For most of my life, I've been a carefree kind of girl. I never worried too much about my well being or health. I used to think people who did worry about those things were paranoid worrywarts. Sigh. Then came the mommy hormones.
It is a rare night that I don't lie awake worrying that each ache and pain is a symptom of a blood clot. That may seem a strange thing to worry about, but both my mother and her sister had blood clots during or shortly after their pregnancies. In fact, my mother had a pulmonary embolism (that would be a blood clot IN HER LUNG) when I was just 6 months old. You may recall that my little Johnny is just 6 months old. Now my worrying makes sense, right??
I am a firm believer in creating one's own reality. I also enjoy picking up Louise Hay's "Heal Your Body" when someone I know suffers from a chronic pain or illness. Basically, Louise Hay tells us that our physical symptoms are indicative of deeper emotional/mental issues that we must deal with in order to do away with the physical pain.
So just for fun, I decided to look up blood clots and heart attacks (my mom's brother had one of those - and he wasn't even pregnant!). Here's what I found:
Blood Problems - Clotting: Closing down the flow of joy.
Heart - Attack: Squeezing all the joy out of the heart in favor of money or position, etc.
I guess this isn't a huge surprise, but I find that I am losing my joy as I worry more about blood clots. I'm so afraid of having one sometimes that I can think of nothing else - and I certainly don't enJOY anything while I'm worrying.
Hay's prescription is a mantra - I awaken new life within me. I flow. OR I bring joy back to the center of my heart. I express love to all. While I am not one to do the whole mantra thing, I do try to be mindful of my attitude ... so, I'm trying to be mindful of joy. We'll see how this plays out.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
One of Many Rabbit Holes
I can't tell you how many times my mind has wandered down a path like this ...
We have a small number of cockroaches living in our building. I say small because I don't see them every day. But I do see one ... let's say at least once a week. Anyway. Every now and then, I think of doing something that I immediately worry will get the cockroaches riled up.
Today, I considered punching the wall to release some pent-up frustration. My computer was slammed and I couldn't do anything - including shut down busy applications. My baby was crying and I couldn't figure out the problem (changed the diaper, fed him, handed him toys, bounced him on my knee, he kept crying). I applied for a job and got a form letter email response saying I had to apply at the company's website rather than via email. I found the job on monster (it was posted yesterday), which only had an email address. I went to the company's website and the job wasn't listed. Did they fill it in fewer than 24 hours? Did they just not post it yet to the website? Were they really overwhelmed with applicants for a part time powerpoint specialist? All these things happened on top of each other, in the last hour of my Friday ... when I was trying to get out the door to buy cookies for a party we're attending tomorrow.
Just as I was reaching the limit of my capacity to deal in a sane manner, my boyfriend calls. He wanted to go out for drinks with a buddy tonight, but changed his mind because my mommy's helper cancelled for this morning. The last time he came home at 4am on a Friday night, we had a pretty unhappy weekend for mommy (that would be me). I don't begrudge him going out, but it essentially means I am caring for the little one from 10pm Thursday straight through to noon on Saturday. I know there are women in the world who are sole providers for their babies and they have to work this shit out too. I don't mean to say my situation is any worse than the next woman's. I'm just saying.
Anyway, he calls right as I'm starting to melt down and tells me he's blamed his inability to go out for drinks on my mother. I ask what this has to do with her (after all, she lives 3,000 miles away), and he says, "Nothing except that it's funny." Now, it's possible that I would see humor in that decision in the best of circumstances, but in my current state there's no way. I'm still having a hard time processing it. I just don't get it at all. So, I kind of mutter something. He asks if I'm ok, and I keep muttering, trying to sound like I'm fine but obviously not doing fine and he sighs, "ok, I'll be home as soon as I can" in this tone of voice that makes my skin crawl. I know he's thinking about the last time he went out when I had a mini-breakdown and I assume he feels like he has to come home every Friday night for the rest of his life to make sure I stay away from the knife drawer or something. I could do a whole post on this, but for now I'll leave it at that.
