Fear

Awake since 4am. Can't sleep. Got a text from a friend last night mentioning she may be looking at breast cancer.

And here we go again.

I'm hopeful it is not. It's not a definitive dx yet. But it's dredged more crap up.

How do you ever shake the fear of it returning? Every 3m mum sees the oncologist. She just had her first post cancer mammogram (clear!!) and she sees the surgeon again soon as well. They keep very close watch, for this I'm grateful.

But sometimes, like when I wake at 4am, I'm gripped by this incapacitating fear. It's overwhelming. It won't return. Right?

Sam's gone missing!!!

Scary times here this week, Sam went missing. Who, I hear you ask, is Sam? Sam, is (obviously!) the name given to a helium balloon that F bought home from a birthday party on the weekend. He drew a face on him, and dubbed him Sam the grandfather. Sam was okay, at first, bumping his head on the ceiling and bouncing about happily. Everyone was happy, Sam was smiling, F bear was smiling and I watched warily, knowing Sam would soon deflate into that scary zone.


Sure enough, Sam started to lose his puff. He reached that eerie drifting, halfway to the ground lurking stage that feels me with fear and amuses F to no end. "LOOK!" F screams at the same time as Sam appears in my line of vision, next to my head, all stealth like, and I leap into the air squealing, making F giggle crazily - like a mad inventor proud of his evil creation.


The drama began when F came in a few hours later, asking where had Sam gone??? I laughed nervously, "what do you MEAN where is he gone, he was RIGHT HERE a minute ago". We looked around, Sam was nowhere to be seen. He was at my head height, he should not be easy to miss. Where the hell had he gone? We had heard no popping, we could see no earthly remains of Sam on the floor. It was as though he had simply disappeared.

We methodically went from room to room, looking for his pink bobbing head - nothing. I felt genuine anxiety build in me as I frantically went from one end of the house to the other. Where WAS he?! Would he appear next to me again from nowhere?! Was he doing this to mock me?! WHERE THE HELL HAD HE GONE?!!?!?! Part of me began to suspect Sam had somehow worked out my silly fear and was taunting me, my anxiety rose further. Several laps of the house had not yielded his evil pink head.

Finn was puzzled and decided it was time for action. He began to tape missing person signs up around the house. Proactive. Thats my boy.


I was sure I had begun to literally run around in circles now, how can he just be GONE? I couldn't understand it, and my fear began to feel genuine and real. I started to giggle, "I have a fear of helium balloons!" I cackled. F looked at me oddly. Okay. STOP I told myself. Calm. Breaaaaathe. Finn was still taping his 7th missing person sign to the wall (7 in only 2 rooms of our house, no less) and I forced myself to get a grip and instead of glance-looking for his pink head at my head height, I actually looked, properly, in each room. "He must be somewhere, logically, he cannot disappear. This is not a movie. He has not been possessed. He is here, somewhere. Just find him. Before he finds you."

Eventually, F heard me shrieking, Sam was found. He had been squirreling himself away in the toy box of his own accord. I think he knew I was onto him so gave himself up in truth. F was thrilled. Sam was back where he ought to be. I was pleased he had deflated below head height, the end was nigh for Sam.

F went about the house, and with great satisfaction, put a giant X through each of his 7 missing person signs. Peace was restored. And I plotted the notion of pricking Sam with a wee pin so his demise was accelerated a little. Take THAT creepy balloon.

Creepy silent stalkers you ought be aware of...

Laugh if you must (and everyone else does so you might as well!) but I fear some fairly "different" things. One I have had for as long as I can remember, is whales. Snicker if you will, but I find them creepy. They are so... big. And in water. Come on! Kind of like underwater ships (big ships are also just wrong). Yes, I do realise that on land, I am quite safe from their squealy Oooo-oooo noises and drifty silent stalkiness. You must see it!?!?! Just you wait, the day they grow legs and come after us land dwellers I shall be saying I told you so.

