I feel embarrassed and kind of silly to share how difficult my weekend was, because I know how lucky Nick and I are, and I know that so many other good people have been through much more traumatic pregnancies/NICU experiences than I and don't have these symptoms. I'm not sharing this for pity or because I feel sorry for myself, but because I think it's important to draw attention to the possible long term consequences of high risk pregnancies.
As I shared on an Instagram post, my sister was induced Thursday night after a totally normal, complication free pregnancy at the same hospital Nick and I were in. Her contractions started in earnest Friday morning, so that afternoon I brought my brother-in-law lunch. At our hospital, the maternal-fetal medicine office is on the main floor, followed by labor and delivery on the second, postpartum on third, and the NICU on the fourth floor. So, all my memories of my time with Nick are in one place. When I pulled off the main road and into the parking lot like I have done so many times before, it felt like all the air went out in my car and I was suddenly breathing through a straw. I had planned on going to the second floor to bring my BIL his food so I could see my sister too, but I chickened out and asked him to meet me in the lobby. It was embarrassing to say I wasn't ready to go into the actual hospital yet, but the anxiety came on so quickly that I didn't know what would happen and didn't want to risk making a scene.
That night, my sister was still in labor (she ended up being in labor for 30+ hours!) so I decided to suck it up and go to labor and delivery to wait with my family. Going to the second floor wasn't as difficult as I was expecting it to be, even though my chest started hurting when I saw our high risk doctor's office. Seeing my sister was kind of an out of body experience, especially when I saw the robe and yellow socks folded in the corner of the room. As soon as I would get admitted to the hospital, I would change out of my clothes and into the robe and socks, and it was what I was wearing during my c-section. It was a strong memory, but it wasn't overwhelming or even that upsetting.
My nephew was born early Saturday morning, and, unfortunately, had some minor breathing problems at birth. He was admitted to the NICU on CPAP, and is still there tonight (though he is off CPAP and doing great.)When I found out that he was in the NICU, I started panicking. I kept thinking about my sister having to leave the hospital without her baby like I did, and the thought made me so sad that I started crying, and soon my chest started burning (it felt like when you go running or workout when it's so cold outside that it makes your lungs hurt.) I had a panic attack, and it is embarrassing for me to admit that I lost control after something that isn't too big of a deal, especially since we all knew my nephew was basically fine and would only need to be in the NICU for monitoring for a short time.
I thought I wouldn't be able to handle seeing preemies again and going back to the NICU, so I decided just to go to the hospital to see my sister, but not actually go inside the NICU. When I got to the hospital, I met up with one of our favorite NICU nurses. It was so good to see her again, and it made me remember how blessed Nick and I were to meet such wonderful people and receive such excellent care. Talking to our nurse helped me relax, so I decided to actually go and see my nephew (he ended up being in the same room Nick was in for the second half of his stay.) On Saturday, it wasn't too hard to be in the NICU, in part because my sister and brother in law were so ecstatic about their new baby, and in part because my nephew is over 8 pounds, and, other than the CPAP, looks like a normal, healthy newborn and not an itty bitty preemie.
Since yesterday went so well, I decided to go back to the NICU today to spend more time with my sister and nephew. Today was much harder, because the curtains were open in the rooms leading to my nephews', and seeing the teeny tiny preemies made my heart hurt for their parents. Seeing other babies as tiny as Nick was upsetting, and I hate the thought that their moms are currently going through everything I did. It brought back so many memories of passing these rooms on my way to see Nick, rocking him in (literally) the same chair my sister was sitting in, and hearing alarms and the beep of feeding tubes. It was a lot to relive, and when I left the hospital I spent some time crying in my car.
When I was driving home, I had a surreal, out of body experience: I was driving down the same road to my house like I always do, but instead of it being in the middle of a sunny day, it was dark like the middle of the night. I was seeing the road in the darkness like I had so many times when I would drive to the hospital in the early morning and late at night.It was the same road, but I was driving at night. I don't know how else to explain it, and I know my description doesn't make any sense, but it was really weird and scary, and it made my head hurt afterwards.
In my defense, no one was expecting my nephew to be in the NICU, and, even though I was trying my best to be prepared to return to labor and delivery, I wasn't expecting to go back to the NICU. I have been trying to stop myself when I start to obsess about my experience and refocus my thoughts like my therapist suggested, but I feel like going back to the hospital was a huge setback in terms of trying to stop reliving my pregnancy complications. On the other hand, I feel like being back in the same room and hallways brought the issues I'm struggling with to the surface and reminded me how important it is that I take the time to work through this baggage.
