anxiety dream

This is probably tmi.


You know those anxiety dreams that you're standing around your elementary school in just your white underwear?  I tend to have a million different versions of them.  Particularly when I'm anxious.  Last night I had that dream in miscarriage form:

I was visiting at a friend's house (a very laid back friend, at that) and went to her basement to find G, my 17 month old.  When I found her I found black stuff all around her mouth. I searched around for what she had eaten, then saw a bottle of rat poison in G's hand.  I went ballistic and began searching for a number for poison control or the hospital, meanwhile my friend wiped the evidence off G's face and reassured me that "now she's fine!"  After precious long minutes of finding the number, dialing wrong numbers, poison control not answering, hospital lines busy, I finally got ahold of someone on poison control.  They told me that she can take ipecac (the medicine that makes you throw up) but it will be "violent" throwing up, and it may do her more harm than good since she is so little.  .....  woke up in a sweat. ....

I then realized that I'm anxious.  Tomorrow (St. Patty's Day) I have to go to my doctor to take medicine.  I haven't technically "miscarried," there was just no sign of life at my last appointment.  I had three choices- wait it out, take medicine, or get surgery.  Waiting it out was risky and didn't seem to be happening.  The DNC (surgery) seemed invasive and reminded me of abortions, which thoroughly depressed me.  The option I was left with was taking the medicine.

Here are the parallels, just in case they are not as clear to you as they are to me:  My baby= my baby.  Rat poison= medicine to be taken tomorrow.  Friend= "everyone goes through it"/ the unknown.  No medical assistance= I take the medicine, go home and wait.  "Violent" throwing up= Doctor saying that it's worse than a period, not as bad as labor.

I'm nervous.

This ain't last year's St Patty's Day.  <-- real link to my blog from last year.  Have I scarred you all with all those sketchy links?  Sorry.

By the way, if I haven't made it around to your blog yet to personally thank you, I want to let everyone know how much I appreciated the support and kind words through this bad Bad time.  Thanks for not being awkward, thanks for just letting me write what I had to write.  a) it was a lot of emotion b) I'm a terrible story teller :)  and furthermore, thanks for showing me so much virtual love!

On Grief

Everything was a little too appropriate today.  It's a grey, gloomy, rainy spring day, there's not a cloud in the sky or a sliver of sunlight.  I was even dressed appropriately for the occasion.  Big clunky boots, jeans, a grey shirt with a navy blue cardigan and a summer scarf.  Hair down with just cherry chapstick.  All of the glimmerings of new life, hidden under all the sure signs of the dead of winter.  I dropped the girls off at my mom's house so I could go to my 12 weeks appointment.  When I first got there I did the routine weigh in.  I gained one pound.  Normally by my 12 week appointment I'm far into about 12-16 pounds.  Nurse asks if I had any concerns, as normal, and as normal I think of something that they reply as "well, every pregnancy is different!"  This month's concern is that my morning sickness literally stopped overnight ("like all my hormones just went away!") and, "why have I only gained one pound?"  This cues the nurse to joke that that should be the least of my concerns, and it's because my selective memory only remembers the times I come in and gain six pounds at a time.

If there's one thing that I remember well, it's my weight.  When, where, why, what number, what size.  I've been wondering lately why I'm still wearing my regular clothes.  By this point in the game, I usually am in the awkward two sizes up, crotch too low, legs too long, but still a muffin top.  Typically I throw in the towel and wear sweats from here on out.

Doctor goes through the routine first trimester questions; each of my previous births, when? full terms?  weight?  Then goes through the routine: heart disease, high blood pressure, depression?  I answer no to all of them, "although, sometime I do get a bit down," when she replies, "Kiera, eveybody gets a little down all the time, but you are the happiest person I've ever met."  She notes that my belly hasn't grown.  She skips the doppler (the machine used to hear the heart) and goes right to sonogram.  Last appointment all the nurses were impressed that the baby had already begun moving.  His little arms and legs were going the entire time.  This time there was nothing.  No heart beat, no sweet limbs flailing.

Couple mothers' guilt and Irish guilt and my mind starts racing, even though it probably had nothing to do with me.  Was it the days I forgot to take my vitamin?  Zumba class?  When I got the flu two weeks ago?  Was it just too much for the little baby to handle?

The doctor has to send me to "make it official," to the imaging floor of the hospital.  The scene must've been set by a director.  I finally saw the hospital through a new lens, and I realized why people feared it.  Full of death and sorrow.  I had to walk down too many dimly lit hallways, with shiny floors, and the smell of bleach.  For the first time I realized that the hospital is just kind of dank.  I couldn't pull my knit cardigan tight enough around me.  I waited in chairs, while listening to news full of more destruction, and read a times magazine through blurry eyes.  Then I was simply called in, got a quick, bit too harsh, efficient sonogram, with the tech saying, "yep, I'm just confirming what they already told you."  And I was cattled out like any other patient that found out grief worthy news.

I've always loved the hospital, I loved the smell of the cleanliness, the soap, the squeak of shoes.  When I think of the hospital I think of unlimited cranberry juice and Lorna Doones on beckon call.  I think of clean white sheets, with the tv on low in the background, while I sit Indian style with my new sweet baby wrapped up sitting in my lap.  (While I eat hospital meatloaf and buttered corn, topping it off with jello.)  I love smelling my baby's sweet head and choosing which outfit to put on her.  A white tshirt with a diaper or a yellow tshirt with a diaper?  It seems all of these things I was so looking forward to in September is just gone.

