Pregnancy and things

((Warning-- not a post for the pregnant or easily upset. If I knew how to do a "cut", I would, for this one.))

One thing I haven't mentioned is that my triple screen came back with a 1 in 60 chance that the baby has Downs Syndrome.

This is probably about 90% of why I'm having constant anxiety attacks and relentless insomnia.

Not because I'm afraid of having another handicapped child-- God gives us what He gives us, and I will thank Him and praise Him for the gift in itself. I'd prefer it if our son is born genetically "typical" and healthy and happy and strong. Who wouldn't? I won't love him any less, though, if he's a little different. We've all got issues.

No, I'm terrorized and panicked and staring into the night simply because, during my two months in labor and delivery, one of the babies I helped deliver was a Downs baby girl who didn't make it. She'd passed about a week prior to delivery. It remains the singularly worst thing I've ever watched happen to someone else. The LVN and I took care of the little girl after the birth. We cleaned her as best we could, dressed her, took photos, snipped off a lock of hair for her memory book. Then we took her to her mother and tried very hard not to weep along with her and her husband.

I was a wreck for about three days after that. I seriously thought about dropping out of nursing school. I'm not quite sure how I managed to make it through that week-- my advisor was a total airhead, my classmates were hostile because I was unable to finish my part of a project . .. blehh, it was a bad week.

Even though I've had a level II ultrasound done to establish that Scotland's little heart is forming fine, even though he's a vigorous baby that kicks all the time, even though I know the odds are still in his favor of being born perfectly healthy and normal . . . it's the tactile memory of holding that little body that I remember.

I have another level II ultrasound in a week. Even if it comes back completely normal, I doubt it will help with the anxiety. I'm too in love with this baby, too frightened of losing him, still too scarred by the memory of the baby I lost in '05.

An elderly woman patted my belly while we were waiting for a seat at the steakhouse the other night. "If it's a girl, you should think about naming her Hannah." I know my smile must have frozen in place. I couldn't say "No, Hannah was what my dead baby's name would have been, had it been a girl. Joshua if it was a boy." I just nodded and smiled while my hubby tried to foist her off with a joking comment.

It still hurts, so much. You'd think that three years would dull it a bit more. Above and beyond all the other reasons why we figure that this baby should be our last, there remains the simple fact that it's just too emotionally ravaging for me to go through this much more. Nine months of Mommy being a sleep-deprived, anxiety-plagued, tearful hysterical wreck are nine months too many for my family. I really am too old for this, worn out emotionally moreso than physically.

Seventy nine more days, the pregnancy tracker says today. I'm so tired, I consider each day a little victory. It seems like ages since the tracker still had three digits on it. And it seems like an eternity until it's down to single digits.

I'm just trying to make it through today, for now. It's hard.