I think there's something wrong with me

So tomorrow I'm leaving for the weekend.  I'll be gone for four days and three nights.  So far the longest I've ever been away from Bean for is a night.  Needless to say, I'm having a hard time with this.  Not in the way most people would expect either.  I know Bean will be in good hands.  I know hubby will do an amazing job and it will be a special weekend with them spending time together just the two of them.  I know that and I'm not really worried about that at all.  Will I miss them?  Ridiculously.  They are my favorite people in the world and I want to spend every second I can with them.  The problem I'm having is that this idea of going away for a short time is bringing up one of my biggest fears.

When I think about traveling and going away by myself I always worry that somethings going to happen and I start imagining what would happen if I didn't come back.  What would life be like for Bean and hubby?  Even for the dog.  There's no way Bean could really understand.  Would she think that I had left her by choice?  How would she adjust to daycare?  And on and on.  I think of hubby and how he told me that the thirty minutes he was alone in the nursery with Bean while they were sewing me up from my c-section, were the scariest of his life.  That he never imagined doing that alone.  I know he could do it, but what would it be like for him?  Being a single dad.  I even think of our dog, who is a total mama's boy.  We got him in the worst part of our struggle to have Bean and I was home full time with him when he was a puppy.  He is in many ways my first baby.  And he knows when I'm gone.  He barks at every car door and awaits my arrival.  I imagine that scene from the movie "Ret.urn to Me" where the dog waits by the door for days expecting his mama to come home but she never does.  All of these thoughts, they gut me.

I used to worry about death in a selfish way.  I'd think of all the things I wanted to do and what I'd be missing.  I still do think about what I'd be missing and how sad that is, but now that I'm a mama I mostly think of it in terms of my family.  I want to be here for a long time for them.  I need to be here for a long time for them.  I don't know why trips like this always bring up these fears in me.  I know how fragile life is.  I know that every day is a blessing and trip or not, it can all be over much sooner then we expect or hope.  Somehow leaving my family though just brings it all out in me.  And maybe I'm crazy, but it makes me never want to leave.  I feel like everyone thinks I should be excited to get away and enjoy some "time off" but all I want to do is hold my baby and listen to her talk and laugh and grow.  Does that mean there's something wrong with me?

Assumptions

While I was away on vacation I was trying desperately to keep up with all the blogs I read.  I may not have been commenting, but I was trying to read as much as I could in the few quiet moments that I had.  I have to admit, one of the posts that came up on my blog roll took me aback and I immediately jumped to conclusions that I had no right to jump to.

As I've mentioned before, I'm a teacher.  I don't have a classroom right now, but I still identify myself as a teacher, and I still am very interested in education and teaching as a whole.  I taught for several years in the inner city and it completely changed who I am.  Another piece of who I am, has to do with food.  As a kid I was overweight.  I look back on the food that I ate and I realize now that it wasn't so great.  Once I got to high school I realized I had some control over all that and lost a bunch of weight.  Now I'm really thoughtful about the food I eat, and especially the food I feed Bean.  These two parts of me collide together in certain ways.  Especially when I saw the free lunches that my kids ate when I was teaching.  It was pretty abysmal.  Which lead me to one of the few non-infertily blogs on my blog roll, Fed Up With Lunch.

I highly recommend that you check it out if you have an interest in either teaching, food, or both.  Mrs. Q took on the challenge of eating her schools lunch every day for a year and documenting it.  The results are fascinating and frighting at the same time and I've been following her for a long time.  It's one of the few blogs that isn't related to infertility or family that I follow and I've always enjoyed the kind of break in the norm.  So last week when I saw the title of her post pop up that said "Surprise, I'm pregnant," I had that heart sinking moment that infertiles are so familiar with.  Which doesn't make a ton of sense, because I'm pregnant too.

It's not actually the fact that she's pregnant that I reacted to, it's just the out of the blue announcement.  It seemed, so, foreign to me.  It seemed like the kind of thing that you see on Fac.ebook.  The, wow, I got pregnant out of the blue and now I'm telling the whole world a few weeks in kind of thing.  And I almost didn't click over and read the post.  I almost took her off my blog roll because I didn't want that same feeling coming over someone else visiting my blog.  But I realized that I needed to read the post.  And I'm glad I did, because I had it all wrong.  I read these words, and my heart dropped:

"Call me suspicious or paranoid (wait, you already did that back in 2010!), but I’m just one of those people who doesn’t always think things will go according to plan. It took awhile to achieve this pregnancy and so I’m not taking it for granted."

