I'm sitting, alone, in a coffee shop in a food shop, just watching the world go by and processing things. Once upon a time my anxiety would have prevented me from doing this, so the fact I drove here - alone - am sitting - alone - is a huge achievement. I know all things are a journey.
Between you and I I've been somewhat of a crazy obsessed lady lately, it's all been internalised but I've been...target fixated for want of a better phrase. I lost a baby a few months ago and as you would expect it's been a defining moment for me. It was a planned pregnancy but neither L and I expected to fall so quickly, so it wasn't really a surprise when I handed him the test and burst into tears. I could say a dozen things about timings, fears and muted joy but none of that matters, not really, not now.
I can be really good at hiding from the truth and despite learning that this is never possible (Freud had to be right about something) I still do it. I have this deep inner self-doubt, this childish thing of running away when things get too emotionally intense and I panic. A voice in my head tells me 'I can't do this, I don't love you enough for this' and then I spiral out of control as panic, fear and self-doubt vie for dominance. Three snakes twinning themselves about my heart, my head and my confidence.
The moment that test turned positive I told myself I didn't want the baby. I was going to be a terrible mother, I already had a bad relationship with my body and body image, I was going to suffer with postnatal depression, I wasn't going to cope, I wasn't going to bond with it, and it was going to drastically change mine and L's relationship. Between that and getting a new job, in which I was going to have to tell my boss more or less as soon as the ink was dry on my contract, that I was pregnant, I felt some sense of relief when I lost it. At least I thought I did.
I don't know where I am on the losing the baby-getting pregnant again thing. I just know that I've become obsessed with buying pregnancy tests, checking when I might be fertile, putting our sex life under the microscope, checking if I were to fall now when my due date would be, buying new clothes and checking that I can get some maternity wear out of them, and feeling frustrated that I have an irregular cycle (suspected PCOS). This is the point in which I would usually inject a bit of humour, like telling myself I need a hobby, to defuse the situation and take some of the intense emotions out of it. But I'm coming empty.
Taking my unhinged hormones out of the equation I really don't know where I am on... all of this. I just know that I need to keep putting one foot in front of the other and eventually, eventually, I will arrive at wherever I am meant to be.
