Exorcising Demons

Monday is my first OB appointment and I'm terrified.  I've been dreading that first sonogram, where we'll desperately be seeking the flutter of a tiny, quick heartbeat, since that very first positive pregnancy test.

Perhaps it's my imagination, or just that I'm coping better with the unpredictable queasiness I've experienced these past few weeks, but my symptoms seem to be abating somewhat - I don't have to have something to eat as soon as I wake up in the morning and the queasiness that lasted off and on all day previously seems only to come in the evenings now.  Which at just 8-9 weeks, doesn't seem like a good sign and gives a miscarriage survivor such as myself ample fodder for the worry mill.

And while I've been taking care of myself - eating healthy snacks, trying to walk a little (is it bad that I seem to have already gained 4-5 pounds?), sleeping when my body needs it - my heart is guarded.  I think almost never about the fact that a tiny person is growing in me.  Every few days, I'll have a brief glimpse of life with a baby in 9 months, but I shut that down as soon as I'm aware of it.  I cannot set myself up to be horribly disappointed again.

I'm sad to say my expectation is to find no heartbeat next Monday.  And I'm ashamed to admit my heart has been filled, not with faith and prayers of entreaty, but with threats and ultimatums to God, "If we lose this baby, that's it, God - we're done."

I watch the news, read the headlines and every day, there's something that makes me think, Why do I have to beg God to let me have just one more child?  The Botox mom.  Teen mother attempting to smother her baby in a hospital room.  A husband threatening his infant with a knife to gain compliance from his wife.  Young child's body recovered in Maine, probably killed by his mother.  A woman driving her minivan full of children into a lake.

Seriously, why do I have to plead for a healthy pregnancy?

This isn't what I want to be right now - small, ugly, angry, distrustful, unfaithful.  I want to feel warm, open-hearted, hopeful, faithful, buoyant.  But my truth at this moment is not easy or pretty.   I'm hoping writing them down, putting them out will help exorcise these demons of doubt and distrust that haunt me and make me miserable.  I want to leave them here, on this page.

Thanks for serving as a witness to the expulsion.   I just hope it's not too late.