The Book of Ruth Chapter 3: Overture

My pregnancy sucked.

For the most part.

There.

I said it.

First trimester I was sick. My body and I were not quite Harold and Kumar-ing it. How’s that for a timely, relevant reference?!

It didn’t feel magical. I wasn’t over the moon. I wasn’t secure in my pregnancy because I’d lost one before and, in fact, I was sure I was miscarrying again. There was some blood in the beginning. I would text Adam (should I lay off my love for him because it’s getting creepy? Maybe he’s read some of my previous posts?! Eeep, are we squicked out? Has it lost its charm? Am I going to beat this dead horse back to life? Nay, shall we ride this Adam love-fest pony into this story’s proverbial sunset? Regardless, luckily, he has an INCREDIBLE sense of humour. No future partner of mine wouldn’t).

In the early days, I would text him and say “I think we should do some testing to see if there’s a problem. I don’t know if I can handle a third miscarriage”. “This isn’t a miscarriage yet. Let’s see what happens, okay? We can always do testing. Let’s try and stay cautiously optimistic.” This fucking guy, right? He always knows what to say.

Worry was all I felt during those early weeks. I didn’t feel like anything other than harnessing all my energy into constantly trying not to yak or be my least favourite thing: nauseous. At least if you barf there’s a change in your state of being. But nausea is like a never ending horror movie build up. The strings are playing and your stomach is in knots. No bueno. I was only awake for about 12 hours a day and those 12 hours sucked. Luckily, I was working from home and I could rest if I needed to, while making sure all my stuff got finished. But it was not fun. I called my first trimester ‘body failure’.

My second trimester was all about my mental state. I was depressed. I know this because I’ve been depressed before. The only difference was this lasted a long time. I wasn’t in crisis. I wasn’t on high alert or anything, it was just low-grade depresh. I didn’t want to wash my face, hair, body, anything, even walk my Brisky dog. Which I did because I cannot deny that face. In fact, our daily morning walks always lifted my spirits. I didn’t want to take care of myself, it felt too big. Like way too much effort. It required more energy than I had to give. I would get together with dear friends and be so thankful to be spending time with them, but the conversations often went over my head. It felt like I was underwater, I could hear them but everything was muffled and far away. No matter how hard I swam I just couldn’t seem to reach the surface. They tried to grab my hands and pull me out of the choppy waters but their fingertips were always juuuust out of reach. Still, hearing their muffled voices from below the waves was comforting. I called my second trimester “mental failure”.

Then my short-lived third trimester! I was back, baby! I felt like me again. I felt better. Not 100% but the tide went out and I was walking back through the sticky sand to the beach. I felt lighter. My water-logged clothes were warming in the sun as I made my way back to my family and friends on dry land. They were so patient. I called my third trimester “short-lived resuscitation”, and then, well, Ruthie girl came rushing into the world.

I want to talk about resources and surprises.

I saw Adam on the worst day of my pregnancy. It was during my second trimester. I had been really angry and sad for a while about a few things and I couldn’t seem to shake it. Emotions were popping up and I didn’t know what to do with them. The day I saw him, I’d been in a state for about 48 hours. I waited for my appointment at his clinic trying not to weep. This very sunny pregnant lady tried to pick up a conversation with me. “These chaiiiirs! Why don’t we select the most uncomfortable seats in the whole hospital and give them to the preggers ladies, ammirite?!!!”. She perkily chortled at me, trying to turn me into her confidant. I looked at the chair I was sitting on, it was more padded than hers. “Do you want to switch?” I answered in monotone. “Oooooh noooooo that’s fine. I usually sneak a sit in the delivery lounge anyway,” she nervously quipped. I turned back to my phone. My nails were dirty. I scrolled; blocking her out. She didn’t try to speak with me again. We were the two polar opposite pregnancy experiences.

Okay, back to something light and lovely. Adam. He does this charming thing where he opens the examination room door suuuuuuper slowly. It’s as if he’s adding drama to the greeting. Making you feel special, just for being there. “Hey. You. How are you doing!?”. “Oh I’m just like suuuuuper depressed. But it’s, whateverrrr.” “Noooo, not whatever! What’s going on?”. And so we talked. This dude talked to me for well over an hour and a half. To truly check in and see how I was doing. Because I wasn’t doing great and that wasn’t okay with him. I know this is such a trope. Amazing doctor looks into wounded/anxious/awkward copywriteress’s soul, asks her how she really is and they lived happily ever after…..that is if she wasn’t already happily married and his standards weren’t respectably much, much higher. Pretty sweet meet-cute, eh?! Anywho, back to reality. We talked and he listened and he suggested some resources at the hospital. I told him how I wasn’t anything like the sunny pregnant lady in the waiting area and I was going to be a disaster. First he told me to stop comparing experiences, which dud-doyyy I tell people that allll the time. It’s great advice! He told me everyone’s different and we can’t judge one’s post-baby state of being by our pre-baby emotions. I told him I was sure I’d have postpartum depression based on my history and he said, Yeah but it’s not written in stone. It’s not a sealed fate that will absolutely happen. And being scared of what may be won’t make it more or less likely to happen. He took me and what I was telling him seriously. He validated me. Which I think helped lead me out of the fog and into a much happier third trimester. But did nothing for my unhealthy obsession with him.

TIP: did you know there’s a mental health unit specifically for pregnant people? Please know this and use it if you’re knocked up and experiencing the sads. I had no idea this resource existed. But now I do. And now you do, too. Don’t hesitate to use it if you need it. Muscling through such a delicate time isn’t your only option. Not one bit.

I wanted to write this chapter not because it’s particularly funny, or engaging, or poignant. But because people don’t talk about prenatal depression. It exists and it’s hard because it’s a long haul. It wasn’t the main melody of my life during most of my pregnancy but it was the baseline that my days played on top of.

And because I like to strongly tie connections between seemingly disconnected things, I couldn’t help but make sense of my three trimesters and their overwhelmingly different vibes through music. My undergrad in music taught me a bunch of useless things about dead white men, things I never thought I’d use, because I quit. But that’s the cool thing about life, the penny drops at different times. The clarity comes when it’s meant to, understanding is not on your schedule. I was able to make sense of my three seasons of in-utero Ruth through my learnings as a musician. That’s why we have art; to create meaning from chaos. For perspective, and to snap things into focus. Because, this time in my life flowed like a concerto and its three contrasting movements:

The 1st: fast with its nausea, sense of sickness, and urgency.

The 2nd: slow, contemplative, and lyrically songlike with its depression.

The 3rd: quick and joyous as I returned to myself.

These three month chunks felt separate and nonsensical at the time. You could still look at them that way, I guess. But I choose to find meaning. Because I want Ruth to find beauty in the let downs of life as well as the wins. If I look at my pregnancy as a concerto, then no section was more important or valid than the other. Because they all worked together to create the harmony that is Ruth.

Coda: the second movement doesn’t have to be so languid and painful if you're feeling off. If you get help and make use of those awesome resources, you’ll find your way to the exciting third movement that much more easily.