Where I've Been

Clearly, I haven't been posting much this summer. This was due in part to my internal debate over when to reveal the big development in my life, which is that I was pregnant. Yes, that's past tense. Was. I think the reason I never posted about being pregnant was that I never fully relaxed into being pregnant, because there was a small part of my subconscious that knew it wasn't going to make it all the way through. There was just a different feeling to this pregnancy from the get-go than with B. With B, I knew the moment I conceived and I could FEEL that he was a tenacious little presence who would not be denied. I was violently ill from week 8 to week 14. This time, it took forever for me to even know I was pregnant, and then once I was, aside from the occasional strong craving for red meat, the symptoms were just not as intense. I had a few waves of nausea here and there, and a few bouts of dizziness and all, but I was 9 1/2 weeks along and hadn't yet experienced that all day naush fest, so I thin I knew something was off.

This entire experience, for those of you not lucky enough to have experienced it, sucks beyond words. It's really pretty painful, first off. And obviously, it's...really sad. For me. For E. For B. For the rest of our family and the friends we'd told. Just a bummer of huge proportions.

I also feel really conflicted because as I've documented here, my pregnancy with B came as such a SHOCK. It took me a really long time to feel excited because I felt so truly shocked and freaked out. This time, I was so excited. My best friend and my cousin are both expecting and are due within a short time of when I was. I was so PSYCHED about that. And I felt so much more ready this time around. I mean...we were actually trying for one thing. And none of this is to say I feel anything but the most pure love for B. He was the best surprise of my life, by a long shot. I cannot imagine an existence in which he didn't come along.

I know that everything happens for a reason. So, I trust that there is a reason this baby wasn't meant to stay with us. I know that. Doesn't mean I won't spend the majority of the next few days crying.

Time Warp

By now, you all know I'm a very nostalgic person. I tend to spend a lot of time in a dream world, reminiscing on the past...fantasizing about the future. And over the past week, it seems like I'm surrounded by nostalgic triggers - music and movies from my past seem to sneak up on me constantly.

Jerry Maguire is on TV right now. I cannot believe this movie is almost 14 years old. Where did those 14 years go? And the song 'Secret Garden' was EVERYWHERE in late '96 and early '97. Remember? There was even that version with the lines from the movie cut in? Ugh, was that the most insipid thing ever or WHAT?! But anyway, as with songs that are so omnipresent during a period of time, that song of course reminds me of that time...my first college apartment, my spring break trip to Cayman...

I was cleaning my kitchen this morning and listening to Dashboard (of course) and for some reason, when 'Hands Down' came on, it literally stole my breath to realize that the summer I first bought the CD A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar was SEVEN YEARS AGO. And again...where did those seven years go? It's been an unbelievably eventful seven years, and I have come to the point in my life that I hoped to when I dreamed of it seven years ago. And yet there is this little piece of me inside that is still that girl from seven years ago, still that girl from 14 years ago, who feels like I've gone through a time warp and ended up here, and I can't believe it. I don't even know if that makes any sense...but that's what it feels like.

3 AM

It's so frustrating when you're profoundly exhausted, yet can't sleep. I've fought insomnia for, at this point, a majority of my life, off and on, as has been well documented on this blog. I hate it. And to some extent, I think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because when I awaken in the middle of the night, I often have an immediate reaction of, "Oh shit! Fall asleep before you can start thinking!" Which, of course, does nothing to help me fall back asleep.

And so often, the things that wake me up, or keep me up, during the night, are not even the things that are truly important to me, so much as they are the worry du jour. It's like I have a subconscious need for somewhere to focus stray anxiety, so I choose something going on in my life and think it to death, to the detriment of a night's (or a week's) sleep. This drives me insane (figuratively and sometimes it feels like literally). Most often, these are things not entirely within my control. These sort of nebulous stresses - things about which maybe I can do part of the resolving but not all of it, are definitely the bane of my insomniac existence. No matter how well I know I can't control a situation, I will spend those hours between 2 AM and 5 AM frantically trying to figure out a solution.

This history began for me at around 8 years old, when I would wake up in the middle of the night and panic about nuclear armageddon (or, as I likely called it then, "Global Thermonuclear War" - Thanks, War Games). I would spend hours in the middle of the night, just worrying about this happening. And actually, truth be told, that probably wasn't even truly where it began. That's just the first very clear memory of it, for me.

And since childhood, the insomnia has ebbed and flowed, and the anxiety with it. But over the past several years, since the abusive work situation I've mentioned before, it's really been ratcheted up a notch, with the full-scale panic attacks and the utter lack of confidence I have in certain areas. And that, too, is maddening, because I worked for so many years to become a confident person, and I was one, wholly, for a while there.

I realize, of course, that the things I worry so much about are not serious problems, generally. As I said, they are often not even the things that matter most to me. What matters most to me is B, and E, and the rest of my family. But rarely is it any of these things that is keeping me up nights. Why? I can't really say. And why can't I just figure out a way to leave it aside and fall asleep? Well, if I had an answer for that, I'm pretty sure I'd be happily sacked out right now.

I've Been Gone

I haven't had much to say lately, which is odd because I've had a TON on my mind. I guess maybe articulating it just hasn't happened. It's been a weird couple of weeks. Lots of really, super wonderful goings on, and yet kind of a continued malaise. Meh. Happens. Could be hormonal. Could be psychological. Who knows? Anyway...I'm sure my mind will clear at some point soon.

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My Life Is Good...

It is. It's really good. I'm blessed in so many ways. And recently, several people who are really important to me have received really, incredibly good news about various things, and that brings me more joy than I can express.

I have a job I love (at last), I get to spend my days with my little man, who continually fascinates and delights me. I have a warm, loving and incredibly supportive husband who takes care of me in ways I have dreamed about my whole life.

And yet (there had to be an "and yet" didn't there?), I feel...not quite right, somehow. I'm guessing the aforementioned thyroid issue is a big contributor. But I also think there's more to it. The thing about working in a job that made me miserable was that it was a really easy thing to blame any stray misery on. "Oh, I'm unhappy because I hate my job." Now that that's no longer the case, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that...something is just a little off. So, back to the drawing board, in terms of finding the root of the issue. Wish me luck!

Not So in Tune

I have thyroid disease. I was initially diagnosed with Graves' Disease at 16. It became so erratic and hard to control with medication that my doctors decided to neutralize my thyroid using radioactive iodine when I was 20. Since then, I have been on Synthetic Thyroid of various sorts and various doses. And the pattern, historically, has been that every couple years, I would discover that my dose wasn't quite cutting it, and it'd be increased. After I had Benj, my dose didn't change, and my doctor was really surprised, because apparently, that isn't typical...although, my symptoms and experience with thyroid disease as a whole have been pretty a-typical. I went last week, and discovered that my dose is too HIGH (this is a first) and I'm actually technically hyperthyroid (which, again, I haven't been since around age 19).

As soon as I got this news from my doctor, it was like, "OF COURSE!" This explains SO, SO many of the symptoms and feelings I've been having for actually quite a while now. The anxiety, the sleep loss, the weird appetite...I could go on. And I felt like such a DOLT for not picking up on it earlier. I remember these feelings so well from my teen years, and yet I failed to connect the dots. I was so much more in tune with my body back then. Then, life happened and other things took precedence and I completely missed the red flags.

But it's a relief to have something to point at, of that much I'm certain.