There are days
There are days when your life clouds over
And the world gets so dark that all at once
You can’t tell night from day
-Miss Saigon

There are still days when I cannot control the anxiety. I try so hard, but I freeze up. My first instinct is to crawl into bed and use sleep as an escape, but that has proven ineffective lately. All I can do while lying down is listen to my own pounding heart. Listening to the baby’s heartbeat does nothing to calm me either. I listen when I cannot feel enough movement over a few hours’ time.

I’ve managed to tell myself that there won’t be a day when I just don’t hear a heartbeat. It will be there. Now I fear my appointments and finding something in an ultrasound or checkup. It is just a question of when. 26 of 39 weeks. Will the problem be soon? Scary but feasible? Or at the end, when we think we are in the clear?

After my last routine OBGYN appointment, which I went to alone, I went to Ger, to tell him how I was feeling. He was taking a nap. I could not get him out of a groggy state. I asked if he would go for a walk with me, and he said no. He was too tired. I sat in silence for a minute. I needed to get out of the house, but didn’t want to beg him to go with me. I drove around in the afternoon sunshine. Went and got a snack at Trader Joe’s. Tried to take deep breaths.

Then I made a list. I took a small notebook and listed out every event from now until August. Every doctor’s appointment. Every Maternal Fetal medicine appointment. Every non-stress test. Every support group meeting. Every milestone. I filled in the moments in between with other activities that we have planned. It resulted in a long list of dates, something to check off every few days. Maybe that will make the time go faster.

Another “routine” appointment tomorrow. Will I react the same way this time that I did a month ago, go into a temporary abyss? The difference between 22 and 26 weeks is huge. I went in for my glucose tolerance screening today. Another item checked off the list. Another appointment tomorrow to check off the list. 90 days to go.