I feel like it would have been a normal reaction to my pregnancy complications if I was having panic attacks and flashbacks last winter when my pregnancy looked bleak, but instead, I think I shut down emotionally, and that explains why everything caught up to me this weekend. I'm just now starting to process everything, six months later. It's easy to convince myself that I don't have any reason to ever go back to the NICU, so I don't need to worry about reliving everything like I did this weekend, but I know I need to face these issues head on to truly recover.
Sunday, August 19, 2018
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
My First Therapy Appointment
Nick is halfway to his first birthday today! It's hard to believe he is six months old already, but at the same time, he has changed my life so much that it's surprising he has only been here six months. I feel as though both of us turned a corner this month; for Nick, it was catching up to his fellow February babies in height and weight, and testing out of physical therapy. For me, it was acknowledging the toll my pregnancy has taken on me emotionally, which led to me starting therapy.
I think about my pregnancy with Nick constantly. It's like my brain is on a loop and replays three particular scenes on repeat: the times I would wake up to discover I had started bleeding, the scary appointment with my MFM doctor the day before Nick was born that still gives me chills, and then the hours leading up to my c-section. I think about our doctors and nurses literally every day, but at first, I didn't really see this as a bad thing. A lot of good has come from my obsession with my pregnancy and the NICU: I have been able to write and publish four articles that have (hopefully) had a positive impact on other readers, I was selected to participate in a fellowship through the March of Dimes that gave me the opportunity to advocate on Capitol Hill, and, recently, I have started mentoring other new NICU moms through a program called Hand to Hold. I didn't see my constant thinking about my pregnancy as a problem (or even consciously realize I was doing it,) until replaying these memories began to give me anxiety.
As I mentioned briefly in an earlier Instagram post, I went to Hobby Lobby last week to pick up some supplies for a project I was working on. Hobby Lobby had all of their fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and even Christmas decorations displayed in the aisles already. Usually, I love when pumpkins and Christmas trees start appearing in stores, but seeing Christmas ornaments and ceramic Thanksgiving turkeys made my chest start to feel tight (and still does as I write this.) It was around this time of year last year that we learned we were expecting Nick, and it seemed every complication I had corresponded with a season: we announced our pregnancy on social media with a picture of pumpkins that said we were "adding another pumpkin to our patch." I had my first bleed the night Fall Break started for me when I was still teaching, and I was hospitalized the week before Thanksgiving and two weeks before Christmas, and Nick was born on Valentine's Day. I'm worried that these holidays will now always bring back bad memories of my pregnancy with Nick, especially Christmas: my mother-in-law sent me a tiny Christmas tree that stood on the bedside table next to my hospital bed in December, and I remember lying in the hospital listening to Christmas music to try and cheer myself up. I preferred to spend my time on bed rest in our living room so I could look at the lights on our Christmas tree, and I would keep myself busy by watching Christmas movies and shopping for presents on my laptop. Christmas is over four months away, but just writing this makes me feel so sad and makes my stomach hurt. Even something as simple as smelling the coffee I used to drink on my way to the NICU, or hearing a song that came out around the time Nick was born, makes me anxious. Halloween-Christmas is my absolute favorite time of year, so, since I don't want to be reliving and feeling the anxiety of the 2017 holiday season all this year, I decided to find a therapist. (I had an eating disorder all throughout high school and would occasionally relapse during college, so I understand how powerful and worthwhile it is to work with a therapist. I lost a lot because of my eating disorder, so I take my mental health seriously and don't hesitate to reach out if I feel it is needed.)
I have only met with my therapist once so far, and my first appointment was mostly giving him the rundown on what my pregnancy and the NICU was like (which made him remark that Nick is "quite the miracle.") It was honestly nice just to talk to someone other than my husband, and my therapist is (thankfully) very empathetic and a good listener. I felt kind of silly going to a therapist because Nick 1. Survived, and 2. Is doing so well now, so it was so nice to hear him acknowledge that my pregnancy was traumatic, and that it is not something anyone would be able to get over quickly. He explained that often when people are exposed to high levels of stress (like the high probability of losing a baby,) people's brains can "shut down," and one can go in to survival mode. I think that explains why I was never as scared as I should have been with Nick. I always thought it was because I had sub plans to work on and child care to coordinate, and I was too busy to really dwell on how bad my situation was. If I were to get pregnant again and have the same complications, I would be terrified, but I think my considerably laid back approach to bed rest and my hospitalizations was actually my brain in denial. My therapist said that after going through all of that, it is no wonder that I am having trouble "moving on," and it is important that I am able to stop myself from thinking the repetitive thoughts when they pop into my brain, and that I find productive ways to stay busy.
