Grief and Pregnancy Loss

My Own Worst Enemy

6 Comments

A lot of things have gone wrong this year and most of those things have been outside my control. They may have been inside my body, but they have been outside of my control. Recently, I realized that even my feelings are spiraling out of control, and it’s extremely disconcerting.

I never considered myself a control freak, but as more and more snowballs, I’m realizing that maybe I am.

I had thought that if I had controlling or stressful tendencies, they would have come out during the most stressful times in my life, like in law school, or while planning a wedding. But no, when it came to law school, I was perfectly fine with studying as hard as I could, and doing as well as I could. For my wedding, I thought maybe I’d be a bridezilla, but instead I filled out a spreadsheet with my flowers of choice, told my two bridesmaids to pick a color and style of dress they liked, and then I showed up in Cabo for the first time, 4 days before my nuptials.

So why, all of a sudden, do I want to control everything including my thoughts, and I’m mad at myself for wanting to be in control, mad at myself for not just accepting that some things aren’t in anyone’s control, and then I continue to spiral out of control (which brings me back to my very first point)?

All of this came to a head last week when I had a grief attack at the gym. I wasn’t sure if I’d write about it because it’s extremely vulnerable and embarrassing. But I also feel like I shouldn’t be embarrassed, even if I am. This blog is already an overshare, that’s the point of a personal blog, so I figured I’d jump in headfirst and overshare again.

I’ve had two “panic attacks” since Maliyah was born, both in healthcare settings. I’m using quotes because I don’t think they fit neatly into a “panic attack” box. Panic attacks usually mean extreme physical reaction triggered by intense fear when there is no real or apparent danger. For me, it’s not really a fear, or thoughts of imminent danger, it’s more like a “grief attack” with intense physical reactions based on extreme sadness and self-loathing.

My brain is a very fun place to be.

The first time this happened was at a post-partum appointment at the OBGYN. Obviously, being at the OBGYN after baby loss would be triggering for anyone, but this happened before I was even called into the room. I was sitting in the waiting area barely able to catch my breath, with my heartrate sky-high, facing the wall trying to avoid eye contact with anyone pregnant, and my Fitbit vibrated on my wrist, congratulating me for hitting my “zone minutes” for the week. I opened my Fitbit app, looking for a distraction, and realized it had clocked a 23-minute workout. This all happened while I was sitting in a chair just trying (and failing) to breathe normally.

The next time this happened was when I had a full abdominal ultrasound because my nephrologist thought there was a chance I had one kidney, since there seemed to be no other explanation for what happened to me. Turns out I have two kidneys. It also turns out that the sound of blood flowing into a kidney on an ultrasound machine sounds eerily similar to the sound of a baby’s heartbeat in your uterus. Cue grief attack. I couldn’t breathe while I laid there on the table. The technician was instructing me when to breathe in and out, because when your lungs inflate, they move your other organs around, making the ultrasound more difficult to perform. Clearly, I was unable to breathe on her count. I couldn’t breathe at all. I tried to focus on the ceiling tiles but soon enough I was gasping for air, with water streaming out of my eyes, and I started choking on snot while I was gasping, so she made me sit up to try and catch my breath. I got ultrasound goo all over the place, and the tech asked me if I had brought any family with me that she could call in from the waiting room.

Again, while I was caught off-guard by this grief attack, it was not exactly unpredictable. Of course I would be grossly triggered by my very first ultrasound with no baby inside me. Of course the sound of blood flow that was not a heartbeat drove me to tears. In my rational mind, this makes sense. But in my irrational mind, which is my mind most of the time, I got mad. Furious, really. Frustrated. Angry. Livid.

The mantra in my head over and over again was, “Why can’t I be normal?? Why am I like this? Why can’t I do ___ like a normal person? I used to be able to do ___ without a problem, now I am a freak. I’m the same person but now I’m completely f*cked up.”

As I mentioned, my brain is a very fun place to be.

This week was different because I thought I was safe in non-healthcare settings. But Thursday I went to the gym and I proved to myself that no, I am messed up in many different kinds of settings, yippee!

Thursday at Orangetheory was a “benchmark” day called the 12-Minute Run for Distance. A few times a month, they have treadmill or rowing challenges where you measure your progress on distance, speed, incline, or power. They repeat these workouts 2-3 times/year so you can see if you have improved. As the coach said before class last week, “it’s you against you.”

