Suspicious Minds

4-22-09


I spend the last three hours of my Monday night tossing and turning. Hello, Insomnia, I didn’t miss you one iota. As the numbers on my digital clock inch towards midnight I yank open my nightstand drawer. I admit it. I am powerless to defeat you insomnia. All my yoga breathing and mindfulness techniques and reassurances to myself that everything is fine, JUST FINE, are for naught. I need drugs and I need them now. I reach for my old buddy old friend, Alprazolam a.k.a. Xanax (which I will call it since it’s a delightful palindrome). Bleary-eyed I read the warning labels “Do not take if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or suspect you are pregnant.” I consider. I do suspect I am pregnant, but my suspicions are grounded in a few rumblings in my lower abdominals and a confidence in timing. What if the zygote hasn’t found a stretch of uterus to call its own? What if it’s one of those bad old lady eggs that every article about mothers over 35 howls about? What exactly constitutes suspicion?

The first time I was pregnant, I took a Xanax the night after I’d found out so freaked out was I. I had remembered that my previous doctor had said Xanax was okay for the pregnant. I took it out of desperation. There was no way that I’d be sleeping with the knowledge that a baby-parasite had taken up residence chez Kt without it. And I slept. And the next day I googled and commenced with freaking out. I wondered if my ex-doc had misunderstood my question or if I had employed some selective hearing. (“Oh yes, Kt, you can drink wine, eat sushi, smoke, dance until morning, sweat your ass off in yoga class, and take bucketfuls of Xanax without any worries.”) If only.

Tonight I go the safe route. I put down the Xanax almost apologetically. I’ll be back someday. I rummage around and find the Unisom, which is doctor approved for pregnancy. In fact it is recommended as a means of fighting off morning sickness when taken in conjunction with vitamin B6. I hate the way Unisom turns my mornings into a zombie zone, but I am at my wits end and I need sleep.

I eke out 4 hours and spare change of sleep. I zombie my way through the morning, feeling a facsimile of wakefulness only in the afternoon. Xanax doesn’t do this to me, I grumble.

In some respects I am walking the cautious path. I’ve cut out the alcohol, quit smoking (for good this time, I swear!), replaced the Advil with Tylenol, and am consciously avoiding the lunchtime smokers that clog the Portland streets.

In other respects, not so much: I am eating as much sushi as I want.

“Don’t get that Jeremy Piven disease,” Mr. Crud warns.

“You mean being a douchebag who will fuck anything that moves?” Zing!

I am working bean sprouts and soft, unpasteurized cheese into my diet as much as possible. I am enjoying sweaty times on the yoga mat, knowing that I might have to curb my vigorous practice as early as next week.

Or I won’t. Or I’ll wake up Monday morning with cramps, a spot of blood on the TP, and a craving for a dirty martini. I try to predict how I’ll feel pregnant or not. I try to prepare myself for either eventuality. Maybe it’s good if I don’t get pregnant right away. That happened the last 2 times…and we know what happened then. Maybe getting my period is a sign that my uterus has learned to discern a good houseguest from a freeloader.

Thankfully my obsession with knowing one way or the other is waning. I’ll be fine either way. I think. Now if you’ll pardon me, I have some reassuring Buddhist philosophy books to add to my library list just in case my bravado crumbles before next Monday.