To Come This Far

Most everyone worries during pregnancy, from what I've heard and observed. Nervous for labor pains. Hoping the baby is healthy. A little neurotic with nesting.

I had anxiety to begin with. I always have. A lot of my anxiety revolves around being prepared. I took a two day class, bought three books and a cd, and spent numerous hours making flash cards before my professional licensure test. Vacations can be difficult with me. I want to research and plan for everything. Everyone has a vice- control is mine.

This process to have a child, every step of the way, has challenged me. I have had very little control. I took the medicine and ordered top quality donor sperm. Nope. I perfected a profile book that was literally my heart on paper but it mostly sat at the adoption agency collecting dust. Again and again, doors closed.

This challenged me. And my faith. But I believed the right situation would come.

Finally, a pregnancy. Two great betas. Then an ultrasound with a sac and fetal pole. This was it.

But it slipped through my grasp.

Medical complication after complication for myself and for my husband. Nothing we could do but keep hoping the pain and struggles would come to an end. It was a dark cloud for almost a year.

And pregnancy after loss and fertility treatments and medical complications has not been easy. This trauma programs you to expect more loss. One thought can spiral into certain demise.

The anxiety I have managed for so long became a trap. I went to counseling with a wonderful, skilled therapist. I leaned on my faith. It helped but not enough. I couldn't control the intrusive thoughts, the compulsions to have control, the what-if's, the expecting the worst, the constant researching and obsessing over medical issues.

How could I have come this far, only weeks away from (God willing) holding my son in my arms, and be so paralyzed?

It wasn't a decision I made lightly by any means. The mere anxiety surrounding harming my baby I've worked so hard to bring to the earth was enough to stop me in my tracks.

I came to realize that it wasn't going to get better without trying something else. My biggest priority is the health and wellbeing of my baby, but how healthy was he, really, being flooded with stress hormones?

And how would it be for him to get here and all I am able to do is feed him but obsess was it enough, and lay him to sleep but obsess if he was still breathing? I didn't come this far for that to be my baby's beginning to life. All babies are a miracle, but mine is of course the biggest miracle in my own eyes. There has been trauma with his early days, but he doesn't know that. He doesn't know he had a sister I lost. He doesn't know I had bleeds that made me certain he was dead. All he should know right now is that he is very loved by me, his dad, and our entire circle of family and friends. He deserves that, and so do I.

It was time for me to be ready to fully open my heart to the risks of loving someone. There's no reason for me to expect he will die or I will die (I was to that point, and got a will made in case I did die). All of our lives are but a vapor. I can think of so many instances where God has had His hand on my life. God has done the same, already, for my son. I knew that without a shadow of a doubt, but I couldn't live it no matter how hard I tried, if that makes sense.

So, I started this tiny green pill called Z.oloft. It's typically used for depression but can also help with anxiety. It helps the brain have more steady serotonin supply. Apparently I really was trying all I could, because while the medicine is not a cure... it has markedly improved my anxiety. It takes the edge off. I don't feel as hypervigilant. My pulse doesn't race as bad, and my chest doesn't feel as tight. It's easier for me to use my skills from therapy to help reframe or control my anxiety when my brain isn't a constant barrage of worry.

Anxiety is real. It's not a weakness or something you can snap out of or will yourself not to have or even necessarily something you can pray away (you pray with cancer, but you still take the treatments, right?). Anxiety is a common response to infertility and loss. Reproductive trauma. Trauma changes your brain. Therapy can certainly help, but I can say for me it was not enough on its own. And that's okay. I don't want others to feel alone in their struggles, which is why I share this.

I am so grateful to have the resources to address this on this side of pregnancy. I am hopeful for a safe and beautiful birth and a long, slow, peaceful maternity leave with my little guy. I have fought to see his face. He will be here soon enough, and everything about my life will change. I don't deserve this. I'm so very blessed!