The last time I had done that benchmark was in April 2022, the month before my wedding. I had been working out a lot, and I was in pretty good shape. But I’ve been working out now 5-6 times/week mostly as a mental distraction, and I thought I had set myself up to PR. I was determined to beat my previous distance.

Well, readers, I did not. I matched my distance exactly, down to the hundredth of a mile. I got off the treadmill and tried to continue the workout, but I found myself falling apart as I picked up the weights for the next part of class. I went to the bathroom to try and calm down, but it did the opposite. I started beating myself up.

My internal dialogue: “Why couldn’t I get .01 extra on the treadmill? What is wrong with me? It’s not like I have anything else going on. All I do is work out. It’s not like I’m taking care of a baby. I’m trying to come back from a post-partum break where I wasn’t allowed to work out, but I have literally nothing to show for it. I don’t have a baby. I don’t even have .01 on the treadmill. And why am I coming back from a post-partum break? How? How is it possible that I need to have a post-partum come-back when I am childless? And I’m supposed to be thinking about going through this again? Why would anyone ever do this again?”

Then the really fun thoughts start in: “Why am I not better yet? It’s been 8 months. Some people would be functional by now. And I’m in the bathroom at the gym struggling to stand. Why can’t I be normal? I used to be able to get through a f*cking class at the gym and now I’m so messed up I can’t run 12 minutes without having a panic attack?”

I finally got to a place where I thought I could go back to class, so I did. I lifted weights for 3 minutes while I continued to battle myself in my head. That’s when I realized that my heartrate monitor had been on the whole time. Everyone in class was in blue and green zones (moderate effort) and my name was the only little box on the screen in orange and red, clearly still in full panic. When I realized that the entire class saw my heartrate sky-high during the mental breakdown I had in the bathroom, I completely lost it again and left the gym. Somehow, I wiped off my equipment and got my stuff from the locker, and made it 10 yards from the studio when I stopped being able to breathe again.

I sat down on a railing and tried to breathe. I counted 4 in, 4 out, but it wasn’t helping. I was crying hard at this point but I’m not sure how long I was there. One of the best parts about NYC is that people mind their own business. But on this particular day, I guess I looked like I was in acute distress because a woman walking her dog asked me if I was ok. I nodded. I thought she would go away, but no. She asked if I had asthma, I shook my head no. She said, “should I call you an ambulance?” I vigorously shook my head no. Given that my previous panic attacks were both in medical settings, I knew the last thing I needed in that moment was interaction with healthcare professionals. The woman asked, “are you sure?” and I nodded again, so she walked away. I think the fear of having to talk to EMTs scared me into action. I went through a list of people in my mind who I could call, who wouldn’t think I was a complete basket case. I realized it was really only Chris because he had seen this happen to me before, so I called him and talked to him while I tried to get myself home.

An hour later, once I showered and through some superhuman power, braided a girl’s hair for a race, I was able to see what happened with some distance. When I took 3 steps back and I was in a better headspace, when I was able to breathe, I said to myself, “this makes sense. You are very sad. You’re not the same person, you had a baby die inside you. You gave birth to a dead child and almost died this year. What you achieved on the treadmill is a triumph. Despite everything that happened this year, you are not only alive, but you are in as good shape as you were three weeks before your wedding.”

I see that when I am not deep in it. But when I was in the bathroom at the gym, trying to tell myself those very same things, I couldn’t believe it. All I could believe was, “fail fail fail fail fail.”

Later that night, after talking sense into myself and feeling like a completely crazy person (because who starts sobbing at the gym???), I wrote to one of my loss mom friends and explained what happened. She told me that it’s so, so hard but also so, so relatable. She said that being in an extreme pit of grief feels like you are fighting a constant battle with yourself, and it’s excruciatingly exhausting. I couldn’t agree more.

I’m tired. I’m tired of being sad and I’m tired of being mad at myself for being sad. I wish I was “over it.” I wish I was “better.” It’s ironic that the Orangetheory coach had said “it’s you against you” for the benchmark, since that is ALWAYS the battle I am fighting in my head. I want to be kind to myself, I want to “give myself grace,” as all of the Instagram Inspo accounts say, but it’s easier said than done.

