38 Weeks

Honestly,
I've been spending most of my day trying to decide just how honest to be in this post.  And another good portion of my day trying to figure out what honest is --- because I don't even really understand all of my emotions at this point.

Truth: Today I'm feeling in the depths of despair.

Truth: Most of this week was good --- physically and emotionally.



Most the week I've felt like my body is doing its thing, making slow progress, making positive moves towards a baby.  This is good.  It's 38 weeks. Its still early.
I've felt healthy, I've felt like I can keep up with life in general.  Other than getting out of bed, I'm carting this belly around so much easier than last time.  I mean, heck, Sunday we took at 2 mile family walk and I was totally good.  (Last time I was pregnant, walking around our tiny block could level me for the rest of the day.)

Sleeping is getting harder, mainly because I have to get up so much.  It's making me unable to get into the real deep restorative sleep.  I feel like I kinda hover in barely-unconsciousness for a while, only to come out of it in time to go to the bathroom again.  And I'm not a fan of hoisting myself out of bed.

I think what started to get me upset was that my doula texted me asking how I was doing, and kept asking questions about all the dilation details, etc.  It was all in text form, but her responses kept coming back sounding to me like "so no progress at all huh?"  Including her telling me at -2 station is not engaged.
I know that.
I'm not sure why she told me that.
I'm not sure why she felt the need to share a facty-knowledge-tid-bit to a girl in my delicate emotional state, who just wants to hear "Yay, sounds good."
I didn't say the baby was engaged.  I didn't need to be told she wasn't.
I said, "She was at -2 so that's good."

I don't think I've gotten over her response.
I keep mulling it over.
I keep wondering why she felt like saying it.
At my prenatal appointment I was told -2 is really good, that she is nice and low, and that unless you are a first time mom a baby almost never gets to zero before labor.
So I was feeling really good about it.
I think sometimes people forget about the reason we should say words, and just want to say words because they are accurate.

So with those words of "no progress," "not engaged" and endless questions about whether my provider thought I'd go early or not (Which she didn't say either way.  She said the accurate statement of "you can never really know.") floating around in my head... I was left to my own devices trying to process my situation, which is now starting to scare me --- it's starting to feel like the same old story as last time, only now they won't induce me. I'm starting to worry I'm a permanent 2, forever, and with out 'good'-ol-pitocin i'm not budging.

I don't wanna bash my doula for what she said, she was just trying to see what was going on.  And I am a super emotional, hormone-ridden, full-term pregnant woman with some big issues I'm working through --- so I am turning regular conversation into frustration, totally normal words into terror.  She didn't do anything wrong.  But I just didn't like it one bit.

Sunday we had a really nice day.
And I really liked it.
And I was in the have-a-baby zone.
I was well rested.  I was having decent contractions through the day.  We "walked the baby out" for a long time.  I was emotionally stable.  I was feeling up to the whole idea of labor.
I was just in the zone.
Plus it was Father's Day --- how cool would that be?
But she didn't come out.

Two babies we know did come out that day.

And I got pouty.

Of course I am really excited for those babies and families.

But my brain got out of control on me.

"Look what everyone on earth can do, except you!"

Then Monday morning J woke up way too early, after I spent the night barely sleeping again.  And I just had nothing left in me to defend myself against my thoughts.

I spent all of Monday hearing:
"You couldn't do it last time."
"Why do you even think your body will go into labor?"
"You don't go into labor."
"Why are you even bothering with all this junk?  (Eating well, exercising, not reclining, sitting on the birth ball...)  They are just gonna cut this baby out too, it won't make a different that you did all that."
"Even if you do go into labor, which we all know you won't, you can't get through it.  You caved and got an epidural last time.  What makes you think you can do this?  Are you crazy?"
"Yep.  You are crazy.  Why do you even think you can take care of two children?  What were you thinking?"
"Do you even know you are having a baby?  Nope.  All you care about is yourself and your body."
"You are gonna freak out when they hand you a newborn and you actually see what you got yourself into."
"God's just messing with you.  You know that, right?  This is all just one more test, to see if you will still love him.  That's why it's all gonna be horrible, so you have to prove it through your disappointed heartbroken stories."
"Why don't you watch some more birth videos, so you can see exactly what your body can't do...  Do you see that?  Ha, you can't do that!  Your body doesn't do that!"
"Ahh, so you don't think you can either!  Just what I suspected.  Well, obviously, now that you admit to it, your body isn't going to do it.  Why would it, if you don't think it can?  You've just cursed yourself.  It's over now.  Too bad, so sad.  Give up."


Yeah.
And that's where I was when I also figured out...

I'm still not over my c-section.  
I'm still a big pile of post-traumatic stress.  
Like in a probably clinically diagnosable way.  

J was born at the end of June.  Her due date was June 10th.  The following June, a year after J was born, I was almost incapacitated by my feelings from June 1st onward --- reliving the time I spent hoping to go into labor and never getting to, feeling the same feelings from 2010, feeling abandoned to my demise.  I was depressed, like can't function right at all, depressed.  If I wasn't taking care of J, I was in bed unable to do anything.  
I was working through some major issues, pain, disappointment and inability to trust God.  

He came through and helped me out of that black hole just in time for her birthday.  And I was so grateful for the awesome day we all had together.  And I was so happy to celebrate her, instead of lose myself in sorrow.  
But that doesn't mean I'm totally over everything.  


Today, after trying to get through all those thoughts, I realized that, besides those, I have that same feeling as I had last June.  I'm facing her birthday again.  I knew her birthday was coming.  I bought decorations and cake, but I haven't thought too hard about it because I'm about to have another baby.
Today I realized it's been two years of this for me.
Two years of beating myself up for all the things I did wrong.
Two years of wishing things were different.
Two years of doing penitence.
Two years of driving myself crazy.
Two years of trying to trust God again.

I look at J and I love her.  And nothing about her makes me feel bad.
She is the light of my life.
(And she has seriously been the sweetest thing ever to me today, as I try to stay afloat.)
The weird thing is, I don't even associate her with the c-section.  They are two separate entities.
So the whole "Look what a blessing came from it" perspective, doesn't ever work in my mind.  They just don't touch each other.  I think it's part of the disconnect they often talk about for moms and their babies who have c-sections.  I didn't feel disconnected with her when she was born, like they say can happen, but I don't connect my c-section with her birth.
My c-section was this big disappointment and failure in my mind.  And that's where it ends.  I can't really make it more or less.

And I am coming up on it's anniversary for the second time.
I didn't realize it would be hard again.
I didn't think it would matter this time.
But today I realized it does.

And in the face of that,
I host another life inside.
And it's nearly time for her to come out.

I'm really not sure how I am supposed to get through all these emotions.

I'm not really sure how I even have all these emotions.
Do you know how many times I have told myself, "It was just a surgery!  Everyone has surgeries!"
But the thing is, that's not how it was intended to be.
And I am sad about it.

Am I gonna keep myself out of labor again with all this heartache?
Am I gonna ruin it, all because I can't get over it?

I don't have any more time for healing.
I am feeling what I feel.
And I am hoping my body doesn't hold it against me.

I am praying and begging that this baby comes before her due date, because as you can see, I just am not mentally sound anymore.  I was worried about how I would handle the end, and this is why.  I'm hoping today is just a hard day and I won't face this every day until she comes.

The hard part is, I begged last time.

Jesus, help me trust you.
I don't have anything left for you.
I am a broken blob of eww, and all I can do is throw my messy tantrumy self in your general direction and hope you take pity on me.

So, yeah, your prayers are welcome ---  needed --- whoever you are out there reading this right now.