100 Days to Go

If the US president has the first 100 days in office, I have the last 100 days in this pregnancy. He has the SOTU address, while I have the SOTP woes. That's State of the Pregnancy. Sorry I can't help make comparisons, especially when my days-to-go coincides with the president's state of the union address today.

Anyway, I'm still in awe at how time flies with my pregnancy with TLB (well, generally the months of December-January go by so fast for me...I don't know why). From the time I got the BFP until today, everything has been a time-lapse of sorts. But the major difference is, the days were not a blur instead they were more vivid than ever. Clearer and in-the-moment. 

I look at my growing belly and feel the equally growing TLB inside me and I'm brought to the reality of it all. This is really happening and that I've got 100 days more to go. If I let myself think about tomorrow, the realization will hit even harder - 99 days to go. Two-digit-days, folks, two-digit-days! If I really push it, I would probably let myself imagine reaching one-digit days to go without any incident. But yeah, that would be pushing it too much for me. I can't go there. I won't.

You see, 100-days-to-go would be like Gabriel Garcia-Marquez's "100 Years of Solitude." Not in plot, but in how long the days are going to be for me from here on out. Surely, time will stretch like unsulphured molasses. And no matter how I count the seconds, minutes, hours of the day that passes, it will not move any faster.

As time slows down, that's when the fears and anxieties creep in. I think these have something to do with the period in pregnancy when my loss happened. Unlike other BLMs who had early losses, my loss was after the home stretch, when I was at the finish line. So I can't breathe a sigh of relief because it hasn't passed. I can only hope and pray that I make it through these excruciatingly slow days and reach the finish line with a baby who's alive and well this time around.

Now, the question is: How will I cope? How will I manage the approaching fear and anxiety of these 100 days? (Mind you, I've been encountering fear throughout this subsequent pregnancy. But as I near the end of it, the fear intensifies for me.) One BLM, who is also expecting her rainbow, has posted on her blog the Managing The Fear BLM Linkup! for mamas in subsequent pregnancies after loss. So here are things I've been doing that I want to share: 

1) Meditate and listen to my affirmations and guided imagery (my Hypnobirthing CD has Rainbow Relaxation, Empowering the Body for Birth and Birthing Affirmation). These have kept me grounded and in tune with what's happening now with my pregnancy. They have helped focus my mind, heart and soul to living each day for the moment, in the moment, by the moment (remember my New Year's solution in this post?). 

A friend told me to just 'visualize' what I want for this pregnancy. "Just think of the outcome you want and continue visualizing until your labor and delivery and it will come true," she said. I resisted the urge to rebuke her and tell her: "Well, I did that on Kai's pregnancy and he died anyway." I know she meant well. But I honestly said to her that 'visualization' is no longer for me. "What matters to me is the here and now. Right now, I'm still pregnant and TLB is moving in my belly and has a heartbeat. Everything else, I refuse to think about and stress over because in the end, I have no control of what's going to happen next," I said.

2) Continue doing beneficial distractions. I've found new hobbies to keep my mind off potential fears and anxieties such loom knitting and baking. Right now, I'm knitting baby hats for this charity organization that sends aid to Afghanistan women and their babies. I'll see how many I can make until the February 15th deadline. (I've done six, woohoo!)

This will not only distract me from my worries about this pregnancy but it will also honor Kai and give thanks for TLB's continued well-being. It's my way of giving back since actually volunteering my time to help out others has been curtailed by restricted activity due to my marginal placenta previa. Also, I've knitted little hats for TLB and I'm going to 'attempt' to knit a baby blanket for him next, which will keep me occupied.

Speaking of restricted activity, I'm not going to prenatal yoga class for the meantime. I'd really like to be active that way, but aside from the doctor's advice, I don't know how much of a distraction it's going to be. The class I plan to attend again is a place where expectant moms talked about their physical and emotional feelings with their pregnancies aside from doing their practice. It's the same setup as the one I took during my first pregnancy and I could feel the memories overwhelming me.

Besides, I simply just can't share my own feelings and fears to a group of first-time mothers who have not experienced pregnancy loss. For one thing, I don't want to scare the hell out of them and for another, I don't want to feel resentment towards them. It's a difficult situation to be in and I'm kind of glad I'm on a restricted activity for now. I would just do light yoga at home, I guess.