So, I felt like releasing some tension. I considered punching the wall. Then I worried that I might punch a hole in the wall (I once kicked a hole in my bedroom wall as a teenager - I couldn't find my keys and I was late for work). If I punched a hole in the wall, cockroaches might have easier access to our apartment. All of a sudden, my mind is filled with the image of hundreds, nay, thousands of cockroaches literally pouring into our apartment while I stand by screaming, the dog barks, and the baby cries. Then ... just to fuck with my head a little more, I imagine a huge cockroach eye as big as the hole, peering out at me.
Now I don't know that cockroaches even have eyes, but if they do, I'm fairly certain they aren't located on the top of their head so that they could look at me through a hole in the wall. Plus ... has anyone ever seen a cockroach big enough that its eye could be 4 inches in diameter? I mean I've heard of 4 inch long cockroaches, but surely one with a 4 inch eye would have to be something like two feet long, right? Does that exist somewhere? God, if it does, I DON'T want to know.
Anyway, the giant cockroach eye is peering out at me through the hole I just created. I don't know what happened to all the regular cockroaches that just poured into the apartment - maybe they've run away, maybe they're all over the floor, maybe I've just moved on to the next nightmare scenario and they vanished. This big-ass cockroach now manages to kind of slither through the hole into my apartment and it's freakin' huge. I'm thinking how can I kill this thing? I can't just spray it, so in my fantasy, I begin beating the giant cockroach with my great grandmother's floor lamp. Now there's a good use for a family heirloom. How it got into the hallway where this gnarly fantasy is going down, I'll never know, but it's the best instrument my mind could come up with on short notice.
I'm proud of my creativity and my active imagination. But sometimes ... sometimes I wish it was easier to turn off.
We have a small number of cockroaches living in our building. I say small because I don't see them every day. But I do see one ... let's say at least once a week. Anyway. Every now and then, I think of doing something that I immediately worry will get the cockroaches riled up.
Today, I considered punching the wall to release some pent-up frustration. My computer was slammed and I couldn't do anything - including shut down busy applications. My baby was crying and I couldn't figure out the problem (changed the diaper, fed him, handed him toys, bounced him on my knee, he kept crying). I applied for a job and got a form letter email response saying I had to apply at the company's website rather than via email. I found the job on monster (it was posted yesterday), which only had an email address. I went to the company's website and the job wasn't listed. Did they fill it in fewer than 24 hours? Did they just not post it yet to the website? Were they really overwhelmed with applicants for a part time powerpoint specialist? All these things happened on top of each other, in the last hour of my Friday ... when I was trying to get out the door to buy cookies for a party we're attending tomorrow.
Just as I was reaching the limit of my capacity to deal in a sane manner, my boyfriend calls. He wanted to go out for drinks with a buddy tonight, but changed his mind because my mommy's helper cancelled for this morning. The last time he came home at 4am on a Friday night, we had a pretty unhappy weekend for mommy (that would be me). I don't begrudge him going out, but it essentially means I am caring for the little one from 10pm Thursday straight through to noon on Saturday. I know there are women in the world who are sole providers for their babies and they have to work this shit out too. I don't mean to say my situation is any worse than the next woman's. I'm just saying.
Anyway, he calls right as I'm starting to melt down and tells me he's blamed his inability to go out for drinks on my mother. I ask what this has to do with her (after all, she lives 3,000 miles away), and he says, "Nothing except that it's funny." Now, it's possible that I would see humor in that decision in the best of circumstances, but in my current state there's no way. I'm still having a hard time processing it. I just don't get it at all. So, I kind of mutter something. He asks if I'm ok, and I keep muttering, trying to sound like I'm fine but obviously not doing fine and he sighs, "ok, I'll be home as soon as I can" in this tone of voice that makes my skin crawl. I know he's thinking about the last time he went out when I had a mini-breakdown and I assume he feels like he has to come home every Friday night for the rest of his life to make sure I stay away from the knife drawer or something. I could do a whole post on this, but for now I'll leave it at that.
