Hunger Monster

I've always struggled with perfectionism, which can also be described as a struggle in wanting control over myself and situations. I like to have things how I like to have them, and I like to be good at the things I do. If I'm not good at something, I prefer not to even do it! (I'm not saying that's right, I know it's not, but that's part of my struggle). This pregnancy has brought this struggle to a whole new level in ways that are mindblowingly comical and also excruciatingly frustrating to me. Even with finding out I was pregnant and not having the reaction I felt I "should" brought on all sorts of new and crazy emotions. I've worked hard to give myself grace in those reactions and emotions over the past few weeks, and feel that to an extent I'm doing much better there. However, there are other new areas - more physical aspects now - that are proving to be a whole new challenge altogether.

Starting with one that I understand most people will think is ridiculous...being controlled by hunger. It feels like my stomach has turned into a monster. The fact that I have to have snacks next to my bedside because if I don't eat when it gets hungry either: 1) I am pretty sure I will throw up or 2) I can't stand up without almost fainting. I know it probably sounds crazy but I don't want to be controlled by hunger. It bugs me. And then it frustrates me...to the point of crying. Which yes, I have cried (multiple times) over the fact that I'm being controlled by a hunger monster in my belly. The real crazy of it is that I somehow feel I should be "better than that." Yes, you read that correctly. I want to be in control of my hunger and when I want to eat. But no, my body now says it's either going to throw itself on the floor by passing out, or make me run to the bathroom to vomit if I don't put food in it exactly when and how often it says. And I don't like that. It makes me feel out of control. 

Which I guess makes sense, because I am not in control. Obviously. 

I always thought when pregnant women said they "needed" to eat it was just that they "wanted" to eat. Like sure yeah food sounds great, "nom nom nom nom." Now, I realize it's more of a life or death situation and for some reason I can't stand being controlled by my hunger monster. Not to mention I'm not a foodie and honestly just get tired of eating sometimes. Derek saw me on the couch the other day and said my lips and face looked pale and wanted to know if I was feeling ok. I told him that no I was actually feeling super run down. He wanted to know if I'd eaten recently. My response, "No. But I don't want to." Then I burst into tears and couldn't stop crying. It's like I've turned into a giant toddler! I don't know why I feel like this. If someone else was doing this I would probably laugh and encourage them to get over it and just EAT! 

Why do I get so frustrated at being controlled by my hunger now? I wonder if I would have felt this annoyed about being controlled by hunger had I got pregnant way back in the day when I actually wanted to be and maybe would have expected it? Is this a normal feeling to be annoyed by this? Or is this just my crazy perfectionism struggle wanting to be in control of myself? Or just simply my mind still not being able to completely wrap itself around the fact that it's not ME being crazy demanding of myself, but that there is actually something growing in me that needs nutrition. Whaaaat???! (That still sounds so crazy)

It really is hard for my mind to believe that this morning (really, all-day) sickness is due to pregnancy and not just some "other" issue. I'm constantly trying to figure out what's "wrong" with me aka the flu and all the other reasons I rationalized away in the beginning before I knew I was pregnant. Not to mention this sick feeling coupled with the fact that I've never felt so exhausted and depleted like this before feels a bit like I'm failing at something. What, I'm not sure of. But it certainly doesn't feel like I'm nailing perfection, that's for sure! I somehow think I should be able to force my body to have more energy and not feel like the only place I want to be is my little blanket cocoon I've made on the couch. It feels scary. Like, what if I never have energy ever again?

Just yesterday I woke (after a good 9 hours of sleep) and felt like I could go right back to sleep for another 9 hours. Instead I got up, had breakfast (hoping that would help - which it did not - and that made me cry a little out of frustration), and then proceeded to lay on the couch for 4 hours because I felt paralyzed I was so tired. After 4 hours (past my monster's feeding time) I realized I was only getting worse in the energy department and asked Derek if he wanted lunch. He said sure and asked what I wanted to do for lunch. My response? Hysterically crying because I had past the point-of-no-return and the hunger monster was doing it's worst, and I was out of control of it. It's crazy. (By the way, Derek cut up apples and cheese for me pretty much immediately and I was better within minutes) I even had looked at the clock an hour before thinking I should probably eat something but didn't want to "give in" to the feelings because no food sounded good and I was exhausted and I just plain and simple don't like being controlled. Wow. There it is. I don't like being controlled.

Growth is a funny thing. It's painful (ever heard of "growing pains?"). Just like this is painful. And this IS growth...literally and figuratively. I want to be good at growth. But not just in a perfectionism way. God brought this growth into my life and I want to respect it and use it for good and His glory. I don't want to let myself be a giant toddler and miss the ways I'm supposed to grow in, both physically and emotionally. Maybe that's how I need to look at this whole process more. Feeling hungry and controlled by this hunger monster isn't a bad thing...it's a growth opportunity. Both for literally feeding and growing this baby, as well as relinquishing control over my own desires and growing in ways God wants me to for His purposes. I want to grow and I want to feed both my soul in this process, as well as this sweet growing baby inside of me. Which right there, is growth in itself. I am learning to view this baby and process as good and sweet. I can even say I am genuinely thankful for this path God has put us on, even with all the crazy growth (and tears) along the way. 

"So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, 

but God who causes the growth." 

1 Corinthians 3:7

"Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that your 

progress will be evident to all." 

1 Timothy 4:15

This Is Crazy

I am pregnant.

Three words I literally never thought I would speak out loud. 

After almost 15 years of infertility...coming to a place of not only peace, but of not even desiring to have children of my own anymore...and going through peri-menopause for the past year…we recently found out that I am pregnant.

