Three-Hour Tour

After I published yesterday’s post about feeling like there was a “New Me” possibly developing, I was lying on the couch, really feeling pretty proud of myself for being such a Mental Health Poster Child. I patted myself on the back, foreseeing that the worst could be over with Sarah’s death. Who were these fools who claim the second year of grief is so bad?

As I was lying there in the living room, the memory began to play over and over in my mind of when the doctor called me with Sarah’s amnio results when I was pregnant. I’ve written about that story before. I had been a bit trepidatious about the possibility of having a girl, thinking I’d probably screw her up, but when the doctor told me Sarah was a girl, he said “You’re going to have so much fun with her.” For some reason, that little phrase alone made me excited and happy to have a daughter and countered my catastrophic thinking, and I relaxed.

So back to lying on the couch yesterday. This memory of the phone call from the doctor kept going through my mind, sort of Gilligan’s Island style. You know “A three-hour tour! A three-hour tour!” But instead: “You’re going to have so much fun with her.” I started crying and my anxiety ramped up, and I tried to figure out why. We did have a lot of fun with Sarah, probably the most fun I’ll ever have. But ultimately the doctor’s “all clear” on the amnio results was a bit of a false front, not intentional of course, because the technology didn’t exist at that time to detect her rare genetic disorder. I don’t know if it’s routinely done today, whole exome testing, during pregnancy.

Maybe I’m anxious that I’m giving myself a premature or false “all clear” with this New Me business. Letting myself get excited for the future when something bad could actually loom. I wish I could let myself just be happy, even for a little while, even if there’s more pain and grief in store.

Is this a self-protective mechanism? Don’t let her get too excited. Or am I just a real drag, bringing down the mood all the time with anxiety or guilt?