Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The thing about symptoms ...

If you know me in Real Life - I am about to disclose information that is incredibly private.  I have pondered for days on whether or not I should post this, as I know there are a few people I know that still read this blog. Please, Please respect me and my wishes to A) Keep what you read private and not share with anyone B) Not bring it up to me in ANY way shape or form.  I will continue on believing that this is being shared with a wonderful IF community and not necessarily anyone I know.  This space is for me to share my thoughts and feelings and I need not censor it for anyone. Thank you for respecting my wishes.

I get pregnancy symptoms.  Extreme exhaustion, tender breasts, slight nausea (nothing sever by any stretch).

I have had them with all three pregnancies.  I don't mind the symptoms. I don't mind them one bit.  What I am scared of is the fact that since I get symptoms - the lack of symptoms can be a sign something is or has gone wrong.  I'm currently feeling exhausted and my boobs have just started to hurt.  Normally one (who has struggled with IF and loss) would be celebrating these mini milestones in pregnancy.  My fear is that they will disappear like they have in my previous 2 pregnancies.  Although not having any symptoms would be hard as you can never know if you are pregnant, but the appearance of them, just gives me something more to think about - each day now (come on....lets be honest...each minute) I compare my symptoms from the day (re: minute) before and try to judge whether they are the same, getting worse or alleviating.  How do I turn off this part of my brain and just be?

Another thing I hate doing is brushing my hair - go figure!  Last time I miscarried, I had a feeling something wasn't right as the days leading up to my ultrasound, my hair started falling out.  Not just one or two strands, but it would usually fill a comb whenever I would brush after a shower.  Hubby thought that I was being ridiculous when I mentioned it to him....turns out I was right.  Now, I try and brush my hair as gently as possible and count how many strands fall out in hopes that it isn't too many.  How messed up is this?

Any advice from those who have / are pregnant after a loss on how to survive the first trimester?  I didn't want an early ultrasound - but now I'm wishing the option was available to me.  Ugh.  Some days thoughts come in my head about plans I have in March around the time I will be getting my ultrasound and I think that I can't go through with those plans just in case something is wrong.

I just want to get off this roller-coaster and look into a magic crystal ball that will tell me everything will be okay!

6 comments:

  1. I wish I had something to tell you that would make it easier, but so far I haven't found anything. I am going crazy analyzing my symptoms. Am I not naseous enough? Am I tired because I went to bed late, or is it because I'm still pregnant? This not knowing is absolutely horrible and is driving me insane. I wish we could take a sleeping pill and wake up after 12 weeks.

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  2. Oh I don't know if I can really be of help. One thing I heard was to allow yourself 10 obsessing minutes per day. You're not allowed to obsess at any other time... but during those 10 minutes you can freak out, google, ask questions, etc. Other than that, find something to distract you and go at it!

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  3. Hi! You commented on my blog earlier this week about pointers to help you through the first trimester. I wish I had a really good answer for you :( My symptoms would come and go, so it was a really stressful trimester for me. If I had symptoms I knew things were great, if I woke up and felt nothing I would be a mess all day. I ended up trying to find things I enjoyed to kind of distract me from obsessing over my symptoms (or lack thereof). Before I got pregnant again I was doing yoga, hip hop dance classes, and pole dancing classes (although, I wouldn't recomend doing anything like this if you haven't done it before getting pregnant!). I continued the dancing classes through part way through my first trimester. It gave me something to look forward to every week.

    Once I entered my second trimester I bought a doppler (a Sonoline B - it's great because it has an indicator that tells you when it detects your baby's heart beat). The doppler, although scary to use at first becuase the baby can hide and it can take a while to hear something, helped me relax a lot until I felt LO's consistent movements.

    I liked Slynn's suggestion of allwoing yourself 10 minutes to obsess. My therapist actually told me something similar when I told her I was blogging about my experience. She said allow yourself an hour every day to think about what's bothering you and write about it. It's kind of hard to allow yourself just an hour when it's something you think about all the time, but allowing myself time to blog has helped a lot!

    I hope that helps a little bit!

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  4. This is my first pregnancy but I am also not scheduling anything around the day of my first ultrasound in case something goes wrong and I need to have time to be a basket case. :( Coincidentally, it also means I'm free to have a happy dinner out with my husband if everything is going well!

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  5. Like others have said. Let yourself freak out or just think about things for a short amount of time. Get them out. Write or talk to someone and it does make things a little easier. I personally can only imagine what you are feeling right now, but this has worked for me for many other situations. I was able to think about it all and get it out and not really thing about it for the rest of the day. If I did think about it, it was less stressful. Hugz!

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  6. Hello, I just found your blog. I am 15 weeks pregnant after a loss at 12 weeks, though the baby died sometime between weeks 8 and 9. Here's what I discovered through my first trimester post loss, first I was OBSESSED with taking my temperature, CONVINCED that if I had kept taking my temperature through the 1st pregnancy I would have noticed a drop during that 8th week and I would have known that the baby had died. Second, deep down I totally knew that the baby had died, I can almost tell you the exact day that the baby died, I mentioned it to my husband and my OB ( I just wasn't tired anymore and I wasn't pregnant in my dreams anymore) and they both convinced me I was crazy because I had had an ultrasound just days before but when I started spotting 3 weeks later and everyone tried to tell me spotting was normal i KNEW. In that same thread with this second pregnancy while I've COMPLETELY freaked out before each and every appt, so much so that I had high blood pressure because I was so nervous, convinced there wouldn't be a heartbeat but I discovered once again that deep down I KNEW the baby was alive. One time it took at least 3 minutes to find the heartbeat on the doppler and while it was scary there was a part of me that absolutely knew she would find it.

    Listen to your gut, the really really deep down part of you, not the crazy surface part, you'll know if the baby is still alive.

    Other than that, you gotta just stick it out. Early ultrasounds aren't much help as I had 2 at 6 weeks and 8 weeks with my first pregnancy and lost that baby anyway. Second pregnancy I waited until 10 weeks, best decision I ever made.

    Keep busy and try not to obsess (easier said than done of course) taking my temp every morning helped me immensely as it stayed up and I was convinced it would drop if I was miscarrying.

    Good luck!

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