@_orchid_ thanks friend ❤️ it’s hard because I keep feeling like I’m past it and I’m ready to root for all my friends. But I think you’re right that I have this trauma now and I can’t make it go away. I think I just need that reminder to be gentle with myself, and to accept that I may need a little extra time to feel excited for my friends when they have something I want so badly. I do already feel better than I did yesterday! The grief process is really a wild thing.
@halfanewt Thanks, hanging in there. Procedure went fine, it was mostly the same staff that I had last time who were fantastic. Only aggravating part was trying to figure out insurance for the Anora testing. I had to call from the clinic, and of course the woman I talked to had no idea. They took all the samples they needed to and I told them to just send it off and we'll pay out of pocket if we have to (anticipating it to be $250-350, based on what the doctor had been told before). However, later on the afternoon another patient with a similar situation had her insurance throw a massive hissy fit saying that the test costs $6k. Since the doctor didn't want us stuck with a huge surprise bill I had to call the testing company yesterday for more information. I was doing really well yesterday, but definitely broke down on the phone when the guy (of course it was a guy) picked up. Thankfully they were far more knowledgeable than my insurance company, who only understands CPT codes, and I got it resolved easily. But still, it just pisses me off. The very last thing I, or any of us, need at a time like this is to be chasing around CR reps to get testing recommended by my OB-GYN, MFM, and the doctor who did the surgery. The U.S. health system just sucks, and that's from someone with good, employer-provided insurance coverage. /rant
@runningoncookies I'm having a similar, but slightly different issue. Most of my friends have already had kids, so while I don't have as much to worry about with new pregnancies I'm still having trouble wanting to interact with them. I'm fine with them and their kids, and love being an "auntie", but particularly with my female friends the conversations are dominated by talk of motherhood. I get it, they all have small children and it's a major part of their lives, and were I in their position I'd happily be contributing. But I'm not, and it's getting increasingly painful to handle full conversations where 99% of the talk concerns caring for babies and toddlers. I have one friend without kids who I talk to regularly, but she lives on the opposite side of the country. Literally every local friend I have has at least one small child. I find myself gravitating more towards their husbands, who talk about other topics, but feel badly that I have zero interest in any sort of "girls' night" or Zoom calls. Admittedly this is less of an issue at the moment with the pandemic, but was starting to grate on me before I got pregnant again and I think it's just going to get worse now that I've lost that one too. I don't want to say anything as it's not their fault, and I also don't want people to feel like they need to censor themselves around me.
@notawhoops so sorry for our losses. hopefully O timing works out well for you guys! @runningoncookies lots of internet hugs for you. so tough when everyone around you (and especially close to you) is getting KU and then you're on the sidelines. the timeline of your EDD is certainly tough too. the one thing that has made me cope more is that maybe some of these ladies getting KU had do pee on all the things and tests and scheduling sex too and just didnt want to share. i know that when/if i do get KU again, i will be acting as though everyone around me has these same struggles and i want to be sympathetic.
@runningoncookies well,I found out last night that my cousin is KU and 3 weeks behind where I would've been with my March pg. No anxiety for her bc she's already 19 weeks, but definitely sadness even though I'm thrilled for her! Talk about timing- I was thinking about this thread and it helped.
I've had 2 successful pregnancies after my first loss and that's how I've been. Other than immediate family and our bff's, we don't tell people until I'm past 20 weeks and can't hide it anymore. I hate talking about being pregnant while being pregnant bc you never know other people's experiences. My last full pregnancy a coworker told me near the end that she thought it was a whoops and I was unhappy about it bc it was so hard to get me to talk about it 😭 I feel like having a loss has taken that oblivious joy away from me, but I'm much more sensitive to others and I am appreciative that I have that perspective.
@akoros ughh sorry about all the insurance difficulty. I’m really glad you were able to get it all figured out. I hate that it’s so hard to figure out what anything is going to cost! Especially when you’re going through a tough time - it certainly doesn’t make it any easier.
@asf0613 I 100% keep telling myself that just because someone is KU doesn’t mean it was easy for them. It helps a little bit, but I tend to have trouble thinking of that in the moment haha. Something to keep working on for the future.
@akoros glad you got the insurance figured out, but sorry you even had to deal with it! I agree, our healthcare system is messed up. My insurance is also pretty good, except for the plan exemptions which they won’t tell you about ahead of time. It’s made for some fun phone calls 🙄 FWIW on the friends with kids front - I have a friend who was like your group. And always brought her kid with her whenever we hung out. I finally told her what was going on and asked that she at least not bring her kid some of the time. We ended up hanging out a lot less, but I think it saved our friendship.
