Saturday, August 31, 2013

Concerns in technicolor

I read a lot about women who have lost babies suffering from secondary infertility. It's a condition where the woman has trouble getting pregnant after they have a loss especially when the loss causes extreme grief. So here is my concern (or at least one of them): I have been off birth control since April and we have yet to conceive. Now, mind you we didn't really try until this month but I am pretty sure it didn't happen this month either. I just don't have any of the signs really. Part of the concern is that it was so easy for us to get Gracie and Gabbie. It was so easy in fact I could pinpoint the day.  I know that women sometimes struggle for years to conceive, and I am getting older. What if we can't have anymore, and the last infant of mine I get to hold is still? Forever still?  D is unconcerned. I know that it's silly, this concern, but it's there and if I put it down in words maybe it will go away. Being overly concerned about partially imagined things is apparently how anxiety works. I really need to figure out how to manage it. I haven't even allowed myself to consider being pregnant. To go there may cause me to melt... Down. 

I had a dream that I was talking to a woman who was very pregnant.  She was leaning on an old Oldsmobile in a parking lot. She wore a simple dress in the most amazing shade of vibrant blue. I have no idea what our conversation was about but as we talked she switched back and forth from her blue dress to being not pregnant and wearing a long pure white sweater that seemed to shine with white light. 
Even in my sleep my subconscious apparently switches back and forth in worry from pregnancy to not. 

Concern number 2: I go back to work. I go back and lose my time with the girls and they get older and I miss things llike my morning cuddles, and I get stressed and short on patience and temper with them because it gets used up at work. I don't want to go back and I don't want to lose cuddling. I don't want them to get older yet, And I don't want to give the kids at work more of me than I give my kids at home. 

Concern 3: In response to concern 2, I always put my whole self into work because "that which is not worth doing well, is not worth doing at all."  So how do I strike a balance for my pride to have a job well done with enough energy and patience left over for home? 

Concern 5:  with all the new pressure on teaching, and even before it... What if I'm not really effective at all in what I do? How will I know (will I ever know) if I really am any good?

Concern 4: I worry over worrying. I worry over everything. I obsess over it. Then it effects the rest of me, of life.  I lay in bed at night and doze but my mind is racing with concern.  Even in sleep I dream in technicolor about all my fears in images that swirl and dance across my mind like movies. Gabbie was right, I never rest. Even my dreams worry over things. How do I let them go?  

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