So, I felt like releasing some tension. I considered punching the wall. Then I worried that I might punch a hole in the wall (I once kicked a hole in my bedroom wall as a teenager - I couldn't find my keys and I was late for work). If I punched a hole in the wall, cockroaches might have easier access to our apartment. All of a sudden, my mind is filled with the image of hundreds, nay, thousands of cockroaches literally pouring into our apartment while I stand by screaming, the dog barks, and the baby cries. Then ... just to fuck with my head a little more, I imagine a huge cockroach eye as big as the hole, peering out at me.
Now I don't know that cockroaches even have eyes, but if they do, I'm fairly certain they aren't located on the top of their head so that they could look at me through a hole in the wall. Plus ... has anyone ever seen a cockroach big enough that its eye could be 4 inches in diameter? I mean I've heard of 4 inch long cockroaches, but surely one with a 4 inch eye would have to be something like two feet long, right? Does that exist somewhere? God, if it does, I DON'T want to know.
Anyway, the giant cockroach eye is peering out at me through the hole I just created. I don't know what happened to all the regular cockroaches that just poured into the apartment - maybe they've run away, maybe they're all over the floor, maybe I've just moved on to the next nightmare scenario and they vanished. This big-ass cockroach now manages to kind of slither through the hole into my apartment and it's freakin' huge. I'm thinking how can I kill this thing? I can't just spray it, so in my fantasy, I begin beating the giant cockroach with my great grandmother's floor lamp. Now there's a good use for a family heirloom. How it got into the hallway where this gnarly fantasy is going down, I'll never know, but it's the best instrument my mind could come up with on short notice.
I'm proud of my creativity and my active imagination. But sometimes ... sometimes I wish it was easier to turn off.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
A Little History - Doctors Make Mistakes Too
When I was 5.5 weeks pregnant, I had some spotting. My baby book said this was normal but to let my doctor know, just in case. I called, my doctor was out of town, and her receptionist referred me to a different doc. When I tried to make an appointment with the new doctor, she asked me what my delivery plans were. I hadn't even met with my doctor yet to figure out my due date!
I got the impression she was trying to sell me her delivery services - she was the one who told me that my doctor didn't do deliveries. Finally I convinced her that she should give me an appointment to check out the spotting so we could determine if a delivery plan was even necessary. It's safe to say I went into this meeting with a bad attitude.
When I met with this doctor the next day, she took a full family history. I was considered a high risk pregnancy due to several factors. As each factor came to light, the doctor would inhale sharply and shake her head. When I told her my weight, she exclaimed, "You're morbidly obese and that's going to be a problem!" By the end of her information gathering, I felt down right guilty for getting pregnant.
She asked me if I had given a sample. Now, the irony is that I considered peeing in a cup while I was in the bathroom because I thought there was a possibility they would want one. But there were no lids for the cups and I'm used to sample cups having lids ... so I peed in the toilet like a normal person. Anyway, I told her no and off I marched to the bathroom.
My sample wasn't very big - it had only been about 10 minutes since I went. I leaned over to put the cup on the back of the toilet so I could put myself together ... and I dropped it - from chest height, all the way to the floor. Pee splattered up my pant legs and a few drops even reached my shirt.
Well, bad attitude + Spanish Inquisition + spilt pee + hormones = serious wreckage. I was such an emotional wreck at this point that I placed my forehead against the bathroom door and bawled. After about 30 seconds, I tried again (and I thought the first sample was small!) and went to meet with the doctor.
I got the impression she was trying to sell me her delivery services - she was the one who told me that my doctor didn't do deliveries. Finally I convinced her that she should give me an appointment to check out the spotting so we could determine if a delivery plan was even necessary. It's safe to say I went into this meeting with a bad attitude.
When I met with this doctor the next day, she took a full family history. I was considered a high risk pregnancy due to several factors. As each factor came to light, the doctor would inhale sharply and shake her head. When I told her my weight, she exclaimed, "You're morbidly obese and that's going to be a problem!" By the end of her information gathering, I felt down right guilty for getting pregnant.
