Okay, that title might be slightly misleading.
Clearly, I am breathing, otherwise the very act of sitting here typing would be super creepy and would call into question much of what I understand to be true about the necessity of breathing.
But, it was pointed out to me, that I stop breathing normally when I get incredibly stressed.
So, the short version of the events is that my husband and I were at an appointment with my counselor. We were talking about the events of the last 2 weeks, and our decision to seek a second opinion in Dr. Braverman, and our worries about our current RE and clinic and the need for someone in our home city to monitor us to help with the costs. And the fact that we have 3 medical appointments at the end of this week, and basically the stress of it all.
And then, my phone rang. And, for whatever reason I didn’t ignore it (as I normally would when I’m engaged in another conversation). By some odd coincidence / twist of fate, my fertility clinic called me while I was sitting in the room with my counselor and my husband.
I answered it and had a quick conversation – it turns out they called just to remind me of our upcoming appointment next week – no big deal.
But, the important thing about this was that our counselor was able to witness the conversation unfold. She was actually thrilled that she was able to watch the conversation. She was actually able to see my physical stress response, and see how my body stopped doing what it needs to do properly.
I stopped breathing.
Not the type of stopping that requires immediate medical attention to prevent death. It was more like, I was preparing for the worst, and lost the ability to remember to inhale and exhale at a normal rhythm as I was focusing on the things that this phone call could mean. As our counselor observed, I evidently stopped breathing normally the entire time I was on the phone – a good 1 or 2 minutes. While clearly, I continued to breath or I’d be dead, my breathing pattern turned very erratic and shallow for the duration of the call.
I can honestly say I had never noticed this. I have observed that when I get incredibly stressed in a conversation, I get really cold – so cold in fact that I’ll actually start shivering. I am now so aware of it, that if I was expecting a stressful interaction with someone at work (i.e. dealing with poor performance of another employee), I would dress in layers! And, I’m also now very aware when this occurs that I need to take a step back from the heat of the conversation and refocus the conversation to a less stressful place. Anyways, I digress.
I have never noticed that I stop breathing normally. This was new to me.
So, it became very evident to our counselor that we to develop a plan for me to get through our appointment with our RE because it turns out that asides from remaining alive, there are a lot of physiological benefits from regular breathing. She explained a lot of this, but I didn’t pay enough attention to the details to share them here.
So the plan now is that
- I have to remember to breath. My husband has to point it out to me if he notices that I stop breathing – he can do this by simply taping my leg, so that its’ not obvious to anyone but us (i.e he can secretly tell me in our RE appointment).
- I have to develop a mantra of some sort to repeat in my head, a few times. Even if it’s just the world calm repeated over and over.
- I had to practice deep breathing during our medical appointments – in through my nose, filling my lungs so that my stomach is pushed out, and holding for a few seconds, then releasing through my mouth. And repeating this a few times. She actually taught me to do this when I was stressed at my old job and I used to do it on my drive to and from work – and now I still find myself breathing when I’m in my car driving somewhere – so now I need to remember to use it during stressful events.
- My RE clinic gets a new ring sound on my cell phone so that I am aware that it is them instantly. This will enable me to remember to start breathing before I even answer the phone.
Here’s to hoping I breathe through the appointments this week and that our medical professionals locally agree to work with us and support our efforts to really get to the bottom of our RPL.
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For the last 12 days, I’ve been rather focused on the problems, and what’s going wrong with this very cycle and what could possibly be causing our recurrent pregnancy loss.
I have become consumed by everything progesterone – researching when to start it, its importance in successful implantation, when to stop taking it, etc.
I have been filled with disappointment with my current RE’s clinic. I feel as though talking to them has been completely pointless, and ever so frustrating.
Really, this last 12 days has just been one frustration thing after another as I try to sort through this.
Right when I feel confident about the decision we made to self-medicate with prometrium we had left over from our last miscarriage, I start to doubt myself.
And yet, as I’m working to pull myself out of anger, and move to a much healthier state of mind (a much more me-like place to be), I realize that these frustrations have been so bad because I have let them effect me this way. Evidently, at some point I made the unconscious decision to let these things get under my skin and to focus on them.
I have let myself question our decision to start prometrium.
I have let the nurses unsupportive and harsh attitude disappointment me.
I have let the little white lie I told in order to get a beta blood test bother me.
I have let myself sit in the anger.
I have let myself be fearful of becoming pregnant this cycle.
I have let myself believe and focus on the fact this simple fix could have saved my 4th and 5th babies.
I have let myself walk away from hope, and focus on everything negative and fearful.
No more!
I am refocusing myself and my perspective.
I am moving back to my place of hope!
I will focus on the big changes we are making to our medical team and care.
I will focus on the hope that comes along with seeing an RPL specialist. I will focus on the hope that he can figure out our problem, and provide us with a realistic solution that will result in a healthy baby. I will even let myself understand that he may find the problem, and it may be incurable I know I’ll be disappointed, but at least we’ll know for certain that this journey is over.
I will focus on the knowledge that while costly, we are fortunate enough to have saved our pennies and are able to make this work, without going into debt (at least for now).
I will focus on the fact that I have an amazing support network in the blogging world who have been such a huge support to me over the last few weeks.
I will focus on the love that I share with my husband. The love that keeps me going, and makes all this heartache worth it. The love that continues to shine through and grow, even as we have endured 2 years of solid grief.
I will focus on how much work I’ve done to sort through the grief of losing 5 babies, and just how far I’ve come through all of this.
I will focus on the things I can be grateful for. The things that make me smile. The things that make me excited to wake up in the morning and start a fresh new day.
Most importantly I will refocus on the promise I made myself coincidentally 10 days ago, when all of this started. I will center myself with the knowledge that I will survive this. My husband and I will get through this. No matter the outcome, no matter our final destination, we will live and more importantly we will thrive.
If you like this post, please feel free to share it and please return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow my journey.
My Perfect Breakdown 