The ”benchmark workout” felt in my head like it was a benchmark of more than just distance on a treadmill. To me, it was a benchmark I was measuring to see if I was still the person I used to be. When I “failed,” and found out that no, I am not, and I will never again be her, it hit me like 100 tons of bricks.

Watching other people around me grieve differently and on different timelines makes it even harder. While I try not to compare, it’s impossible. Of course, I’ve read all the books about how grief’s timeline is different for everyone, but I want to be done. I want to quit. I want to trade in these feelings for other ones. I want to talk to the manager.

But that’s not how life works. And as surprised as I am every day to wake up, ready to put on my armor and go to battle with myself yet again, here we are, alive another day and ready to fight. Waking up each day as your own worst enemy is tiring and demoralizing. I hope someday to be a friend to myself. I hope that I can be kinder to myself. Gentler. Softer. Since it’s nearly December, maybe that will be my New Year’s Resolution. I am going to try my very best to be kind, because at least that is something I can control.

Continue Reading

Fitness

People I Hate at the Gym

6 Comments

I have been spending a lot of time at the gym, specifically Orangetheory. Many articles will tell you different statistics about how many people give up on their News Year Resolutions within 2/4/6 weeks, but no matter what you read, that means the people still sticking around on February 17th are likely there for the long haul. And unfortunately… I HATE SOME OF Y’ALL.

Here are a few categories of people I wish would quit the gym.

Unnecessary Noise People

Why? Honestly, is it necessary? Because I see you lifting half the weight as me, and there is no reason for you to be grunting. If your weight choice is actually so difficult that your body releases an uncontrollable sound every time, perhaps you need to scale back. Now, let’s talk a little about jumping noises, too. I do not mean the actually sound of jumping. I mean the tiny little yelp that is 100% unnecessary every time you jump side to side or forward and back. There is someone who does this every class. I (kindly) call her “bird sex girl” because it sounds like a teeny tiny parakeet having vigorous reproductive fun for 30 seconds at a time. Once, I was on the treadmill as it was going on, and I thought it was a malfunction on my treadmill and the belt was coming loose but no, bird sex on the floor behind me.

People Who Won’t Swallow Their Water

You heard it here first: water is for hydration. Groundbreaking. Things water is not for: stagnant mouth-holding. Teeth-cleaning. Swishing around. This one is just extra disgusting to me. Why are you walking around the studio with your mouth full of bacteria-laden liquid? It makes no sense. What if someone accidentally knocks you? What happens to the water, then? Just take the water in your mouth and swallow it. This requires no additional explanation.

Every-Weight-In-This-Gym-Is-Mine People

It’s happened to me too – the coach explains an exercise, and you realize you want a 20-pound weight, but your rack doesn’t have one. What do you do? Look around, maybe ask a neighbor to borrow, or just attempt a lower weight with more reps or a higher weight with less reps. What do you not do? Go to someone else’s weight rack and just grab a few. Do you have no home training? If something is not yours, you ask permission. With a “please” and a “may I?” I learned that in kindergarten playing “Mother, may I?” The second these people hit the weight floor it’s like all common courtesy leaves their mind as they are only thinking “MUST FIND A 20-POUND DUMBELL ASAP.” Come on, guys, be normal.

Chatty Cathys

Surprisingly, this is usually the men. They come with their bros and love to just ham it up picking the largest weights on the rack, and usually do the exercises incorrectly. You may be curious how they are doing the exercise wrong when the coach demos every single exercise and little video-people are also demo-ing on the screens all around the room. Well… it’s because they’re too busy chit-chatting to watch a demo, and they think they know best. Don’t get me wrong, I love to work out with a friend. It’s way more fun to have a buddy in class, to shoot “kill me” looks at them when the coach casually throws 10 burpees into a workout. I even sing along to the playlist (often) and congratulate my treadmill-neighbors when they hit a top speed on an all-out. But don’t talk over a demo, it’s disrespectful to the coach and the other participants.

