Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Everything louder than everything else

One. Trust me to write a rant about how I'm going to keep working out while I'm pregnant, and then fail to summon up the motivation to get out of the house for days at a time. (Why, no. Being knocked up hasn't helped with the clinical depression, thanks for asking.) The only way I could get to my workout today was to ask Mr. Krapsnart to drive me there on his way to work. It's out of his way (the new gym won't be, much, but I won't start going there until after I've started working again, and it'll be easier to get there on my own because I'll already have achieved escape velocity from this black hole of a condo). I'm tired of inconveniencing him just because I'm such a slug. Yet more proof that I suck. Oh yes, the depression is still here in spades.

Anyway. The point is that yay! I got to the gym today! and who should be working out there but the Canadian Tire Guy. Oddly enough, he wasn't trying to sell an all-in-one Workoutenator to everyone who walked by.

Even so, it was weird.

Two. I got a phone call from my mother today. She's had some pretty hideous health problems over the past couple of years, including intestinal blockages, diverticulitis, major abdominal surgery to remove more than two feet of her colon, and serious problems with blood clotting. We're lucky she's still with us.

She just saw one of her many MDs -- I think it was the hematologist this time -- and he told her that it's critical that I be tested for all of the seven different blood disorders that she's recently been diagnosed with. Dad sent me a Word document (thanks, Dad; I still read all my e-mail in Pine on a Unix shell, so attachments are a pain in the ass, but how could he know that?) with the list of them. I've been plugging stuff like "antiphospholipid syndrome" and "prothrombin gene mutation" into Google and getting pages that contain the words "second trimester" and "fetal loss."

Of course Depression Voice starts up with the "you are destined never to have a baby" shit again. (And that makes my brain go "Look Betty, don't start up with your white zone shit again! There is just no stopping in a white zone!") It doesn't matter that K., who was here this afternoon to watch some Doctor Who, and who has depression so crippling that she hasn't worked in four years, is able to point out that my mother had two kids even with all that wrong. My onboard saboteur bursts its pimples at me and sends me careening down the "everything is going to hell" fork of the road instead.

You're going to lose your baby again. Or if you don't, you're going to have to disappoint your new boss and tell him that you're pregnant and will have to spend a lot of time in doctors' offices over the next eight months. And you're going to have a highly medicalized, depersonalized birth with all the invasive equipment and machines that go PING! and everything you didn't want when you told the midwife that you wanted to give birth at home. You'll have to give up the midwife.

Sometimes I really hate my brain.

I guess I should call my doctor tomorrow.

2 comments:

The Bauhinian said...

I was diagnosed with antiphospholipid antibody syndrome and had to take heparin and baby aspirin during pregnancy. I now have a beautiful 15 month toddler!

If you do have a blood clotting issue, take care of it and don't worry.

Emily said...

Many thanks for your comment and the reassurance, and congrats on your toddler. Thanks for reading.