Preparing for a big week

Today I’m officially 6 weeks. Sticky is now the size of a pea. Between you and me (and pardon my lack of eloquence) I am slightly shitting myself. Not just because of the activities of the weekend, but last time, this was my last week of pregnancy. I have everything I can possibly cross crossed that this week isn’t my last too.

I rested up on the weekend and I didn’t feel too bad. I had some bouts of nausea and some stabbing boob pains and it helped received my anxiety – but not a lot. I woke up this morning to more cramps and terrible gas. I was burping like a fat guy who just downed a carton of beer – it wasn’t pretty. Whoever said pregnancy was beautiful must have been blind, deaf and a man!

I struggled to find a way to release the anxiety. Yesterday, it was particularly bad as I felt a knot in my chest and could only take shallow breaths. My friend shared something her counsellor said which was anxiety is just trying to predict the future. That’s so true. Any anxiety we feel is based on our assumption something will happen in the future we don’t want to have happen. I tried to remind myself of that, and I truly believe it, but it didn’t help.

I started Googling ways to reduce anxiety. Of course there’s a million sites that tell you to eat well, exercise, breathe etc etc. None of them were terribly helpful however one was.  It said “Notice you’re alright right now.” So I’ve started telling myself that right now, in this moment, Sticky is ok. I’ll keep telling myself this until I know otherwise. This helped me to realise that the miscarriage has kept me on high alert for anything that could go wrong. So when I got the cramps on Friday, I processed that as proof something was happening. I think I just panicked. My psychology studies tell me this is hyper-vigilant behaviour.

Basically, hyper-vigilant people are wary all the time. They constantly scan their environments for the first sign something isn’t right. In pregnancy, it’s every twinge, ache, pain etc.  Funnily enough, it stems from a previous disastrous event or series of events so I guess a miscarriage would count as a disastrous event. The greatest challenge for a hyper-vigilant person is to let their guard down. Relaxing seems impossible because it opens you up to too much potential for things to go wrong.

The literature says that the symptoms are likely to continue until the sufferer realises their expectations and beliefs are unfounded. So, that leads me to the events that will unfold this week. I had a blood test this morning so the results will give me an indication if my HCG levels are in the normal levels. I also have an appointment with my GP this afternoon so I can get him to check my levels from Friday night so we can see if they’ve increased. He can also tell me if something else is causing all of this. Then, of course, Thursday – D Day.

I’ll be 6 weeks 3 days so it could still be too early to see the heartbeat, but we can measure the sac. It needs to be bigger than it was on Friday night – which was 0.8cm. They didn’t measure the other sac so I don’t know what we’ll do about that. I guess there will either be something indicating an embryo in it or not. I’m assuming the fertility specialist will have some way of knowing if it’s a twin or just the haematoma. After my blood test this morning, I told my husband I’ve been praying to every deity I can think of that it’s a twin. I would like to only have to go through this pregnancy business this one time. I don’t know if I’m up to going through it all again.

So, this week is just a series of baby steps. All I can do is take each event one at a time and hope they all end in good outcomes. In the meantime, I’ve decided me, Sticky and Baby B will be Team Fisty. That’s a combination of all of our names. We will all need to work together to get each other through this. So I remind myself that we are all ok right now. I ask Peanut to talk to his siblings and tell them how grateful Mum would be if they keep fighting and show themselves on Thursday. I keep telling Sticky and Baby B to work hard on building their hearts and to help each other grow. I know I am already too involved in thinking there is a twin but I can’t help it. It helps me to talk to it and will it to live, rather than just think it’s a sac of blood. I’ll be disappointed if it is just a sac of blood, but in the end, I just want at least one healthy baby to pop out. I’d like to think after everything I’ve been through, it’s not too much to ask!

Ps – today’s blood test was 11,048. The specialist is happy with that so I should be too. I'm a little paranoid it will be lower than Friday night but fingers are crossed!