Further to this creepy underwater silent stalker type, is my other fear. Fear is perhaps too strong a word but, these things make me distinctly uncomfortable. Helium Balloons. But not the ones floating in the sky, accidentally let go, or bouncing against a roof, and not those deflated and lifeless on a floor either. It is that in between stage. You know the one I mean. The half deflated point where they sort of drift, at head height, around the room, silently. You are sitting, minding your own business when OH MY GOD! The half deflated balloon appears out of the corner of your eye, hovering next to your face like a silent stalker. Scaring the absolute crap out of you and making you jump and scream like a little girl. It is extremely eerie. It ought to be compulsory that someone suck the helium out of them at this point and amuse me with their voice squeakiness. This is the only solution I can see, to end this madness.

Just how uncomfortable these balloons make me was bought home to me recently, stay tuned for my next entry to see what happened when "Sam" went missing at our place...

Pregnancy stuff.

Thank you for the comments on my last post, I am sure each of you is right. Jaydee, I wonder WHEN that click over happens... I keep waiting for it! Kirsten, it is interesting you mention about ART and PND. I have always felt the two must have a close relationship, it just makes sense to me in many ways. I feel this time I am more likely to have AND and be depressed in the pregnancy, the after is what I am hanging out for. The pregnancy bit is just scary. Belinda, that is it exactly - waiting for something to go wrong and why? Because it always did with infertility. Even with the IVF our results were crappy in and of themselves in terms of egg viability etc... So I have come to expect things going wrong!

For example, I have started feeling very light and vague movements, not always certain its not a muscle twitch, but pretty sure most times. So after a particularly active day for babe Monday, it was very quiet Tuesday. I freaked right out. I spent all day and half the night (literally, until 3am) pushing and prodding my stomach, playing loud music to my stomach, desperate for ANY thing. My tum felt softer than usual, so babe was clearly at the back, but despite all logic, I just could not relax and accept it was okay. I cried for hours. Luckily, I had a scheduled doctors visit the next day (yesterday) and the doppler found a heartbeat almost immediately - of course. But even then, there was a little voice in my mind making what ifs (was it really the baby's heartbeat or something else...) I am sending myself insane.

Monday is our big deal 19w scan. Of course, another point for anxiety. In fact, I think thats why I freaked out the other night because I KNEW that the doppler was coming out the next day and Monday is scan day, and so knowing there were checkpoints ahead brings out the anxieties. So I am sure logically, Monday will probably go okay, but that doesn't seem to ease my fears. I have to try very hard to reign them in as best I can. Imagine if it goes well, I could actually almost begin to enjoy this! :O

I can feel my excitement building, I keep putting a lid on it though, I have to stop that. Finn certainly liked hearing the heartbeat yesterday, he was excited enough for all of us, bless!

Pregnancy after Infertility

I am currently during my latest pregnancy freak out, so bear with me. By freak out, what I mean is, worrying something will go wrong or has gone wrong undetected etc... It seems to happen after I start to get too close to believing it is real and enjoying it. Suddenly I find myself worrying and being scared and playing AC/DC through headphones to my stomach, even though I am not a fan, just because its loud, to get baby moving... And I have figured out why it is so. It may be obvious to everyone else, but it took a while to filter through the fear... Its that whole "this is too good to be true, something must be about to go wrong" thing. "This doesn't happen to us" etc.

I feel like its all a game. It doesn't feel real, its still are we are we not... even though I am almost 17 weeks now. It just feels like its all this maybe fun silliness, not real. When will that click over? Will it? I found myself in the midst of worrying last night (even though I had felt movements) hugging Finn, fighting back tears and thinking "I always have you kiddo" thoughts, which is what I used to do with negative tests and the like... I should be past that now, I shouldn't be thinking that way anymore. Am worried that the baby will arrive and I will be hit by this big scary unprepared for the reality shock and get PND or something. Was talking to J about it, and he is confident at some point in the next 23 weeks it will click, and I will believe it and so on. I hope so. Its still so scary, I wanted to enjoy it and instead I find myself either worrying, or wishing it away (eg I will feel better at the 6 week scan.. the 12w scan... when I get movements.. when the movement is more defined... past 26 weeks... etc etc). Need a big slap perhaps? Its just not the exciting and wonderful experience I sort of naively expected. I love it, but I spend most of it utterly terrified - and thats not fun! Need to just suck it up and get over it and force myself to be more positive.