I had a few doctor appointments this week. One, yesterday, was an ultrasound at my OB’s office. Baby looks good and is measuring 8 weeks 5 days. Pretty much perfect.
That’s the good kind of doctor appointment, the one that is actually pleasant, and not (usually) traumatic. Until it is. Until they ask how many pregnancies I’ve had, until they ask how old my children are. What do I tell them? Do I say I have 2 kids? Do I say I have 3? There’s no right answer. I have given birth to 3 babies. But I do not parent 3 children. And I fucking hate the questions.
Then, there’s the other type. I had one of those this week as well. It was just a general check up with my PCP. When you’re on certain medication (adderall), you’re supposed to follow up every 4 months. So it was one of those. Obviously, since I’m pregnant, I’ve stopped taking that, so this was the last of those appointments until after the baby is born.
But I swear…there’s just something about these appointments. I’m very much the type of person who could be miserable and actively wanting to die, yet show up and smile and say everything is great and perfect. But then there’s those other times, when I walk in and I’m just SO EXHAUSTED with life. And all I want to do is beg for a break. Whatever that means.
That’s what it was like this week. Even though “everything is fine”, I just had this huge and consuming urge to be like “hey, I’m not okay and I’m so exhausted and can I please get an all expenses pain trip to address my mental health in a safe and effective way?”
Maybe that’s called a vacation. Like…an extremely extended vacation. I really do need something. I think we probably all do. But it’s just like, I need the world to stop for a little while. I need it all to slow down.
I need there to be the time for me to focus on me. To get through the rest of this month, and the first week of April.
Every time I actually stop for a moment and take a second to think, I remember what’s actually going on.
On the surface, yes. My life is and always will be difficult. That’s just the reality when you’re raising 2 potentially terminally ill children. That is and always will be exhausting, in every sense of the word.
So, yes. That’s affecting me now, and it’s contributing to how I’m feeling.
But there’s more to it. It’s the time of year. It’s my birth son, it’s his birthday, it’s everything to do with him.
I keep trying to push it out of my head and ignore it. Pretend it isn’t happening, isn’t affecting me in any sort of way. But that’s complete bullshit. Because in reality, it’s the cause of all things wrong right now.
The grief from it is absolutely irrational, and it will never make sense. It just won’t. It’s not something that anyone could understand, unless of course, you’ve been there too.
It’s just…it hurts so much. And I don’t know what to do with all of this pain. I don’t know how to feel it, or talk about it…or how to exist within it. The closer it gets, the harder it is to push it aside.
I don’t know what I need. I don’t know what I want. But I do know that I can’t get through it on my own.
It just hurts too much.
(((I love you always, but today I love you extra)))