Forrest Gump

Run, Forrest, Run!!! But actually, please don’t. One of the main tenets of Orangetheory is that you’re supposed to keep your heart in the orange zone, not run as fast and as hard as you can the entire time. Each day’s template is designed to maximize your effort and include recoveries. The coach should not need to come over to you 6 times to tell you to stop running. Usually in class while you are walking, the coach is speaking and explaining the next block. If you are running, your treadmill is loud and no one else can hear. And who are you really showing off to? No one cares and it is not a race. There are no medals. If you really want to run nonstop, there are miles and miles of street throughout New York City. In fact, the studio is only one block from Central Park! SEE YA.

The Ones Who Forgot Their Shirts

I admit, most of this is jealousy. I wish I had A. the confidence to not wear a shirt in public and B. the boobs to carry it off. I will be honest, my jealousy distracts me. I love a good matching gym set, but when I just see boobs out of the corner of my eye, it’s hard to look away. I can’t even shame though because honestly, they usually look good. Maybe after all of these weeks at Orangetheory I’ll feel confident without a shirt, too. And the best part – it’s less laundry!

Smelly People

I understand we all didn’t leave our houses for over a year. At home, it didn’t matter if you stank. No one was there to judge you. All the way back in July 2020, they reported that deodorant sales plummeted and ice cream sales soared. Maybe you never raised your arms at home because you sat at your laptop all day. Maybe you didn’t realize that your dog stopped hanging around by your desk. But you absolutely need to be self-aware again if you plan on working out vigorously in close proximity to other humans. A mask can only help incrementally. Unless the entire membership of Orangetheory gets symptomatic Covid and collectively loses their sense of smell simultaneously, you absolutely must do something about it. And until you do, I will give you the stink eye (literally) every time you do an overhead press.

There are probably some annoying people I missed, let me know in the comments.

Continue Reading

Long Legs and other Personal Problems

2022 Goals (besides surviving)

5 Comments

Let’s talk goals. January is almost over, which means the year is 1/12th over. 1/12 of my goals should be completed right? Not exactly. I’m in the middle of a course to become a Certified Salary Negotiation Specialist, and the other day the instructor said, “if an employer says yes to every one of your requests, you didn’t actually win. It means you probably left money on the table and should have asked for more. You want to actually get to ‘no’ because it means you got everything they had to offer.” That’s the approach I’m taking to my goals this year. Yes, I want to achieve my goals and I want them to be achievable, but I also want them to be a reach. If I achieve every single one of them, then I probably didn’t set them high enough. It’s ok if I don’t cross off every single one of them as long as I’m working toward them.

So what are my goals? As usual, I separated them into categories: Health, Work, Relationship, Finance, Other, and of course the all-important: Social Media.

For some reason, the health ones come easily to me. Maybe that means I’m not aspiring high enough. I don’t believe in calorie-counting or “dieting,” so my goals are generally more about fitness and wellness. My first goal: get 8 hours of sleep at least once a week. I kind of assume I will not achieve this. But I can try! One less Netflix binge-a-thon a week. Will that episode of Too Hot To Handle be there tomorrow? Yes. This sleep goal is even less likely to occur later in the year if I succeed in getting pregnant. More on that later.

Also related to health, last year, I set a goal not to order in food more than twice a week, which fits well into my finance category. Last year, I found it was an easily achievable goal, so I didn’t even mention it this year although it continues to be an ongoing goal. Sometimes when I come home from vacation and the fridge is empty, I fail here, but I have learned to stock up the freezer before I go, and first thing when I come home, I move chicken/salmon/turkey burgers etc. into the fridge.

With fitness goals, I love to work out, so I tend to do well in this area. But I set some serious reach goals here. This year I am setting the goals of 100 Orangetheory classes, 200 Peloton cycling and strength classes, and a 52-week Peloton streak. That’s right, I want to do at least one class every week on Peloton, but this streak includes sleep meditation and stretching. Even so, as for the 200 Peloton cycling and strength classes in addition to Orangetheory? That may be a reach. But I often do a 30 minute class and a 5-minute cooldown, and that counts as 2, so ya never know! I also set a goal to “try” yoga. I should have probably been more specific there. It’s January 28th and I have not yet “tried” it. I hateeee yoga. I’m so inflexible. Which makes me hate yoga. And I am so inflexible because I hate yoga. It’s a vicious cycle.

