rock-a-bye, spo*, in the tree-tops
vixanne has linked to some thought-provoking articles today on abortion, and those articles have me thinking about how i view fetal life, and whether i've become a bit hardened about the whole topic.
exhibit a: i refer to our future child as a successful pregnancy outcome (or *spo, for short). i think the term is a pretty good indicator of a hardened heart, don't you? in all of our conversations at home, i find it increasingly difficult to say, "if we have a baby...," or, "when we have a child..." it comes out more like, "well, you know, if we have a, b- (large pause), successful pregnancy outcome..."
if you're playing along at home, the italicized phrase should be said with overemphasis and a touch of sarcasm.
maybe i'm entitled to a little heart-hardening. i let myself love hans and the tadpole fully, each in their own way. i wished for them. i hoped for them. i dreamed for them. and i lost them. i'm wary, gun-shy, afraid of jinxing myself (or a potential spo) with my investment. as if, if i didn't want them so much, my children would have lived. i know it's hogwash. but it's what i know.
in two recent conversations with my ob, in which i've recounted my fear of being doomed, he's said to me, "you can't think that way." of course, i can think like that, and sometimes i do. my ob is wonderful in many ways, but in this respect, he does not get what it's like to be in my shoes. i know all of the data; i understand the statistical unlikelihood of another unsuccessful pregnancy outcome. but what i know, firsthand, is that when i get pregnant, it does not result in a spo.
that knowledge is what makes me wary of the new therapist, too. she understands anxiety and tools for dealing with it. but she doesn't know, the way that i do, that pregnancy does not necessarily equal baby. how can i possibly trust her? maybe it's a moot point - she is not on my new insurance plan, so i won't see her past the end of the year anyway.
it occurs to me now that what i want, someone who knows but can still look me in the eye and offer encouragment, represents a quality i used to assign to god. experience has not born out that youthful assumption.
boy, does that suck.
and yet, despite my despair, there must still be some hope left alive in me, or i would not be coloring my hair tonight...in case there's a, you know, spo in the works.
a girl can dream, can't she?
exhibit a: i refer to our future child as a successful pregnancy outcome (or *spo, for short). i think the term is a pretty good indicator of a hardened heart, don't you? in all of our conversations at home, i find it increasingly difficult to say, "if we have a baby...," or, "when we have a child..." it comes out more like, "well, you know, if we have a, b- (large pause), successful pregnancy outcome..."
if you're playing along at home, the italicized phrase should be said with overemphasis and a touch of sarcasm.
maybe i'm entitled to a little heart-hardening. i let myself love hans and the tadpole fully, each in their own way. i wished for them. i hoped for them. i dreamed for them. and i lost them. i'm wary, gun-shy, afraid of jinxing myself (or a potential spo) with my investment. as if, if i didn't want them so much, my children would have lived. i know it's hogwash. but it's what i know.
in two recent conversations with my ob, in which i've recounted my fear of being doomed, he's said to me, "you can't think that way." of course, i can think like that, and sometimes i do. my ob is wonderful in many ways, but in this respect, he does not get what it's like to be in my shoes. i know all of the data; i understand the statistical unlikelihood of another unsuccessful pregnancy outcome. but what i know, firsthand, is that when i get pregnant, it does not result in a spo.
that knowledge is what makes me wary of the new therapist, too. she understands anxiety and tools for dealing with it. but she doesn't know, the way that i do, that pregnancy does not necessarily equal baby. how can i possibly trust her? maybe it's a moot point - she is not on my new insurance plan, so i won't see her past the end of the year anyway.
it occurs to me now that what i want, someone who knows but can still look me in the eye and offer encouragment, represents a quality i used to assign to god. experience has not born out that youthful assumption.
boy, does that suck.
and yet, despite my despair, there must still be some hope left alive in me, or i would not be coloring my hair tonight...in case there's a, you know, spo in the works.
a girl can dream, can't she?
posted by laura at 7:16 PM
8 Comments:
Well...I'm not God and I'm not even a therapist, but give me a shout if you want to talk.
