I mentioned a few posts ago that in November, I had a run-in with something that felt all too much like post-partum depression. The sudden onset made it seem like a physical event, one compounded by stress and the waning daylight. When the waves hit, I felt like I was looking through a window at a happy life---baby, good marriage, good job---and wholly disconnected from it all. The P&L sheet of my life seemed heavy on losses; any gains felt insubstantial. And then the guilt! of feeling so ungrateful, when I'd finally gotten what I wanted!
So we went on a vacation, and that helped a lot, and it eased my fear that I was on some kind of downward spiral. And then, when we got back, I stumbled across Moxie talking about fish oil as the miracle supplement for new moms---the theory being that your brain gets depleted as the fetus/baby basically sucks the fatty acids from your brain---and remembering an old bottle in the medicine cabinet, I popped a few.
Oh.my.god. They worked. They really worked! I just felt like...myself. More even and relaxed and sane. So I looked around at research exploring the relationship between EPA (fatty acids) and mood. Adam's uncle, a psychiatrist, told me that he recommends fish oil to all his patients, and takes 4000mg himself (I take 3600).
Why hadn't I heard this before? Could I have lessened the post-miscarriage crash if I had known about this then? All the therapy sessions, making meaning of the grief, fear, and pain -- it wasn't worthless. Spiritual growth and all that. But could I have skirted the worst of it?
Eh. No point dwelling. The point is that I've gone down another step on the Celexa without any problems. I hope the trend continues.
Showing posts with label Making sense of it all. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Making sense of it all. Show all posts
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Erasure
The holidays were good, but so busy. For some reason, we agreed to travel three times -- first to my parents' house, which is less than 2 hours away. Then down South to visit Adam's family -- a three-hour flight. Then home for two days, followed by another trip to my parents' to celebrate the New Year with my sister and her family. By the middle of the second trip, I was cranky. By the third, I was resentful -- of my family, even of Sam.
Sometimes, especially when I'm tired, it seems so much easier to meet the relentlessness of motherhood by just erasing myself. It's so much simpler and more efficient -- not juggling, just giving in. No real decisions to be made or priorities to be weighed, just a quick response to the most immediate in-my-face demands. Throw my job in the mix and it's easy to spend all my time merely reacting. And there is something oddly satisfying about being self-less. You don't realize what a burden it is to be a full human being until you get a break from it. But then the burnout sets in. Then I remember that martyrdom isn't much of a strategy. Damn.
Sam has picked up some really cool tricks lately. He can transfer Cheerios and Puffs to his toothless mouth. It's an inexact process, leaving him with three or four puffs stuck to his drooly chin before he gets one in the goal. But he is so proud of it, and I'm even cocky enough to think that we might be able to go out for Chinese and both eat food at the same time.
He also likes to clap, sort of. He slaps his hand down on my hand, making a nice thwack sound. Doesn't do it with his own two hands yet. I think the payoff isn't big enough, since baby hands don't make much noise. We're all about efficiency these days.
Sometimes, especially when I'm tired, it seems so much easier to meet the relentlessness of motherhood by just erasing myself. It's so much simpler and more efficient -- not juggling, just giving in. No real decisions to be made or priorities to be weighed, just a quick response to the most immediate in-my-face demands. Throw my job in the mix and it's easy to spend all my time merely reacting. And there is something oddly satisfying about being self-less. You don't realize what a burden it is to be a full human being until you get a break from it. But then the burnout sets in. Then I remember that martyrdom isn't much of a strategy. Damn.
Sam has picked up some really cool tricks lately. He can transfer Cheerios and Puffs to his toothless mouth. It's an inexact process, leaving him with three or four puffs stuck to his drooly chin before he gets one in the goal. But he is so proud of it, and I'm even cocky enough to think that we might be able to go out for Chinese and both eat food at the same time.
He also likes to clap, sort of. He slaps his hand down on my hand, making a nice thwack sound. Doesn't do it with his own two hands yet. I think the payoff isn't big enough, since baby hands don't make much noise. We're all about efficiency these days.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Breathless
Lately, I've been having so many moments where Sam's existence just takes my breath away. I'll be playing with him, or cuddling him, or watching him sleep, and the incredible blessing of it all just stops me in my tracks. This is my baby, I'll think. We had a baby. He's here.
I think that half the journey for me has been about my slow realization that this time, we got lucky. I think my heart and brain have been so slow to believe it. I had gotten so accustomed to being one of the unlucky ones--and hell! We didn't even have it that bad. Two miscarriages. How many women have been through so much more?
I guess I'm not quite sure how to digest this good fortune.
