Joy after infertility can feel fragile and masked by past experiences of loss. Felicia's journey to pregnancy came with a whirlwind of emotions, including shock, disbelief, and an overwhelming sense of joy. However, her past left her in a state of hypervigilance, obsessively monitoring symptoms and fearing the loss of this pregnancy. The joy she had long yearned for was complicated by mistrust, fear, and the need for self-protection as she navigated her deepest desires intertwined with anxiety.
Felicia recalled nothing of that moment or the words she was told. She remembered the shock. She remembered feeling frozen-and then the intense joy. She couldn't believe she was finally pregnant.
Driven by fear and a longing for connection, the human condition is hard to navigate, even in the best of times. When we think of joy, we don't usually pair it with complexity.
In the early months of pregnancy, most of her energy went into obsessively rechecking symptoms and using a Doppler to confirm the baby's heartbeat. She recognized this as hypervigilance.
Joy felt dangerous. It was hard to remove the armor of self-protection when the thing she wanted most also felt like a threat.
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