Ditto here. I've been meaning to try to e-mail you (both you and Catherine, actually) but can't remember the address you posted a while back. If you want to, email my blog address -- it would be nice to correspond.
I don't have access to Vixanne's site (never really felt comfortable asking her if I could join since I didn't know her) but these articles sound interesting. I have a lot of thoughts on this and maybe one day I will be brave enough to blog about it, but just allow me to say that I am more in your camp now than I have ever been, and am hoping that when the time comes for us to TTC again, I can actually summon up the courage to believe it might work.
I feel like i have had all those thoughts...here's where I am at now: I have a baby but that baby still isn't a spo. Before I got my 24 minutes of ultrasound bliss burned to dvd for my OCD pleaseure, I was pregnant, most of the time with a dead foetus, not expecting a baby or a spo.
So yeah, your average therapist is NOT going to understand how amazing the coping strategies she comes up with are going to have to be. I haven't even had the added damage of holding a stillborn but otherwise perfect baby in my arms, only the knowledge that getting pregnant has fuckall to do with having a baby and that my body cannot be trusted and I am totally nuts most of the time.
But have hope - I mean, what else can you do?
You can feel/ think anyway you goddamn like and no one should judge you for being at the least gun-shy and at the most entirely pessimistic. Bejeebus what is wrong with people! I'm glad I had a therapist with two dead kids of his own, he did understand more fully, but still people should have some clue.
I spent the whole first trimester of this pregnancy convinced it wouldn't last, then have moved into the second with different fears and reservations. Everything looks good for us and the sproglet, who we do call a baby and always have, but everything looked good for deadbaby too until she came out too infected to breathe. I'm reserving judgement on success until the sproglet breathes and, hopefully, cries, and then and only then will I breathe a tiny sigh of pure hope, and even that is uncertain. For as long as I have living children I'm going to be wary about their impending death(s); I just have to find ways to cope with that, as we all do.
Your next pregnancy experience may be entirely different from mine, who knows? But some level of anxiety is normal, if you went off into lala-everything-is-ducky land you'd be either in denial or a complete idiot. So don't let other people tell you how to feel, and when they do either tell them to bog off or just don't listen. Your experiences so far have been the toughest of the tough and that is where you are starting from, statistics be damned.
This is one of the topics of loss that I have the hardest time getting through to people who haven't been there.
Just wait till you're 37 weeks pregnant, and everyone is telling you just to stop worrying...you're going to have a healthy baby. "Oh, you're in the clear now". To me it's all bullshit. You're never in the clear until that baby is screaming in your arms. So you can think like that and unfortunately, you should (as much as it sucks).
We've all been burned beore by those folks who quote statistics and tell us how rare these things are. We are the rarity...and so little pats on the head just don't work.
That's my story and I am stickin' to it! ;-)
oh, kathy - that is the worst. i would like to say that everyone who told me to stop worrying at the end of my first pregnancy felt immensely guilty when hans died. and while some people did, many people still didn't get it. much of my rage and desire for violence is directed at those people.
It was my fear of not having a spo that led to induction at 40 weeks and a c-section. Sometimes when I'm hurty, I question my decision to take Mimi's birthday into my own hands, and then I just look at her and know that a spo is worth the $15K hospital bill after insurance, the pain, and the big fuck you to everyone who said "Everything is going to be ok".
I think the truth is that what you've been through is just brutally awful, nothing and no one is going to help you but love and time. No therapist can bring the tadpole or Hans back. You have good reason to have anxiety. I would go ahead and have it. It's not like your palms are sweating a month before finals or somehting. You're worried about a spo. Who wouldn't be?
I get really tired of people telling me not to worry, especially if they haven't been there themselves. You have to feel what you're feeling. If you squash it down, it will just fester inside you and when it comes out eventually, it will be much worse.
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