@runningoncookies maybe it’s just me, but I think it’s okay to feel mad/frustrated/annoyed/whatever when people around you are getting KU. Even if it wasn’t easy for them, and even if they do talk openly about it, it doesn’t diminish your feelings and your journey. And it’s okay to send gift cards/decline baby showers without a “good” reason. I’m a big advocate of taking care of yourself, clearly, lol.
We did the same with our DS. Running joke was “we’ll tell people before he turns 2. Probably.” And it made a couple of my coworkers question if everything was okay. It’s definitely a different perspective, and I wish I didn’t have it, but it does make you more empathetic for sure.
@halfanewt Thanks. It's actually not so much the kids themselves as the conversation topics with the adults (I can generally compartmentalize the kids as they're their own unique identities separate from my pregnancies). Unfortunately (?) in our case, it's not one friend it's quite literally just about every friend. There are two groups of friend that we spend time with locally: one that's a large group of couples (and children) plus one single guy, and then a small close-knit group of my friends from college. Single guy aside, everyone has small children between 4mo and 6 years old. Those with the older kids I can probably cope with better, since they're talking about schools and things that wouldn't be on our radar yet, and the kids are starting to get more independent and don't totally control their parents' lives quite as much. I can also spend more time talking to the husbands than the wives, which helps. It's my college friends (close group of 4 of us), who each have infants or toddlers. Even before this pregnancy it was starting to get to me that we'd be on a Zoom call for 90 minutes and spend all but maybe 15 talking about diapers, naps, feedings, etc. I don't begrudge them this, I'm dying to be "part of the club", but it was starting to wear on me before I had a second loss so now it's worse. They've always been very supportive, but for now I'm just distancing myself. They had a Zoom call over the weekend that I just blew off. I know they would have been fine with me there, but at the same time I didn't want to subject them to my moods and let them be comfortable talking about what they need to. It just makes me sad, because I do love them, but can't stand it right now and there's no good way to ask a group of people to not talk about the most significant thing in their lives (which they all have in common). One good thing about the pandemic is that there won't be any in-person gatherings for who knows how long, so it's a bit easier to isolate without being too obvious. I do have two childless friends who have been reaching out, so trying to focus on them. They live 2-3,000 miles away, but like I said before, there's not much in-person contact these days anyway.
@_orchid_ That's a good way to look at it, to appreciate that you're more sympathetic given your experiences.
Spoiler
For this most recent pregnancy, I dealt with a lot of people being confused or concerned because I just didn't seem that excited (outwardly). I didn't really start to show excitement until after I hit the second trimester, which was unfortunately short-lived. Next time I definitely don't want to tell people until at least after the anatomy scan, maybe later. This is one reason, and the fact that I'm comfortable doing so and find it helpful to talk about it, I'm being more open about our losses. I'm hoping that, should we get pregnant again, this will help people be a bit more understanding. It was giving me a lot of stress feeling like I had to explain why I was acting "weird", which I wasn't in a mindset to do while I was also dealing with anxiety about the pregnancy and other things going on in our lives.
Re: TTCAL July 2020
@runningoncookies I'm having a similar, but slightly different issue. Most of my friends have already had kids, so while I don't have as much to worry about with new pregnancies I'm still having trouble wanting to interact with them. I'm fine with them and their kids, and love being an "auntie", but particularly with my female friends the conversations are dominated by talk of motherhood. I get it, they all have small children and it's a major part of their lives, and were I in their position I'd happily be contributing. But I'm not, and it's getting increasingly painful to handle full conversations where 99% of the talk concerns caring for babies and toddlers. I have one friend without kids who I talk to regularly, but she lives on the opposite side of the country. Literally every local friend I have has at least one small child. I find myself gravitating more towards their husbands, who talk about other topics, but feel badly that I have zero interest in any sort of "girls' night" or Zoom calls. Admittedly this is less of an issue at the moment with the pandemic, but was starting to grate on me before I got pregnant again and I think it's just going to get worse now that I've lost that one too. I don't want to say anything as it's not their fault, and I also don't want people to feel like they need to censor themselves around me.
@runningoncookies lots of internet hugs for you. so tough when everyone around you (and especially close to you) is getting KU and then you're on the sidelines. the timeline of your EDD is certainly tough too. the one thing that has made me cope more is that maybe some of these ladies getting KU had do pee on all the things and tests and scheduling sex too and just didnt want to share. i know that when/if i do get KU again, i will be acting as though everyone around me has these same struggles and i want to be sympathetic.
@asf0613
**TW/preg mentioned**
We did the same with our DS. Running joke was “we’ll tell people before he turns 2. Probably.” And it made a couple of my coworkers question if everything was okay. It’s definitely a different perspective, and I wish I didn’t have it, but it does make you more empathetic for sure.