My work goal, as I already mentioned, is to become a Certified Salary Negotiation Specialist. I am happy to report that I am well on my way there. Considering there is a course deadline of February 17th, that is good news.

As for finance, I have a lot of goals. Many of them are based on retirement savings. I would like to max out my 403B and my Roth IRA. I may need to move some money around to do that, but I am going to try. I don’t have many other savings goals because I’m getting married this year, and even with a small wedding, it’s likely to make a dent in my net worth. My other finance goal is to understand American Express Points. I know this seems like a weird, small goal, but I want to be able to maximize or at least use them wisely. For years they have been pooling in my account, and in theory, if I can use them well, I have over $5,000 of points in there. I am trying to convince Chris to talk me through this whole concept, but he knows too much and I seem to get confused easily. Hopefully by the end of the year I will understand.

My relationship goals are BIG. I mean BIG. Like the biggest that a relationship goal can be. Wedding, kids, the whole thing. Well maybe not multiple kids. Actually, probably not any kids this year, because #science, but I would like to start attempting to have kids. That’s the fun part, right? Not necessarily the easy part, but I do need to take some initial steps, like taking my IUD out. Remember when that sucker disappeared? That was a fun blog post. Anyway, it’s still in there now, so that would be step #1. My other relationship goal is to have at least one date night per month. We failed on this one last year, but this month we already went to see Come From Away, which was a lot of fun. There’s nothing quite like grabbing a $10 cab to Broadway, ah, New York City life.

My Social Media goals are pretty lofty regarding my braiding business. I want to work on my TikTok skills because everyone says that is the best way to grow an audience. That means both posting regularly, increasing my followers, getting better at video transitions, all of it. I am in my 30’s so this is not easy. Just this week, I pulled something in my neck making one. I am clearly not the demographic of content creator they had in mind. But it’s kind of fun so I plan on continuing to try. My goal is 500 followers and posting at least once a week. I gained 9 followers last week, so I’m off to a good start. I also want to gain followers on Instagram (5000 would be ideal, but a reach), which means posting more reels. Everything is about video these days! I also want to continue to post on my blog more. Ideally twice a month. January is going well, since this is my third post, but I tend to fall off on posting later in the year. I’m going to work on it! You all need to comment and keep me accountable.

My last category of goals is “Other,” which means leftovers. And not necessarily the good kind like lukewarm pizza or cold Chinese food. My first miscellaneous goal is to make the bed every day. Especially now that the Peloton is in the bedroom, I HATE getting on the bike and seeing a mess. Plus, I’m hoping that getting into a made bed will entice me to sleep earlier, helping me reach my 8 hours of sleep goal. Another random goal: go to 3 Broadway shows. So far, I’ve been to one and it’s January, so it’s going well! I keep entering the lottery to get cheap seats and I win probably 10% of the time. Not bad odds! I also have a goal of traveling to two new countries. Considering the amount of weddings I have this year, and the hope to get pregnant, I’m not sure if this will happen. Maybe we will go on a honeymoon? But maybe not. We’ll see. My last goal is to make $2000 braiding hair. Considering I was supposed to have my first 2022 client tonight and she canceled because she has Covid, it’s not looking good. We’ll see.

Those are my goals! Do you have any lofty or not-lofty ones you want to share? Let me know in the comments.

Continue Reading

Fitness

Orangetheory Fitness

No Comments

What’s your idea of a good workout? A combination of cardio and strength moves utilizing state-of-the-art treadmills and rowers, all while tracking your exertion and heart rate on TV screens? Burning more calories even after you leave the gym? If so, then Orangetheory Fitness is for you.

Orangetheory Fitness is an interval workout backed by science, designed to keep your heart rate in a target zone that spikes metabolism and increases your EPOC or afterburn calories. In theory, the more you can keep your heart in that zone, the more splat points you get (more on that later), and the more calories you will burn after the workout is over. It’s a little complicated, but that Wikipedia link on EPOC explains it pretty well. Nothing like citing to a good Wikipedia article. Erin Andrews (another wiki link) is one of their spokespeople, so obviously it works; look at her! Also, she’s a Gator so I’m biased. Throughout the workout, you wear a heart rate monitor, or you can choose not to, and you can track calories burned, percentage of max heart rate, and OTF “splat points”, based on the amount of time you spend in the orange HR zone. My favorite part of this workout is that the point is not to burn out and go “all out” in the red zone the whole time. You leave feeling like you got an awesome workout, but you don’t leave feeling like you are going to die, or barf in the lobby on the way out. This has happened to me before (cough cough TONEHOUSE).