As for other activities, I plan to do some more healthy baking 'experiments' but I'm still looking for 'guinea pigs'. With just the hubby and I, we simply can't eat all that I plan to bake. Heh. But I've done no-sugar muffins that were quickly gobbled up by mystery eaters in our house (these would most likely be me and Dave, though, we don't actually see each other carting off a muffin or two for personal consumption. We'd just wonder where the heck did the muffins disappear to).

I've also been reading a lot. I've got several books I'm reading alternately - Steve Job's biography by Walter Isaacson, "Do Chocolate Lovers have Sweeter Babies?" by Jena Pincott (I recommend this, it's a fun and geeky read) and "Pregnancy after Loss: A Guide to Pregnancy after a Miscarriage, Stillbirth, or Infant Death?" by Carol Cirulli Lanham.

I know there are other 'distractions' that could be beneficial for this subsequent pregnancy (on a sidenote, work is not a 'beneficial' distraction at all) and my sanity. For now, I'll continue with these as they have worked for me and helped me, and is still helping me, cope with this pregnancy for the last six months.  

3) Focus on the small goals/achievements of the here and now. I try not to cling to the outcome that I want for this pregnancy. Sure, I hope and pray a lot that it will be a good one. But I can't obsessed about it lest I want to have a nervous breakdown or a psychotic break. Like I wrote before, I have no control over it. As much as I plan, keep my 'eggs in one basket' and try to line them in neat rows without breaking them, there's no guarantee that everything would be fine in the end. All I could do is to accept this notion and do the best I can to take care of myself for this pregnancy.

With this in mind, I rejoice at the small goals/achievements I experience in every moment of this pregnancy: getting over a heart burn or constipation; being able to eat without gagging; finding an alternative to coca cola (organic ginger ale and IZZE clementine, yeah!); hearing TLB's heartbeat through the doppler; feeling his movements; being able to record a successful kick count; etc.

I realize there will be 'big' fears to come, which may be unavoidable, so I will try to breathe through them as they pass. Grief has given me a lot of practice doing this and it made me a little bit braver to face what challenges that I may have to encounter as the days go by. For now, I'm thankful that my thyroids are doing good, my spotting have stopped, and TLB is remaining healthy and active as ever.

4) Find my comfort zone. I think I've become a bit superstitious with this pregnancy. For one thing, I've been keeping quiet about it to many of our friends and family. I feel that if I come out with the big announcement, I'll just jinx the whole thing. I know it's not realistic and that it can only breed isolation (and probably some 'hurt' feelings), but I'm comfortable with it. 

Sure, 'happy' support and prayers are not there for us but I'd rather take silence than be sent with insensitive congratulations and well-meaning platitudes about how this pregnancy would help 'erase' my grief over the loss of my firstborn son. It sounds selfish I know, but this is not for everyone. Each one of us have our own comfort zone. I've found that this comfort zone of self-preservation works for me.

Speaking of superstitions, I'm also trying not to buy baby stuffs for TLB. It's tough. Just last week, I caved in and bought a blue elephant organic stuffed toy. But I hid it out-of-sight somewhere and I hope I would be able to find it when the time comes. Anyway, we already have most of the baby stuffs we need. They are all in plastic bins in the guest room/storage room. I remember when I was packing away all those stuffs last April, I was in tears but I was also praying for hope that one day, we'll get to use them for Kai's future sibling.

Add to that list of 'trying-not-to-do' is thinking too far ahead with this pregnancy. You know, the kind where you say to yourself: "Oh well, I'll have to do that when I'm no longer pregnant;" or, "When baby is here, we'll do such-and-such;" or, "By the end of May, I'll need to be doing blah-blah." The future right now is not where I want to be. Not until TLB is here - alive and well. 

So for now, I try to plan only the immediate things for this pregnancy. I tend to procrastinate but there are some stuffs that I don't want to wait on like sending in our hospital registration, taking childbirth prep and newborn care classes, scheduling hospital tour, looking for a pediatrician, getting miscellaneous lists together. (Isn't it obvious that I'm a list kind of person and yet I tend to procrastinate a lot even with a list? Ah, the irony!)

But most importantly, I also found that documenting my pregnancy with TLB has given me a lot of comfort. Writing down my fears on this blog has somewhat lost its power over me even just for a little bit. It's also a way for me to celebrate TLB and his little milestones. I may be a grieving and fearful mother, but I want this little one to receive the love and joy that I have for him.  

Anyway, that's it for how I manage my SOTP fears. Here's to hoping that I make it through the remaining next days, weeks, months of this pregnancy without going crazy. Too much.Wish me luck!