it does get a little better eventually. Now that I'm half way through this pregnancy, the good days outnumber the bad days. While I wish I could say I've enjoyed this pregnancy, I've mostly felt terrified. I think that's ok though. I can't do any better than I'm doing, you know?

[Sierra]

6.

You will enjoy this pregnancy...at some point. I too couldn't enjoy my pregnancy until I passed the point when the baby could live outside, and even then, I was freaked out about all the littl e things that can happen but probably won't. It also helped when i found out I was having a boy. It allowed me to bond in a whole new way.

Every morning I woke up sick, I swore I would never drink again. Then I realized I hadn't been drinking. I spent lots of days pissed I didn't get to enjoy the night before.

I always dreamed I left the baby home and went about my day before realizing later that night that I forgot to feed it.

Love your blog!

[Moxie]

7.

You're joking, right? Thinking you'll be enjoying hte pregnancy right now? Ha! hahahahaha. The first trimester can be just strange for some women, but is downright miserable for others. I was one of the miserable ones. I have depression, and I can say that the fatigue (combined with the nausea and having had my sense of humor and other personality traits removed for those first 14 weeks) was exactly depression. I was depressed. I saw a therapist who specializes in pregnancy and post-partum women. She told me that depression is actually more common during pregnancy than post-partum. I think it's because when your body create the smptoms of depression, you're depressed, whether you're actually depressed or not. If that makes any sense.

Anyway, hormonally, you'll come out of the fatigue and depression in the second trimester. What I had to work on with my therapist was that I was trying to fight back and beat the depression, but there's nothing you can do about the fatigue and other pregnancy symptoms. So she helped me realize that just making it to the end of the day, and then getting up (relatively speaking--I spent a lot of time moaning on the couch) was enough, and that if I could just keep breathing, eventually I'd win.

So don't be afraid that if you let yourself give in to the symptoms you'll slip away forever. You'll probably slip away for a few months, but then you come back.