She asked me if I had given a sample. Now, the irony is that I considered peeing in a cup while I was in the bathroom because I thought there was a possibility they would want one. But there were no lids for the cups and I'm used to sample cups having lids ... so I peed in the toilet like a normal person. Anyway, I told her no and off I marched to the bathroom.
My sample wasn't very big - it had only been about 10 minutes since I went. I leaned over to put the cup on the back of the toilet so I could put myself together ... and I dropped it - from chest height, all the way to the floor. Pee splattered up my pant legs and a few drops even reached my shirt.
Well, bad attitude + Spanish Inquisition + spilt pee + hormones = serious wreckage. I was such an emotional wreck at this point that I placed my forehead against the bathroom door and bawled. After about 30 seconds, I tried again (and I thought the first sample was small!) and went to meet with the doctor.
She did an ultrasound to see if the spotting was indicative of a greater problem. As I walked into the room, I noticed a chart on the wall showing how large one's uterus should be each week of pregnancy. When she measured mine, she promptly told me mine was smaller than it should be. I checked the posted chart, and it was actually slightly larger. She followed my eyes to the chart and said, "Oh, maybe not." That was it. I thought, "Boy, lady, you do this for a living - I can see not memorizing the chart, but surely you should check it before telling a pregnant woman that her uterus is the wrong size!"
But the real kicker was yet to come. As she flipped on the lights, she said, "I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there's a good chance your pregnancy isn't viable. You can see your uterus here on the screen, but there's nothing in it." Now, she is a professional and, presumably, understands that women in the first few months of pregnancy are often hormone-fuelled time bombs just waiting for something to set them off. She didn't even bother to look at me while she was talking. To say I was pissed off (especially after the aforementioned Spanish Inquisition) would be an understatement.
She scheduled a follow-up ultrasound and sent me on my way. I was about 20 blocks from home and utterly dejected; I decided to walk. That was one of the darkest walks I've taken in my entire life. Images of coat hangers (sorry, it's true) were floating through my mind. Then I thought ... this woman made a few mistakes while I was there, it's possible she just doesn't know what she's talking about. I resolved to google 5.5 week ultrasounds as soon as I got home.
As it turns out, 5.5 week ultrasounds don't necessarily reveal a fetus. At that point in the pregnancy, the fetus is tiny and it takes a very careful, dedicated technician to find it during a standard ultrasound. When I went for my ultrasound the following week, the technician not only found little baby Johnny's fetus, but I got to see his heartbeat too! I was crying tears of joy as I got dressed.
When I saw my regular doctor for my originally scheduled prenatal visit, I told her about my experience. She gave me a strange look and told me that I must be mistaken - that doctor is a good one who is in it for the love of the children, not the money. I stood my ground, but she never conceded.
When I told her I was moving to Brooklyn and would like a recommendation for a doctor there, she told me I should continue commuting to Manhattan. She said no doctor in Brooklyn would meet the quality of care I'd receive in Manhattan. Since I was pretty unhappy with the quality of care I'd received thus far, I decided to take my chances. Boy, am I glad I did!
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Introduction
I am a new mom (my boy is 6 months old).
I have a hard time identifying with most of the first person accounts I've read online about pregnancy and the postpartum period. I don't believe I have postpartum depression, but I think "the baby blues" is too cute a name for what I do have!
This blog will serve as my therapy - a place to vent all the nastiest feelings I have. To be fair, I will attempt to provide a balanced perspective. After all, motherhood isn't all exhaustion and bitten nipples.
I will attempt to do this in chronological order, but the beginnings may be out of synch. I'm writing a lot of this from memory - new mom memory, at that.
I have a hard time identifying with most of the first person accounts I've read online about pregnancy and the postpartum period. I don't believe I have postpartum depression, but I think "the baby blues" is too cute a name for what I do have!
This blog will serve as my therapy - a place to vent all the nastiest feelings I have. To be fair, I will attempt to provide a balanced perspective. After all, motherhood isn't all exhaustion and bitten nipples.
I will attempt to do this in chronological order, but the beginnings may be out of synch. I'm writing a lot of this from memory - new mom memory, at that.
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