Pregnancy Was Hell

Flashback to the First Trimester

It’s been eight years since I was pregnant.
I did not know, during the first trimester, that I was carrying twins.
What follows is a dispatch from my tortured mind during that time. (Take heart; it’s bad.)

---

Me at My Worst

I am inside a dark hole. The hole is my mind. I have been here for 12 weeks, with a few escapes into the sunshine, thank God. We have an appointment next week for an ultrasound. That will be the beginning of the Second Trimester, which many people say is a big relief from a lot of the symptoms. I hope.

I’ve wanted a baby. A few months ago, a small voice inside me rose to the surface, surprising me. It didn’t get into specifics—it didn’t say, “Universe, please send us a baby when we are married and financially doing great and feeling personally successful and perfectly at peace.” The seed of a wish just showed up in my journal one day when I was sitting behind a booth at the Larchmont farmer’s market. The words appeared on the page without my permission: Kids are wheeling by in their strollers, waving at me. I know Kai is waiting until everything is perfect, but sometime down the line, I’d feel like I’d won the lottery to have a family with this wonderful man who has changed my life for the better in so many ways. Then I thought of it a few more times, joked with him about it, and now, surreally, here I am.

I am one of those people who is destroyed each month by female hormones. Every 28 days, I get very close to being -cidal (of the sui- or homi- variety), and it’s out of my control. I didn’t realize that pregnancy would mean these hormones are permanently pumping through my blood, punishing me relentlessly. I have worried. I have shaken with terror. I have cried bottomless toddler-style screams. I have lain in bed all day and all night on end, exhausted to the core. I want to be grateful, but all I feel is miserable.

What is Wrong with Me?

The man who had “changed my life for the better” is now impossible to connect with. I want him to see me, to help me; my family is far away and he’s all I’ve got. Instead he stonewalls me, plunging me into episodes of crying, screaming “I hate myself.” I beg for mercy while he stands by, completely ignoring my suffering in a pointed way that feels cruel. My mind: He doesn’t love you. You’re not good enough. He regrets this pregnancy. He wishes he could find a way out. It runs over me like a train. I can’t save myself because my “self” is gone. Maybe that’s why Kai won’t engage: he doesn’t even recognize me.

I mourn the old me: the active, energetic, smiling gal who ran, surfed, hiked, skateboarded, biked, and loved the sunshine. What if I never see her again? She, who would try almost anything once. She meditated daily, did yoga often, wrote almost every day, acted in little films and commercials. She was loving. Friends of all ages called her fearless. She committed to things she loved and saw them through, unwound with a little weed or wine from time to time. She spent three years working on a novel and published it. She was free, unfiltered. Kids loved having her as their babysitter because she was one of them. Where has she gone? Will she be back?

I did smile sometimes.

I read somewhere that the first trimester of pregnancy is the hormonal equivalent of taking 40 birth control pills per day. Personally, I went off birth control years ago, because one pill per day was making me crazy. So where does that leave me now? In constant PMS-on-bath-salts, with no respite. All my worst qualities are multiplied by 40, and I’m trapped inside that person’s mind 24 hours a day. Self-hatred is my new M.O. I’m hating for two! Because what’s worse than feeling like an unworthy piece of shit? The guilt I feel for not “glowing” with joy. I’m an unfit mother in the making, heaping worry on top of worry.

My body is stuck in eternal hangover. In addition to sleeping an average of 12 hours per night, plus naps during the day, I wake up every morning feeling like I polished off a bottle of bottom-shelf tequila the night before. My head weighs fifty pounds and all I can eat without feeling sick is bland, white carbs, which leave me bloated and disgusting. My brain is a pile of mush. I have no energy or passion anymore because I feel like I constantly have the flu. I can’t write, which is the one thing that would normally bring satisfaction in the midst of a bad situation. I can accomplish approximately one thing per day. I take a walk and watch a movie and eat crackers and bread and pizza, hoping to feel better.

My partner isn’t always cold and callous. At times he tries to make me feel better, tries to understand what he can never understand. I thank him and summon all the appreciation that I can, but at least once a week, I go off the rails and begin freaking out, sobbing, and inevitably blaming him for all my misery. Which adds to the guilt-shame cycle, which adds to my self-hatred and feelings of being less-than, which makes me want to exit the planet since I see no way out, which makes me flare up with even more panic, since I feel guilty and shameful and sick and nasty all the time.