Anyway, as I mentioned last week, I recently went to OTF with my brother when I went to Washington DC, and we had a blast. One of my best friends from college is a head trainer for OTF and now trains and manages the trainers of the region, so I knew I was in good hands taking her class. This was not my first rodeo, however. I had been to Orangetheory a few times before in three different states: New York, Virginia, and Florida. The cool thing about OTF is that every day, the workout is the same in every studio around the country, so it doesn’t matter if you are traveling often. But even better, the workout is different each day! I have been to a class where they had an endurance day, a class that was a sprint-based power class, and a combo day. I have never been to this thing they call “Tornado Tuesday,” nor do I ever plan to go, because I do not hate myself. HA. Reddit has a glossary of OTF terms if you can’t keep up. Anyway, point of this story is, even though I’ve gone 5 times, I have never been bored.

When I went with my brother, it added a competition aspect that I did not even know I had in me. My brother is incredibly competitive. I’m talking, “throw a tantrum and leave the table during a game of monopoly” competitive. Me? Not so much. In my 4 previous times at OTF, I had only worn the heart rate monitor once. It is interesting to track and see my statistics after, but it’s not too important for me to watch it during the class. For my brother, though, it was not an option. So I strapped my heart rate monitor on under the strap of my sports bra, and readied myself for a massive competition. My brother has literally run the length of Israel before, whereas I have run one half marathon and sprained my ankle twice in the past 3 months. I was prepared to lose. But I didn’t let him know that!

The workout of the day was pretty complicated to follow, but we warmed up on the rowers, then started with floor exercises, which were demoed on the screens. I mostly followed the screens, but called Julie over to explain a few times. She didn’t treat me like a complete idiot, so that was a plus. I think some other people were lost, too. There were 3 rounds of 3 exercises, and you could pick the order. We used dumbbells, a step, and the TRX to do a combination of moves working all major muscle groups. Then after 25 minutes, we switched to cardio intervals on the treadmill then rower. After the floor section, my brother and I each only had 3 splat points, and the goal is 12-20. As I said above, you get a splat point for each minute you spend training in the orange zone. Clearly we had our work cut out for us on the treadmills.

My brother stared me down from his adjacent treadmill with a look in his eyes that could only be described as, “you’re going down, bitch.” Or maybe it was, “you’re going down, sis,” but either way, he made it clear he was playing to win. And sure enough, I had my eyes on the screen tracking his splat points more than I had my eyes on the treadmill. Probs dangerous, in hindsight. Anyway, my brother skipped his second interval on the rower to add more points and stay on the treadmill, aka HE CHEATED. He swears he just read the workout wrong, which is possible, because, like I said it was pretty complicated, but I choose to say he cheated. Anyway, joke was on him because while he was slaving away on the treadmill at 12.0 MPH, I was at a casual 5.8, and since I’m such a worse runner, my heart rate was the same as his, and soon enough, we were neck and neck at 14 points even. With 2 minutes left of class, I was ahead 17-16, but he caught up with seconds to spare, and we tied at 17 splat points.

Overall, OTF is super fun. I love the idea of having a workout that changes every day because I have a bit of workout A.D.D. and I get bored quickly. Watching your points go up on the screen adds to the feeling of accomplishment, and even though I wish I had beat my brother, I still feel like I had a great workout and left completely sweaty. I worked off at least one of my post-workout-sake-bombs. It was extra fun to have Julie as our instructor because she grew up with my brother too, and felt comfortable egging him on over the microphone. Plus, she always has a fab playlist. I highly recommend checking it out. Most first-timers are free if you’re local. In Manhattan it’s $20 for your first class because everything in this godforsaken city is expensive, but what else is new? It’s $319 unlimited for a month in NYC, which is out of my budget, but if you go 4 times a week, it works out to less than $20/class, which is cheaper than any other studio in NYC. Try it out and see if you can beat my brother’s and my splat points!

Continue Reading