I will be honest, this has been a major shock for us. The first week I was completely in denial. I will also be honest that this was no longer what we had planned for, let alone hoped for anymore in our lives for years, and it is taking some time to process. 

I have come to realize that there is a part of me (a very large part) that strongly identifies as “Infertile Lindsey.” It is who I identify as and I have come to love that part of me and how I can relate to others in all sorts of different ways because of it. I have also realized that reconciling that part of me to what is now “Fertile Lindsey” has been mind-blowingly difficult to say the least, and quite a bit painful if I’m completely vulnerable. There are parts of me that feel like a mean trick is being played on me and I literally don’t have a place in my brain to put the information. That part of my mind and imagination died and was buried many years ago. It was easier and much more plausible to believe my period was three weeks late due to menopause rather than pregnancy. So when I did find out I was already 7 weeks along. Even the exhaustion and nausea I had been experiencing for 2 weeks prior was easily rationalized away by a slew of excuses. Pregnancy never even crossed my mind as a reasonable option.  

I will be honest that this has been hard. Really hard. Not only physically, but mentally and emotionally for both Derek and myself. Not just in the sense that our life has been completely turned upside down from anything we’ve imagined for years, but also in the sense that not being able to grasp something that is supposed to be such a special and wonderful surprise has been difficult. We don’t want to have a hard time adjusting. We’re trying to process as fast as we possibly can. But just like we couldn’t make me become pregnant in the timing we had hoped for so many years ago, we also cannot force our hearts and minds to get on the "confetti and fireworks train of excitement" in our own timing either. We are working on giving ourselves grace in that and trusting in God to bring us there in His perfect timing. 

There are so many aspects of our infertility journey that are affecting the lens of how we are able to see and process this all. I have realized that I am much more sensitive to pregnancy topics still than I would have ever imagined. I didn’t even want to take the pregnancy test when I did because I had such PTSD over hating the topic of them. They always disappointed me then, and to be honest, in a way did again. I couldn’t even look at the result after peeing on it and left the bathroom before the results could set in. Derek actually went in and saw it and had to come out to tell me the news. Again, wanting to be honestly transparent, I cried. Hard. This was certainly not the way we anticipated our plans to go. And even after the fact of knowing our path was going to look different, it was and is equally as hard not being able to have what I would consider "the right" reaction to it all. (I have cried multiple times simply because I was crying over the situation and being disappointed in myself that I was crying in the first place. Yes, it's a whole new level of crazy for me!) I even told a friend this morning on the phone that I can’t handle the idea of being called “mom” yet and that I’m much more comfortable with my name “Auntie” and maybe I’ll just have this baby call me that. (I’m technically kidding…but it’s still a process)

It's funny that we've always loved this verse, “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9) Well this is certainly applying to our lives quite strongly right now! But it's no different than any other time we’ve had to put our trust in Him for seemingly crazy or new paths in our lives. We have trusted before and He’s always brought us through and exceeded our wildest dreams. So here we are again trusting in His way for us in a seemingly unbelievable turn of events in our lives. 

I trust that we will get there. I’m not afraid (well not completely) that we won’t. It feels crazy and ironic that God got us and brought us through infertility and now seems He is getting us and bringing us back in the opposite direction. I know I blogged in the past about my identity crisis in moving from a person wanting children so badly I thought I would die, to a person that became not only at peace with not having them, but to becoming a person that no longer desired to have children of my own. Now it seems that I am having another identity crisis in realizing I no longer can be that person regardless of how I feel / felt. 

It’s also been hard to come to grips with how much pregnancy announcements have hurt me in the past and how much I strongly desired not to ever be that person to potentially make another person sad over a pregnancy announcement. I didn’t realize how much pride I had come to have in “knowing” that I would “never” be that person who hurt another through an announcement like that. And now here I am, announcing that I am pregnant. It seriously feels like a joke. A very not nice one. Honestly for days after I found out I kept looking at the picture of the pregnancy test on my phone thinking that this has to have been the wildest dream I’ve ever had. There’s no way this is really reality. But according to the ultrasound I had a week ago and the clear heart beat on it as well as the constant nausea and exhaustion I’m feeling every day…it apparently actually is reality. Although it is seriously still a struggle to remember it's real. It feels like I'm constantly waking up from a daydream and having to figure out what's true and what's not. For example, I was just thinking about whether this is something I should even be sharing or not, and then literally had to pause to think, "Wait is this really happening? What am I even talking about?? Am I seriously pregnant???"

I know it will get better and we will remember it's real more naturally at some point (hopefully before the baby gets here!) and we're even miles further along than we were when we first found out. Each day and each small milestone has helped. Even other people's excitement over this baby helps us get further along. It's been a slow and steady process and we're trusting there's a reason even for that. 

One last crazy aspect of all this is that I started this blog over 10 years ago under the guise of sharing about our travels during the last year of Derek's medical school, but really anticipating that I would finally be pregnant any day and would get to turn it into a pregnancy / baby update blog for my friends and family. I always thought it was so funny that it ended up turning into basically an infertility blog for the most part. I have no idea what it will become now or how often or if I will even write more here, but it seemed fitting to share the honesty of our lives in this area as Derek and I have come to learn the immense importance and joy in being real and vulnerable and inviting others into the depths of our lives over the past few years. Thank you for supporting and loving us from far and near through our vulnerable ups and downs of this crazy and immensely blessed life Jesus has given us. 

"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow ... Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that." 
James 4:13-15