The SUN(every)DAY Scarries…
🌷You know that feeling you get on a Sunday night, knowing that the next day is Monday, and you have a full week of work ahead of you – and it might go great, or it might not? That feeling commonly called, the Sunday Scaries? Well, this past week, that anxiety of the unknown, the uncertainty, the fear of something bad happening (even though I knew it was unlikely) would not leave my side. Going through years of infertility, all the medical procedures and all the TRYING, often to be left with more uncertainty, unsuccessful outcomes, and devastating losses, I have this constant fear that, despite everything going so well right now (a healthy baby on the way,) the other shoe is going to drop. In a prior post, I mentioned how we have “chosen to choose joy,” and while that is true, there is still this underlying fear. The feelings of joy and anxiety are certainly not mutually exclusive. I am still holding my breath, there is always a bit of tightness in my chest, I still worry. Worry. Worry. Worry. And then I worry about all the worrying. I find myself constantly conflicted, as I want to know every little detail going on with our gestational carrier (her symptoms, how her family is reacting, her cravings, her thirst level, is she having any weird pains….) but I also don’t want to stress her out and ask too many questions (because stress isn’t good for pregnancy. Then I worry if she is stressed out.) I have accepted that this worry will stay with me until I am holding our baby. Boy, oh boy, is it difficult.
As anyone who has dealt with infertility knows, the infertility experience is a trauma. Couple that with years of struggling and losses, and you have a recipe for PTSD, which is exactly what I was diagnosed with by my therapist this past fall. As much as I want to be able to just enjoy this pregnancy (and for the most part, I am,) I also cannot outrun my fear. And the fact that I am not carrying our baby, and I DON’T know every little thing going on with my baby’s home for the next few months, oof, it’s tough. I am someone who likes information, and man, not carrying my child is mentally so tough because so much of the information isn’t with me (it is with our carrier).
People will sometimes complain about pregnancy, about how difficult it is on your body and mind. I never want to discount this because we are all entitled to have feelings and express them, and pregnancy is T.O.U.G.H. (shoutout to all the pregnant ladies out there and those that have given birth! To say you are warriors is a true understatement)!!!! But for me, I would take carrying my baby any day than fight the mental warfare that accompanies not carrying my baby. I would take the sickness, exhaustion, bedrest, limited mobility….all of it, to not have to experience 10 months of extreme anxiety.
So, what do I do with this constant underlying anxiety? Well, the same thing you probably do with your Sunday Scaries. You push through. You wake up the next morning, you go to work, you push forward and hope everything goes smoothly, even though you know another round of The Scaries is on the horizon.🌷