This all may seem a little dramatic.  I've experienced miscarriages second hand, and I still had no grasp of how devastating it is.  In the book of etiquette, you're supposed to never say, "maybe there was something wrong with it," or "you'll have another baby soon," or "at least you have other kids!"  All of these things are true, but there is something so earth shatteringly unique about this baby.  This hope, this dream.  What this baby was going to offer to the world.  What I was going to offer to this baby.

The thaw is setting in my bones, and I'm just getting achier.  Hopefully the nurses and doctors understand that I was in complete shock when I said, "well there's always a silver lining, and now I can drink beer on St Patty's day!"  Because that's not really how I feel.  I would give up anything for any amount of time for my children.  sl;fsdf;lasjdlasfkhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Impractical Net.

With the help of a friend, today, I realized that I'm in survival mode.  Survival mode really can be intense, but thankfully for me I do a wonderful job at not realizing things/ignoring them.  I just had a million friends unfriend me on facebook.  Now that's serious.  And Mr Incredible has no idea what he'll be doing for job(s) in the next two months.  And I have a serious dilemma going on with sending my 4 year old to school next year.  And, are we moving relatively soon?  Are we going to be having a pay cut?  Will Peppy live to see next year?  Crisis mode.

Impractical enough.  I hope you see the parallel.

Relatively speaking, this all looks just fine.  Things work out.  Thankfully my marriage is not failing, my children are healthy, and my dog doesn't have lock jaw.  And he's little enough that the one and half year can restrain him if need be.  There has never been a need, but the little comforts in life are the ones we emotionally fall back on, no?  And there is always Mr Incredible to fall back on, too.  He's painfully practical, with a tiny streak of idealism in him.  Like, for instance, when we recently bought our new van, he confidently yet carelessly threw the "valet key" in the glove compartment.  When a wrinkle formed between my brows and I asked him what he was doing, he replied, "it's a valet key!"  As though we're going to need valet parking.  Ever.  Maybe once a year we go somewhere with valet parking, but even still we get there approximately 4.5 hours before the rush.  Like 4pm not 830pm.  Ideal thinking, eh?  In reality we will need that key within the first month of owning the car, because the kids will lose the other keys, and the doors will be locked, and then we'll realize that the "valet key" is in the glovebox.  Then we'll really be SOL.  But sometimes his tiny proton of idealism is just so comforting.  Valet key when we're about to experience pay cut.  Tell me you don't want it.

I'm expecting Mr Incredible to come home tomorrow, and tell me that he's purchased Burial insurance.  Or, in the midst of all of his exams, papers, work, Peppy walks, kissing the girls goodbye, I'll find him on the computer looking up Medigap Insurance.  I'm 24.  But seriously, what's not to love about the impractical idealist side of him?  One has to rein the other in.  We've got it under control.  Kind of.  Thank God for my recent burial insurance for senior citizens.

New blog

I'm sure if I add anymore blogs to your reading list you'll need some major saline solution or a travel time machine.  Maybe you'll just need some FreshLook Contacts in case you work your eyes to the nub.  (Although a friend's experience tell me to only soak contacts in a sterile saline solution for contacts- or else you'll do your eyes more harm than good.)  TANGENT.

But have you heard?  I've started a new blog with a bad idea.  90 sans alcohol.  As suggested, and as strong as it sounds, maybe, um, recommended to me.  You'll have to go read it to know what I'm talking about, because I'm not going to label myself with a "drinking problem" on two blogs.  That's too much for my fragile self. 

Speaking of fragile self, I am sick like whooooaaaa today.  Sick as in if I told you anything about it I would be giving you TMI.  But I think it's probably the flu (hopefully 24 hours seeing as though I haven't ralphed in 5 hours.)  Little triumphs, here, little triumphs.  

But at least we all know it's not a hangover I'm nursing.

Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. ps this is a major TMI POST

I'm debating about how detailed to get with this post.  This much I'll tell you.  I've never cared so little about drinking 1180 calories worth of cranberry juice in my life.  I will gain one inch (and that's a compromise, calories, so don't push it) around my waist if the burning OH THE BURNING will go away. I do not once more want to sink to my knees because I have to go SO BAD then crawl to the throne and have nothing come out.  Tinkle constipation, friends.  That's what I'll call it.  Because calling it a UTI would be TMI.

So let's leave with a little poll.  You know I love polls.  Situation: We have 1 roll of toilet paper left.  I'm dashing through Wegmans with vitamin C, cranberry juice and water.  I pay, and go into the bathroom so I can make it until I get home.  In the bathroom I realize that we are in the midst of running out of toilet paper (at home), and at the rate I'm going (or not) we'll be out in the morning.  Would it be unethical to steal a roll from Wegman's bathroom?  Remember:  THE BURNING.  I cannot possibly run to the opposite end of the story to get toilet paper.  Let's have at it.

ps.  I did not steal any toilet paper.  I also did not run to the other end of the store to buy some.  I merely put it out of my mind and figured I would cross that bridge when I get to it.  That's always a bad decision.  I always make that decision.