It’s the stuff of nightmares. Many new parents fear losing themselves. I’ve only got a fig-sized baby in the pit of my womb, and I fear I’ve already lost myself.

Now that I’m an incubator for life, I am desperate to be the best incubator I can be, and I am failing. I know this pregnancy thing has been done quite a few times by women less healthy, less intelligent, less capable than I am, but I can’t shake the suspicion that I am not cut out for this; that it’s all a mistake. Like never before, the mantra “what if” barges into my brain, and I choke on fear.

Comparison + Overthinking = No Room for Joy

My sister is going through the same process at the same time, which should comfort me, but instead I compare myself to her and feel shut out, alone. She is not having the same experience. While I have cleaned out the library’s pregnancy and motherhood shelves, and while I compulsively consult three or four pregnancy sites and message boards to make sure it is okay to eat what I’m eating, do the exercise I’m doing, sleep in this position, or buy this baby gear—Holly just is. She is not fussing over her diet, reading how-to manuals, or feeling physically destroyed. She is not Googling every symptom with trembling fingers. She is living her life, going to work as a teacher every day, and coming home quite the same as she was before. She trusts the process. She listens to my cries about my never-ending low-grade nausea, complaints about my 40-week sentence without sushi, runny eggs, good cheese, or caffeine, my woes about the hormonal hurricane that is destroying my will to live. She consoles me, but she is cool as a cucumber, which obviously means that Something is Wrong With Me. Or the baby. Please, don’t let it be the baby. I worry myself sick, then, when Google alerts me stress damages the baby. I add that to the list of worries.

I will never again be just me. I am two: me, and this little being that I don’t know yet, but who they tell me I should be connecting with. I sit steeped in hormones, scrolling through photos of friends in cute outfits, showing up in the world, making a difference, accomplishing things. What have I done today? So far I woke up, talked with Kai, sorting out some things we had been arguing about, I ate some pancakes, and I read more about pregnancy, trying to find a balm for my worried mind. “You’re creating life,” my friends say, telling me not to beat up on myself. But I feel useless.

Every book in my stack keeps reminding me of the statistic that anywhere from 10-25% of pregnancies don’t make it past the first trimester. So until Week 13, I have to endure my own thumping heart and shallow breath, mostly alone. I’ve thought of how it would crush me to design some cutesy announcement and then five weeks later have to say “Nevermind. We lost the baby.” I don’t think I could handle that.

I have told my family and close friends. Not because I’m bubbling over with excitement, but to ease the isolation of living as a tired-as-fuck, sickly, emotional basket case who can’t join in the party or go on the ski trip or stay up past 7:30 pm. If people thought I was acting this way for no good reason, I’m sure they’d abandon me.

When someone I trust tells me what exciting new adventure they’re embarking on, they look at me, expecting to hear about mine. Usually I’d have something interesting to add, but now, this is my only thing. I look at Kai and say with my eyes, “Should we tell them?” and when he nods, I say, “We’re expecting a baby!” and wait for the mixed reactions. Some people squeal with delight, jump up and down, hug us and say, “You’re going to be the best parents!” and others proffer a vague, “Congratulations,” then go back to whatever they were talking about before.

I don’t want to mention my miscarriage fears to Kai because I’m afraid I’ll manifest them. But I think of it every day—think of my body being toxic to the life inside. I feel my belly to see if it still “feels” pregnant. I look for blood in the bathroom and have a fright every time I turn over in bed and feel a pain in my side. I worry about my relationship because I’m acting like a complete alien and I’m afraid Kai will leave me. And what would be worse than losing the baby? Losing it and then losing him, too, because what if he’s actually only with me because he has no choice? Or what if all my complaints and anxiety get me in trouble with the Universe? I’m afraid God is going to punish me for not gushing and glowing. I’m afraid it will be decided, “If you can’t even handle the first few months, you are not a worthy mother.”

I have an ultrasound appointment tomorrow. The second trimester is starting. Please let it be better than this.