And now he's doing little things like wrapping his arms around my neck when I carry him, and squealing and bouncing up and down and waving his arms when I come home from work. My God, the gift of mothering this child! I think, "What did I do to deserve this?" but it's not about deserving. The blessings are as much out of my hands as the losses were.
If only I could do something to help all the incredible, brave, hurting, and yes, deserving women who've lost babies. If I were a more reliable carrier, I'd offer be a surrogate, but I'm still high risk, even with Lovenox. I'm too old to offer reliable eggs. Gah. I just wish there was something I could do.
I think that half the journey for me has been about my slow realization that this time, we got lucky. I think my heart and brain have been so slow to believe it. I had gotten so accustomed to being one of the unlucky ones--and hell! We didn't even have it that bad. Two miscarriages. How many women have been through so much more?
I guess I'm not quite sure how to digest this good fortune.
And now he's doing little things like wrapping his arms around my neck when I carry him, and squealing and bouncing up and down and waving his arms when I come home from work. My God, the gift of mothering this child! I think, "What did I do to deserve this?" but it's not about deserving. The blessings are as much out of my hands as the losses were.
If only I could do something to help all the incredible, brave, hurting, and yes, deserving women who've lost babies. If I were a more reliable carrier, I'd offer be a surrogate, but I'm still high risk, even with Lovenox. I'm too old to offer reliable eggs. Gah. I just wish there was something I could do.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
"The world is a narrow bridge...
...the important thing is to not be afraid."
-Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav
-Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav
Saturday, May 26, 2007
To clarify
After I wrote my last post, it occurred to me that what I had written is exactly the sort of thing that would have freaked me out right after my first miscarriage. So I should just say here that it's not inevitable for a woman feel up feeling as though she's dragging around a dead part of herself after a pregnancy loss. What happened to me happened in the context of my life, my family history, the other losses that were happening concurrently, the fact that we were living 3000 miles away from family, a frustrating job situation, and my own tendency toward anxiety when times get really tough.
I do think that the nature of grief is different for these sorts of losses. But people are bound to feel it to widely varying degrees.
I do think that the nature of grief is different for these sorts of losses. But people are bound to feel it to widely varying degrees.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
The grief that we know
Rosepetal has sustained more losses this year than anyone should ever have to. She wrote so eloquently today about her grief. How she can't eat, how she feels like a shell of her former self. It got me thinking about one of the subtle, profound experiences of miscarriage and infant loss. It's hard to talk about this without sounding a little extreme, a little melodramatic. But it's worth a try, because there's something here that I wish I had understood at the time.
The process of birth is one of separation (and actually, reunion). In utero, the baby is part of you, made from your very body, and yet it is not you. It's a complex reality. Two realities, really, existing simultaneously. The baby is of your body. In many ways, you and the baby are one. Women sometimes describe giving birth and saying, "You mean, there was another person inside me all that time?" Similarly, when the baby is born, s/he doesn't yet grasp that the mother is a separate person. As the baby grows, so does the awareness of an individual identity. It's a gradual thing. Both mother and baby slowly begin to conceive of the other as unique, separate.
So when that baby dies, doesn't part of you die, too? And not just in the poetic sense (as in, "It's so sad I could die"). The part of you that was one with the baby is dead. You aren't alive the way you were before. You're walking wounded, but worse. Dragging this dead part of you, like a paralyzed limb, everywhere you go.
I was trying to explain this to my sister-in-law, who was trying to dismiss the loss. "Something died inside me," I told her, instinctively putting my hand on my abdomen. "My baby died inside me." And suddenly she winced in sympathetic pain and never minimized our loss again.
That is why this grief is so different. It's emotional and physical. Our bodies grieve this loss, not just our minds/hearts. It's almost as if we live in a liminal state between life and death. We feel like shells of our former selves because, in a sense, we are.
When I was at my worst, that sense of being close to death, of some part of me being dead, terrified me. I feared that I was on the verge of becoming suicidal...that with just a little more stress, something would break and overtake me and make me do something horrible. But that didn't happen. Thankfully, with help, I began to see that it wasn't suicidality, but something else. No less awful, but different. The death I was feeling wasn't some future thing to fear. It had already happened.
For a while after that, I wasn't so haunted by death, but still felt untethered, disconnected from the world. I remember hiking up my favorite hill one day and lying down in the sun at the top. Before my miscarriages, I had always had the feeling there that I was grounded, with the comforting warmth of the earth under my back. But now I felt as if I could just float away. The earth could just shake me off. Adam and my family were the only things that gave me context and tethered me to my life. I held on tightly to them.
