I think I’ve eaten about a cup of Lay’s French Onion Dip, and nearly a whole bag of Old Dutch Rip-L-Chips. The lays dip is not NEARLY as satisfying as the Old Dutch brand would be, but apparently that doesn’t stop me.
If you haven’t read my previous post, you don’t have to. Suffice it to say that I’m going through a pretty difficult time in my life right now and some days are worse than others. Today wasn’t supposed to be one of those days–I woke up feeling like I had made steady progress since the surgery on Friday, that I was built for joy and that it would all be sunshine and rainbows from here. I was able to snuggle with Jeff last night and feel like our relationship would be okay, and that went pretty far towards my waking up in a good mood today.
But I was up at 3:30, stayed up until 4, slept in until 7, then went back to bed at 8:30. I finally got up at 9:45am and I wanted to choose to have a good day.
Then my arms started aching–my triceps felt like I’d been doing extensions all night long. My sides ached, like I’d been doing ab exercises for hours. The top of my abdomen pulled like there wasn’t enough to reach from my sternum to my belly button. And I had the claws and cramps digging in to my uterus. In short–The physical side effects of my surgery were shouting at me to pipe down and stop trying to be happy.
I hung out at home for most of the morning. It was great, really–Jeff made pancakes, which we had with fruit for breakfast. We watched TV with the parents until it was time to actually meet up with Gloria and Mike, again. I’m built for joy, I’m having a good day, there’s nothing that could possibly go wrong. So we piled into the car, we drove out to the malt shop, and we got together with Mike and Gloria.
She was radiant. Her belly has popped and she is carrying pregnancy beautifully. She’s happy and her little one is healthy, and she’s excited for her baby shower coming up in just a couple weeks.
And I’m happy for her, truly I am, but all I could think about was how sore I still am; how the bruise on my arm, where the IV was inserted, has blossomed into an ugly mark that reminds me right now that I’m not pregnant anymore. I saw the back of my hand and how grey the skin is from the bruising from another needle that was necessary for my surgery, and I just pulled in on myself.
Conversation still flowed around me and I tried to stay light, but the truth is that I felt horrible and disconnected by the time we left. Jeff could tell, but he couldn’t understand it, because I had been saying all morning how good I’m doing and how it’s going to be such a good day. We had to go to the store afterwards, and I was irritated about it, and couldn’t really hide it. So, when we got home, I said that I was tired and begged off to take a nap. I laid in bed and googled “muscle pain after D&C” and “side effects of anesthesia” and read forum posts about women who have gone through what I’m going through. I read that it was normal that I haven’t been able to go since Friday and that I should just drink lots of water to help with the bloating and discomfort, but that it can last for weeks. I read that the muscle pain could be from the drugs used during the surgery that may have caused my muscles to seize before relaxing, or it could be from being moved while I was under. I read that as long as I don’t have a fever, I pretty much just need to deal with it.
I was dealing with it, I was on the edges of sleep when a friend of a friend called about the baby shower. She’d been travelling for two weeks, and drama this, yadda that. “I don’t care,” I interrupted. “If you want to help plan, be there on Saturday, otherwise, I don’t care.”
That’s not me, that’s not who I am, and she at least knows me well enough to know that, so she snapped out of her reverie and asked what’s wrong. And I confessed to her, this woman that I don’t even know, that seeing one of my friends so happy has absolutely ruined my day and I don’t know how I’m going to plan a baby shower for her, feeling the way that I do. So I cried, and I apologized, and I asked her if she could please be there on Saturday to take some of the responsibility from me, because I can’t guarantee that I’ll be any good at celebrating someone else’s pregnancy when I’m still very much mourning the loss of my own. And I felt so guilty for it, so terrible for feeling sorry for myself, and the negative spiral continued. She had plans to be out of town on Saturday, but hearing what I’m going through, she promised to be there. She said that I could still come help celebrate my friend’s baby, and that everyone would understand if I had to quietly leave if it were too much. I still have a couple weeks to figure it out…
I hate that things can’t just magically go back to the way they were before I even found out that I was pregnant. I wish that this could just be my normal monthly cycle and not a medically necessary discomfort that I have to confront with all of my emotions. I hate that there are good days mixed with the bad because I want to just move on and forget that any of this has ever happened–but having a bad day or a bad moment just reminds me that it’s true.
And so with all of this baggage left over from the weekend, I’m going to head into work tomorrow.. with my ugly bruise, and my heavy heart, and I’m going to try to pretend that everything is okay and that I’m not actually going to fall apart at any minute if someone says or does the wrong thing.
By the grace of all that’s good, I really hope that I can have a good day tomorrow, and not feel the weight of guilt, and sadness, and discomfort, when I have to look my colleagues in the eye and deal with their pity. With all that I have, I hope I can be strong enough to just not cry at work.
MegsFitness 