Lessons Learned

Generally speaking, I don't freak out about bleeding. As you can see from my two previous posts, this did not ring true today. I started cramping, discovered I was bleeding (not lightly) and freaked the hell out. Normally I'm pretty calm about these things, realizing that if something's wrong, there's not a darned thing that can be done about it, and knowing that probably nothing is wrong. But today? No such sense of serenity. Nope, I called my husband and burst into tears as soon as he answered his phone. I was near panic when I called my OB's office, though I managed a facade of calm as I spoke with the answering service. I nearly burst into tears in the waiting room at the OB's office, something which would have utterly mortified me had it actually happened.

And what lesson have we learned, boys and girls?

Obviously I'm growing quite attached to my three little parasites, troublemakers that they are. There is absolutely no way I can reduce this pregnancy under the circumstances that I have. There is no way. I want to be clear that this is a personal decision of mine. This isn't judging any decisions anyone else has ever made or will make. Every circumstance is different. Every person has their own needs to weigh. I've done my risk analysis. I've weighed my issues. And what I realized was that today all I could think was that I might have lost one and I freaked the hell out. Which means that for me, reduction is not an option right now.

So at least that's settled.

Beyond that, I'm okay. The cramping has not abated, but the bleeding has calmed down. I feel a bit foolish for flipping out so badly, but on the other hand, that's why I have doctors. My doctors are all there to take care of me if things go wrong. And it's not like I won't be getting a bill for today's services, so it's not like I inconvenienced anyone. So here's the second lesson I've learned today: it's okay to be high maintenance. I hate being a high maintenance patient. I feel like a hypochondriac enough as it is. But the thing is, I am pregnant with triplets. Triplets are a high risk pregnancy. I am therefore, by definition, a high maintenance patient, like it or not. I will have to learn that I'm not going to be one of those cute little pregnant women who never has a problem and spends her last trimester walking a mile a day because I can't stand being cooped up or need to walk off that bloated feeling after I eat (there's a chick in my community who walked a mile every day up until the day before her delivery because she couldn't handle how full she felt after eating). That won't be me. I'm going to have to learn to accept help, and more importantly, I'm going to have to learn how to ask for help when I need it.

It's okay to be high maintenance. It's okay to admit I'm attached to the little monsters.