It’s kinda amazing when you think about it.
I’ve been through what most people would consider a traumatic event – both physically and mentally. But life just goes on. It doesn’t stop because you’re in pain or feeling like absolute shit. It just continues rolling on and the only thing you can do is roll with it.
I finally had an appointment with my naturopath yesterday (yes, I have a naturopath – feel free to roll your eyes) and she said something I found quite interesting. She commented that found my answers to her questions about the accident and how I was feeling “quite measured”. I think she was expecting me to be angry or stressed out of my brain. But really, what’s the point in being either of those things when that’s just a huge waste of energy?
Okay, I’m still a wee bit ticked off about the whole situation. I’m in pain every day and that’s not conducive to a positive, chipper frame of mind. But all I can do is deal with it. I can’t change what happened, I can’t make it be different regardless of how much I wish I could. I got the only justice I knew I would because the woman who hit me didn’t get away scott-free. There were ramifications for her actions. She was fined – heavily so – and from what the police officer was suggesting, she’s lost her driver’s license. That’s about as much justice as I could’ve realistically hoped for.
Initially it was incredibly stressful and hugely upsetting. I was petrified the whole time that something was wrong with the baby. Not a lot of people knew I was pregnant at that point so it’s hard to deal with it when you’ve got people asking how you are and all you want to blurt out is I’m so scared that my baby is dead. Because that’s what I thought. For an entire week.
This particular aspect of my situation wasn’t handled particularly well by the hospital. What would’ve made me (and Richard) feel a million times better would’ve been an ultrasound. Or someone coming to see me who could find the heartbeat. But I didn’t get any of that. Their attitude was that I didn’t have any abdominal pain, there wasn’t any bleeding so I (and the baby) were okay. An obstetrician came to talk to me and tried to be reassuring and tell me that they were sure everything was fine but it wasn’t enough. We finally found out the following week at our 10 week obstetrician appointment where I had my first ultrasound – a quickie done in my obstetrician’s room. There’s no words to describe how it felt to see my little passenger wiggling around and hearing the heartbeat.
Knowing that didn’t take away the amount of pain in my arm. It didn’t change my immediate situation. But it lifted an enormous weight from me and it got rid the mad panic in my brain.
So right now, my choices are either:
1. dwell on what happened and how unfair it was
or
2. focus on the here-and-now.
After all, I’m still pregnant. In about five months time there will be a little person who will need me. I can’t allow myself to dwell on the bad shit in my life – of which, I will admit, there is plenty right now – because it’s not good for her. Me being all petulant and grumpy won’t help me grow a healthy human being. My focus must be on getting my arm back to as normal – or as normal as it can be – so in the not-too-distant-future I can do stuff like pick up my baby.
At the moment, it feels like I only have a finite amount of energy each day so isn’t it better to put it towards recovery? All that anger and frustration just becomes a burden so why not put it aside? I didn’t die and I’m not seriously injured when you really think about. It could’ve been a million times worse but it wasn’t. My baby survived. She survived me being hit by car. She’s still in there, wiggling about, growing, developing. She’s alive and that should be reason enough to focus on what’s good in life.
