How's Your Stress Level?

I know from the other blogs I read and from talking to other moms who’ve had a successful pregnancy after a loss that you never have a worry-free pregnancy. So when my OB asked at my visit “So, how are you doing? How’s your stress level?”, I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or punch him. How’s my stress level? You really want to know?

Every time I wake up that I don’t have sore boobs, I have a moment of panic that something is wrong. The nausea still continues, and I somehow find it reassuring. I haven't felt movement yet, which is not unusual for me (I usually feel the baby around 18 weeks, but I'm older and everything is a little more stretched out). Particularly for the first twelve or thirteen weeks, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something horrible to happen, for this pregnancy to end, just as the last two have.

I so strongly remember that the first night in the hospital when they were trying to start labor with Jimmy. I stood in the bathroom, naked, while my mother helped me into a fresh Johnny. I looked in the mirror at my boobs that were already deflated and the stomach that no longer showed any movement, turned to her, and said, “I don’t even look pregnant anymore. I don’t feel pregnant.” Twenty-one hours later, delivering my third son, who didn’t move, didn’t cry, who was already gone. Writing his obituary the next day, planning his graveside service, telling my mother that it was the only thing that I could do for this son that I would never get to mother in any other way.

A year later, hearing the voice of Dr. Grandpa tell me over the phone that the 7-week u/s didn’t look good, that my HcG wasn’t doubling, that the yolk sac was too big, and that this pregnancy probably would end soon (it went on for fifteen more days, a year to the day of Jimmy’s due date), and crying, asking myself why I was putting myself through this. Swearing that I wouldn’t do this again. Then the next year’s turmoil of secondary IF and the shots, the tests, the IUIs, having AF show up the day of my pregnancy test bloodwork. And now, being here.

So, how’s my stress level? I know very bad things can happen. For so many of us, it has. We don’t live in a vacuum like so many expectant moms. We've walked through the fire, the depths of despair, and come out the other side. I am one of the lucky ones; this is not my first child. This is my fifth pregnancy. I have two great kids at home. I have one son buried in our local cemetery in a plot that my father bought for us, where my husband and I will join him someday in the distant future. I have one child that I have only a few ultrasound pictures of. And every day that this pregnancy continues on, that I have an appointment where I can see this baby moving and get a blurry picture or hear it’s heartbeat, I am incredulous that it is happening, that I may actually bring this baby home.