I’ve been on and off various kinds of bed rest throughout my pregnancy —not because of anything obstetric thankfully but because of my Crohn’s. To make a long, long Braxton Hicks-filled story short, I went from being super excited that Cap and I were going to enjoy an exotic babymoon somewhere lush and piping hot, to being told that the closest I was getting to sounds of waves lapping on a coral beach was the sound of my toilet flushing.
With my first full-term pregnancy the minutes stretched into languid hours and I ached with anticipation to be able to say ‘I’m 20 weeks’ or ‘I’m 7 months.’ I used to squeak a few extra days into it if I was asked how far along I was, wondering if I’d get caught for saying ‘I’m 21 weeks’ when I was really only 20 weeks and 3 days.
“It’ll be different in your second pregnancy. It’ll fly by.”
It hurts when everyone’s making announcements that they’re pregnant and you aren’t. You want to be happy for them but you’re also pissed off, frustrated, and resentful that you’re on the outside. And while social media platforms can be awesome, when it comes to infertility they’re just another five different ways to get a knife in the heart. #ouch
“What just happened there?” My psychiatrist said, watching the vast array of emotion flit across my face after she suggested I go back on Prozac during my pregnancy.
“So many women experience anxiety, depression, and PTSD during pregnancy . . . You’re not alone.”
I was back in familiar territory at Women’s College Hospital. I’d been part of their Reproductive Life Stages Program before, but this time, sitting in front of the psychiatrist, I felt twice as vulnerable.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has managed to carve some pretty intricate logic-loopholes as it’s etched its path through my life. A leftover relic from fertility issues, miscarriages and separation, it’s cut me deeply. Now that I’m finally pregnant and safely into my second trimester I want to feel unbridled joy, but sometimes I feel terror and paralytic trepidation instead.
“Hmmm….Your symptoms don’t seem concurrent with your Crohn’s… let’s see what happens over the next couple weeks. It could actually be you adjusting to your new medication… if things are still acting up next month we’ll look at some more tests.”
The last 3 months of 2013 had been peppered with Crohn’s issues, and landed me in the hospital a few times. I’d had some new meds added to my already existing cocktail, and tried to focus on recovery.