I made completely unfair assumptions about who she was and where she was coming from based on three words.  It reminded me once again that we're everywhere.  Those of us who don't get pregnant easily and who know that things can go wrong.  And I was kind of ashamed that I need to keep being reminded of that lesson.  So even though she never knew any of this and she really has no idea who I am, I feel the need to apologize to Mrs. Q.  I'm sorry and congratulations on your wonderful news, I'm really very happy for you.  And thank you for reminding me once again not to jump to conclusions, about anyone.

Looking forward

Yeah, I had a bit of a freak out.  It was partially about frustration with doctors, and partially about trying to get ready for yet another week long trip that we took.  We decided to go on this trip after we found out we were pregnant.  We knew that it might be awhile before we could go on long trips again and we have lots of friends all in one area of the country that we wanted to see.  So we went.  It was a whirlwind and while it was wonderful to see all those people, it was kind of exhausting jumping from place to place.  Bean was a trooper through it all but we are all excited to be home with almost all of our big trips out of the way.  I have one more on my own (eek!) over Labor Day, but otherwise we're hanging out here and kind of going into nesting mode from here on out.

As far as the whole doctor debacle, it ended up working out.  I saw an Endocrinologist yesterday and feel much better about the whole thing.  I also saw the OB on Monday and our little one is doing well in there.  Heartbeat is still strong, and that's a huge relief.  I also talked to him about my arteries not doing their job and he wasn't worried yet.  He said it could lead to lower birth weight or premature birth but that is relatively unlikely.  It was good to hear.  I go back to the OB in a month and soon after that we have our 20 week ultrasound.  I'm 16 weeks today and I can't even believe it.  I spent so much time worrying that half this pregnancy is almost over.

Which leads me from where I was, worried all the time, to where I am now, relatively calm.  I still have a hard time not being scared sometimes, but I've realized that we got this far and if something were to happen now, it would be crushing whether I worry about it everyday or not.  It's time to let go, it's time to dream, and it's time to really start thinking about and preparing for this baby.  Which lead us to finally tell Bean she's going to be a big sister, and to start telling other people in our lives that this little one is on the way.  Some of them already know and have just been waiting for us to start talking about it, because at this point all you have to do is look at me and you know I'm pregnant.  I'm ready to face everybody and talk about being pregnant.  I know I probably sound like a crazy person that it took me this long, but that's just the reality of the situation.  It took me awhile, but I got here, and I'm glad I did it on my own terms.

Frustrated!!!

It's been a busy week with a lot of emotions running through my head after our ultrasound last week.  I've been on and off the phone with doctors the whole time.  Trying to figure out correct dosages for my B6 and B12.  Trying to make appointments with current and new doctors and I'm getting more and more frustrated with the medical profession.  Seriously, why is this so hard????

One of the things wrong with me (which it feels like the list is always growing) is that I have hypothyroidism.  My OB told me to have my thyroid checked once a trimester by my primary care doctor.  I did this last time around and it was no big deal.  Then the perinatologist told me that I should be having it done every 4-6 weeks.  So I immediately got an appointment with my primary care doctor and went in a few days ago.

Unfortunately I have switched primary care doctors since my last pregnancy and the one I'm currently seeing is worthless I discovered.  I'll be changing again as soon as possible.  When I told her what I needed she stammered a lot and basically told me that she didn't feel comfortable doing it.  Now, I'm pretty sure if I had the authority, I could dose myself.  All I need is the test results and what I'm guessing is just a freaking table in a book somewhere that the doctor looks at to see what your dosage should be if your results come back at a certain level.  This doctor actually was asking me what my thyroid hormone level should be.  And I knew.  AND SHE WROTE IT DOWN!!!  I was beyond livid with the whole thing.

In the end, she refereed me to an endocrinologist to do this because she didn't feel like she could.  She did run some blood work and got back my current level which she said was okay (and I called and checked what it was to be sure, since I knew the correct level AND SHE DIDN'T).  She also said she'd check it again in 6 weeks if I wasn't able to get an appointment with the endocrinologist before then.  So I called right away to make that appointment, only to discover that my primary care doctor had already made one for me, which she didn't tell me.  It's on October 23rd.  2 months away.  I'm due at the end of January.  So yeah, just in case they can't see me in 6 weeks, which she already knew.

In case you can't tell I'm beyond angry about the whole thing. Angry because as hard as I work and try and do everything every freaking doctor has ever told me to get pregnant, stay pregnant, and have a healthy baby, I just can't do enough because I can't do their freaking job for them too.  Why is it so hard to get these people on my side???  The nurse at the endocrinologist when I was telling her I needed to see someone before that gave me a lot of, uh huh, oh, yeah, which all had no feeling or concern behind any of them.  She put me on some, probably imaginary wait list, and now I get to figure out, most likely on my own, where to go from here.

I'm so tired of feeling like I'm all alone trying to bring this baby into the world even though I'm surrounded by supposedly qualified professionals.  No wonder I worry so much.