Since I saw him, I have been working hard to keep my mind busy, but it is hard to do so since I'm not working this year and I am literally with Nick 24/7, 7 days a week…and whenever I hold Nick I think about how lucky we are, which makes me think about how many moms like me don't have a baby to hold, which makes me feel guilty, which makes me think about the NICU, and then my c-section, and then the abruption, and then all the scary bleeds and ultrasounds that led up to the big bleed. So, I have started trying to read more to give myself something to think about, and I applied to a grad school program as well. I am proud of myself for taking steps to help myself heal, and I am excited to continue my appointments and truly recover from the past year.
I think about my pregnancy with Nick constantly. It's like my brain is on a loop and replays three particular scenes on repeat: the times I would wake up to discover I had started bleeding, the scary appointment with my MFM doctor the day before Nick was born that still gives me chills, and then the hours leading up to my c-section. I think about our doctors and nurses literally every day, but at first, I didn't really see this as a bad thing. A lot of good has come from my obsession with my pregnancy and the NICU: I have been able to write and publish four articles that have (hopefully) had a positive impact on other readers, I was selected to participate in a fellowship through the March of Dimes that gave me the opportunity to advocate on Capitol Hill, and, recently, I have started mentoring other new NICU moms through a program called Hand to Hold. I didn't see my constant thinking about my pregnancy as a problem (or even consciously realize I was doing it,) until replaying these memories began to give me anxiety.
As I mentioned briefly in an earlier Instagram post, I went to Hobby Lobby last week to pick up some supplies for a project I was working on. Hobby Lobby had all of their fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and even Christmas decorations displayed in the aisles already. Usually, I love when pumpkins and Christmas trees start appearing in stores, but seeing Christmas ornaments and ceramic Thanksgiving turkeys made my chest start to feel tight (and still does as I write this.) It was around this time of year last year that we learned we were expecting Nick, and it seemed every complication I had corresponded with a season: we announced our pregnancy on social media with a picture of pumpkins that said we were "adding another pumpkin to our patch." I had my first bleed the night Fall Break started for me when I was still teaching, and I was hospitalized the week before Thanksgiving and two weeks before Christmas, and Nick was born on Valentine's Day. I'm worried that these holidays will now always bring back bad memories of my pregnancy with Nick, especially Christmas: my mother-in-law sent me a tiny Christmas tree that stood on the bedside table next to my hospital bed in December, and I remember lying in the hospital listening to Christmas music to try and cheer myself up. I preferred to spend my time on bed rest in our living room so I could look at the lights on our Christmas tree, and I would keep myself busy by watching Christmas movies and shopping for presents on my laptop. Christmas is over four months away, but just writing this makes me feel so sad and makes my stomach hurt. Even something as simple as smelling the coffee I used to drink on my way to the NICU, or hearing a song that came out around the time Nick was born, makes me anxious. Halloween-Christmas is my absolute favorite time of year, so, since I don't want to be reliving and feeling the anxiety of the 2017 holiday season all this year, I decided to find a therapist. (I had an eating disorder all throughout high school and would occasionally relapse during college, so I understand how powerful and worthwhile it is to work with a therapist. I lost a lot because of my eating disorder, so I take my mental health seriously and don't hesitate to reach out if I feel it is needed.)
I have only met with my therapist once so far, and my first appointment was mostly giving him the rundown on what my pregnancy and the NICU was like (which made him remark that Nick is "quite the miracle.") It was honestly nice just to talk to someone other than my husband, and my therapist is (thankfully) very empathetic and a good listener. I felt kind of silly going to a therapist because Nick 1. Survived, and 2. Is doing so well now, so it was so nice to hear him acknowledge that my pregnancy was traumatic, and that it is not something anyone would be able to get over quickly. He explained that often when people are exposed to high levels of stress (like the high probability of losing a baby,) people's brains can "shut down," and one can go in to survival mode. I think that explains why I was never as scared as I should have been with Nick. I always thought it was because I had sub plans to work on and child care to coordinate, and I was too busy to really dwell on how bad my situation was. If I were to get pregnant again and have the same complications, I would be terrified, but I think my considerably laid back approach to bed rest and my hospitalizations was actually my brain in denial. My therapist said that after going through all of that, it is no wonder that I am having trouble "moving on," and it is important that I am able to stop myself from thinking the repetitive thoughts when they pop into my brain, and that I find productive ways to stay busy.
Since I saw him, I have been working hard to keep my mind busy, but it is hard to do so since I'm not working this year and I am literally with Nick 24/7, 7 days a week…and whenever I hold Nick I think about how lucky we are, which makes me think about how many moms like me don't have a baby to hold, which makes me feel guilty, which makes me think about the NICU, and then my c-section, and then the abruption, and then all the scary bleeds and ultrasounds that led up to the big bleed. So, I have started trying to read more to give myself something to think about, and I applied to a grad school program as well. I am proud of myself for taking steps to help myself heal, and I am excited to continue my appointments and truly recover from the past year.
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