| Week 30 I am going to preface this journal entry with a little bit of information about my emotional state. Right now, I'm feeling good. The week was long, but productive. My doctor changed his opinion about ordering the 4D u/s and was actually "excited" about it. There are just some things that I feel like I need to get out in the open and writing about them seems like the easiest and least detrimental way to go. I find that I am struggling lately with my faith in this pregnancy. Maybe that's not the right way to put it. Deep down in the place that no one wants to talk about I'm scared. Lately it has come into my mind more than once that maybe I lost Matthew to prepare me for a child with special needs or problems. It has become a kind of obsession. I really think that I noticed this much earlier, but then people don't talk about this kind of thing and I feel odd even just writting it. What I mean is that, losing Matthew would be a preparation so that I would appreciate even more a child who was less than "perfect". People always say that they don't care whether they have a boy or a girl, only that the baby is healthy. Healthy is not all that important to me anymore. Not that I would have loved Matthew any less if he were not a healthy baby, but I cannot even tell people that I want a healthy baby. I just want a baby that lives. Boy, girl, birth-defects, diseases, learning disabilities, healthy, doesn't really matter at this point. My one and only goal is to get to 37 weeks with a living baby. Even at the u/s at 20 weeks, I kept expecting something to come up. I was looking for there to be a problem to deal with. The tech kept taking picture after picture of Almond's heart and I started to wonder if maybe there was a heart abnormality. As I lay there, I remember thinking that I couldn't distinguish a fourth chamber. When we had Matthew's u/s, the tech took the picture and then pointed out all four chambers to us. This time, she just kept taking pictures and not really saying anything. Until I got the results of that u/s at the appointment last week, I was pretty sure that there was going to be a heart problem. That didn't turn out to be the case and apparently there were two of everything there should have been and one of the rest and "no gross abnormalities" as stated on the results. Part of me started to wonder if maybe I wasn't hoping for a problem. Almost bargaining, a kind of if Almond has a problem than I'll for sure get to keep him/her. When the results from that u/s came back normal, I was relieved, but not for long. If there is nothing wrong with Almond, then why did I have to lose Matthew? I've sort of gotten sucked in by everyone's "there's a reason for everything" comments. If there was a reason for Matthew's death, what is it? If it wasn't to prepare me for a child with disabilities, then what was it? It is really odd for me to think this way, because I truly don't believe there is a "reason" for everything. I think that some things happen that cannot be explained, part of the whole free will thing. I'm not even sure that I'll get an answer when I finally leave this earth. My father-in-law has said sometimes that God's gonna have a lot to answer for when he finally gets his turn to ask the questions. Will God have the asnwers? I don't think so. If one believes in the premise of free will, then there cannot be destiny. Destiny would indicate that everything were pre-set, that from the moment I was formed, it was already predetermined who I would marry and how many children we would have. The bible says that we were given free will, which to me means that there is no destiny and that God does not plan everything or have a reason for why any given event occurs. Someone in one of my support groups said something along the lines of God helps to create the miracle of new life, but the rest is left up to nature. I'm not sure nature is the right word, but I understand what she's trying to say and I think I agree. Especially considering how people always say nature can be cruel. That's a little how I feel, nature played a cruel joke on me. Going back to the results of the u/s, showing that there are no apparent problems. This kind of upset my balance. Now I worry just that little bit more about whether everything will turn out the way I want it to or hope for it to. There's just a little nagging doubt in the back of my mind and it won't go away. I feel like there are so many people depending on me and I just don't know that I want or can handle that weight. There are also a lot of people supporting me and I wonder if they realize how much they're bearing and if they knew, would it bother them? I go way back to the courage comments and can't help but thinking again, that it's not so much as courage, but desperation. Is there really a difference? On a little more technical front, Friday's doctor appointment went well. I passed my glucose tolerance test, sort of. The number came back at 13. This has to be a mistake, so they took some more blood. Normal range is maybe 80-120, at 13 I'd be just about comatose. We'll see what the new result is at this weeks appointment. If my sugar is low, the doctor said it might explain my being so tired lately (other than just being pregnant) since my hemoglobin was normal. My blood pressure is hanging in there at 110/60 and the first non-stress test was wonderful, once we started measuring Almond's heartbeat instead of mine. I bought some more maternity pants. This was a two hour ordeal. Apparently, the maternity clothes manufacturers got together this year and decided that if you were taller than 5'5" or had legs longer than a 31" inseam, you should not be getting pregnant. Most of the pants fell about an inch too short, not much, but enough to really bother me. Ended up at JC Penny and paid more for one pair of pants than what I usually spend on two or three outfits. This is very difficult for me considering I know that I will only be wearing them for a maximum of 7 more weeks. Just 7 more weeks. That's such a low number, even as it seems so very far away. That would mean only 6, maybe 5 more weeks to work. Thinking lately that I might take two weeks off before delivery. Everyone tells me I should. We'll see. |