Then, with time and help (Adam, therapy, family, Celexa), I began to have glimmers of feeling alive again. Those moments kept me going. I had moments of feeling like I belonged in this world. There would still be dark days, but they would be followed by days in which I felt that I felt connected, even rooted. I began to feel like myself. And then, in time, I began to believe in the future.
I am awed to know that, even after such darkness, life can still come back. It feels like a miracle. In fact, I can only feel safe talking about those dark days now that I know that they can recede. I used to think that resilience meant never falling down. Being unhurt by injury. But maybe that's not it. Maybe it's more about coming through to the other side.
The process of birth is one of separation (and actually, reunion). In utero, the baby is part of you, made from your very body, and yet it is not you. It's a complex reality. Two realities, really, existing simultaneously. The baby is of your body. In many ways, you and the baby are one. Women sometimes describe giving birth and saying, "You mean, there was another person inside me all that time?" Similarly, when the baby is born, s/he doesn't yet grasp that the mother is a separate person. As the baby grows, so does the awareness of an individual identity. It's a gradual thing. Both mother and baby slowly begin to conceive of the other as unique, separate.
So when that baby dies, doesn't part of you die, too? And not just in the poetic sense (as in, "It's so sad I could die"). The part of you that was one with the baby is dead. You aren't alive the way you were before. You're walking wounded, but worse. Dragging this dead part of you, like a paralyzed limb, everywhere you go.
I was trying to explain this to my sister-in-law, who was trying to dismiss the loss. "Something died inside me," I told her, instinctively putting my hand on my abdomen. "My baby died inside me." And suddenly she winced in sympathetic pain and never minimized our loss again.
That is why this grief is so different. It's emotional and physical. Our bodies grieve this loss, not just our minds/hearts. It's almost as if we live in a liminal state between life and death. We feel like shells of our former selves because, in a sense, we are.
When I was at my worst, that sense of being close to death, of some part of me being dead, terrified me. I feared that I was on the verge of becoming suicidal...that with just a little more stress, something would break and overtake me and make me do something horrible. But that didn't happen. Thankfully, with help, I began to see that it wasn't suicidality, but something else. No less awful, but different. The death I was feeling wasn't some future thing to fear. It had already happened.
For a while after that, I wasn't so haunted by death, but still felt untethered, disconnected from the world. I remember hiking up my favorite hill one day and lying down in the sun at the top. Before my miscarriages, I had always had the feeling there that I was grounded, with the comforting warmth of the earth under my back. But now I felt as if I could just float away. The earth could just shake me off. Adam and my family were the only things that gave me context and tethered me to my life. I held on tightly to them.
Then, with time and help (Adam, therapy, family, Celexa), I began to have glimmers of feeling alive again. Those moments kept me going. I had moments of feeling like I belonged in this world. There would still be dark days, but they would be followed by days in which I felt that I felt connected, even rooted. I began to feel like myself. And then, in time, I began to believe in the future.
I am awed to know that, even after such darkness, life can still come back. It feels like a miracle. In fact, I can only feel safe talking about those dark days now that I know that they can recede. I used to think that resilience meant never falling down. Being unhurt by injury. But maybe that's not it. Maybe it's more about coming through to the other side.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
The secret
My best childhood friend has lived a charmed life. She grew up in a generally happy family. They were well-off. She has always been healthy. She has taken risks and they've always worked out for the best. She met her husband at 31 and got accidentally pregnant right before their wedding. Because she's suspicious of Western medicine in general and prenatal care in particular, she saw only midwives throughout her pregnancy. Not even an ultrasound. She gave birth to her daughter at home, with no complications.
All of this has led her to adopt a particularly optimistic philosophy, one that reframes her good fortune as a reward for living the right way. She practices yoga, Ayurveda, tai chi, massage, vegetarianism, and can-do New Age spirituality. She believes that our body states are merely expressions our emotional/spiritual realities.
So you can imagine why I've been reluctant to call her in the months since my miscarriages. But she has been leaving messages and my silence was starting to look suspicious. So, as I was feeling strong and optimistic yesterday, I have her a call.
Two comments stood out:
1) Her response to the general news about the miscarriages and my antiphospholipid diagnosis: "Have you heard of The Secret?"
ahem.
My reply: Yes, but I found that philosophy particularly unhelpful since it blames people for their own suffering and serves only to comfort the fortunate.
2) Her response to my news that we'll be moving back to our home city over the summer: "Maybe your body just didn't want to give birth in a place where you don't feel at home. I bet that you're going to feel so grounded when you move back that it'll all work out."
My reply: "Hmmm...that's interesting."
But what I wanted to say was, "FUCK YOU!!!! Saying shit like that only comforts YOU and makes you think that you're in charge and that you "deserve" your happiness. And you know what?? You're not in charge! And I can't wait until something comes along to burst your goddamned smug little bubble."
sigh.
The thing is, she means well. Her heart is in the right place. She wants me to be happy, she wants me to get what I want, and she wants us all to feel safe in a benevolent world.
But she just doesn't get it. And I don't really wish that reality on her. Still, I get so very tired of having to excuse peoples' ignorance in light of their good intentions. I'm tired of the hush-hush attitude that makes miscarriage seem like such a rare aberration that people are clueless about how to comfort us.
So lately, when I'm talking to someone who seems compassionate or smart about things, I find myself more apt to tell them about what has happened to me. Not compulsively, not often. But when the conversation opens up in a particular way, I open up. I feel the need to record it: These things happen. To good people. Life can be random.
I'm just very anti-secret right now. Anti-Secret, too. People are suffering all the time, all around us. And we further isolate them by responding to their pain with fear and avoidance and platitudes. Albert Camus once described America as "this place where everything is done to prove that life isn't tragic." He's right. Life is pretty fucking tragic sometimes. Our only hope is to know that we're not alone.
All of this has led her to adopt a particularly optimistic philosophy, one that reframes her good fortune as a reward for living the right way. She practices yoga, Ayurveda, tai chi, massage, vegetarianism, and can-do New Age spirituality. She believes that our body states are merely expressions our emotional/spiritual realities.
So you can imagine why I've been reluctant to call her in the months since my miscarriages. But she has been leaving messages and my silence was starting to look suspicious. So, as I was feeling strong and optimistic yesterday, I have her a call.
Two comments stood out:
1) Her response to the general news about the miscarriages and my antiphospholipid diagnosis: "Have you heard of The Secret?"
ahem.
My reply: Yes, but I found that philosophy particularly unhelpful since it blames people for their own suffering and serves only to comfort the fortunate.
2) Her response to my news that we'll be moving back to our home city over the summer: "Maybe your body just didn't want to give birth in a place where you don't feel at home. I bet that you're going to feel so grounded when you move back that it'll all work out."
My reply: "Hmmm...that's interesting."
But what I wanted to say was, "FUCK YOU!!!! Saying shit like that only comforts YOU and makes you think that you're in charge and that you "deserve" your happiness. And you know what?? You're not in charge! And I can't wait until something comes along to burst your goddamned smug little bubble."
sigh.
The thing is, she means well. Her heart is in the right place. She wants me to be happy, she wants me to get what I want, and she wants us all to feel safe in a benevolent world.
But she just doesn't get it. And I don't really wish that reality on her. Still, I get so very tired of having to excuse peoples' ignorance in light of their good intentions. I'm tired of the hush-hush attitude that makes miscarriage seem like such a rare aberration that people are clueless about how to comfort us.
So lately, when I'm talking to someone who seems compassionate or smart about things, I find myself more apt to tell them about what has happened to me. Not compulsively, not often. But when the conversation opens up in a particular way, I open up. I feel the need to record it: These things happen. To good people. Life can be random.
I'm just very anti-secret right now. Anti-Secret, too. People are suffering all the time, all around us. And we further isolate them by responding to their pain with fear and avoidance and platitudes. Albert Camus once described America as "this place where everything is done to prove that life isn't tragic." He's right. Life is pretty fucking tragic sometimes. Our only hope is to know that we're not alone.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Gifts
My trip to see the in-laws was just so, so good. I slept like someone who hadn't rested well in months. I sat in the sun and was quiet. I was proud of myself for facing my fear of flying, Adam and I had a couple of good meals, the weather was perfect, and we adopted a kitten! He just showed up on my mother-in-law's doorstep one morning and jumped in my lap.
"It's like God sent him to you!" said my sister-in-law, who's in recovery and believes that God is in charge of everything.
I'm doubtful. In fact, if I were one of the Seven Dwarfs, that would be my name. But this kitten does feel like a gift. And now that we're back home, the work of getting him settled in and integrated with our existing cat feels...satisfying. It gives me a place to put all my frustrated maternal instincts. It makes us feel like we can nurture life. It gives us something to focus on and laugh about.
"It's like God sent him to you!" said my sister-in-law, who's in recovery and believes that God is in charge of everything.
I'm doubtful. In fact, if I were one of the Seven Dwarfs, that would be my name. But this kitten does feel like a gift. And now that we're back home, the work of getting him settled in and integrated with our existing cat feels...satisfying. It gives me a place to put all my frustrated maternal instincts. It makes us feel like we can nurture life. It gives us something to focus on and laugh about.
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