A friend who is a fellow recurrent miscarrier e-mailed me this article today regarding a new study that found that pregnant women who are stressed out (as measured by high levels of cortisol, a stress-linked hormone, in the body) during the first three weeks after conception are nearly three times as likely to miscarry. The article advocates that women de-stress their lives as much as possible before conceiving.
To be honest, I really am not surprised to read this article; I have read similar articles plus, at a gut level, I have suspected that there may be a link between elevated stress levels and miscarriage. It makes some biological sense.
After all, pregnancy takes a toll on a woman's body, and during stressful, life-threatening situations, the physical vulnerability of pregnancy could make a woman and her children less likely to survive (I'm thinking of extreme situations, like famine or war or being vulnerable to animals of prey). I imagine that our bodies might interpret high cortisol levels as an indicator that conditions are not favorable for the continuation of a pregnancy, regardless of whether the catalyst for the increased cortisol is a bomb dropping nearby or a contentious meeting at work.
Still, I hate to accept the fact that high stress levels potentially could result in a miscarriage. Why? First of all, there is the guilt of wondering whether my inability to control my stress levels during early pregnancy might have been a factor in one or more of my miscarriages. Second of all, there is the fact that, as a recurrent miscarrier, nothing raises my stress levels like knowing that I'm newly pregnant. It appears to be some sort of vicious circle where the stress of worrying about miscarrying might become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It makes sense for a recurrent miscarrier to try to decrease stress before and during early pregnancy; after all, regardless of whether stress actually can cause a miscarriage, common sense would indicate that stress isn't helpful to a pregnancy. It's significant that this study indicated that increased stress levels during the first three weeks after conception seem to be related to an elevated miscarriage rate. During the first two weeks of this time period, a woman doesn't even know whether she is pregnant.
Yes, many women in very stressful situations have no problem successfully conceiving and carrying a baby. But I have had five miscarriages and no living children, so it probably would be wise for me to make conditions as favorable as possible for a pregnancy to flourish.
I have been thinking a lot about whether to try again for another pregnancy. I will decide for sure after I learn the results of my endometrial function test, and I should receive those results in the next two days. If I do try again, I would first like to decrease the stress in my life as much as possible, and I have been thinking for a while of doing something rather extreme: quitting my job and taking some time off. Because my husband and I always financially planned for me to be a stay-at-home mom, we could live comfortably on his income, and I could be covered by his health insurance which offers the same coverage as I currently have.
My job as an attorney can be stressful and demanding, especially during certain seasons when it's not uncommon for the workload to require all-nighters unexpectedly. It's a "good" job with excellent benefits, nice co-workers, and a supportive boss, but nevertheless I often feel that the job is sucking the life out of me. I have been at the same job for almost 13 years, since I graduated from law school, and I am pretty burned out on it. Keeping up with the job while having miscarriage after miscarriage over the past four years has taken a toll on me to the extent that a counselor whom I saw about dealing with the miscarriages and most of my family members, including my husband, have encouraged me to quit my job. I have prayed about it and think it would be okay to quit, but I can't quite shake some nagging fears that I have about it.
It scares me to think about quitting and taking some time off. To be honest, some of my identity is wrapped up in being an attorney; I have spent the majority of my adult life focusing on law. It will be hard to shrug that off to be a stay-at-home wife, even if I know that the staying home is temporary. I like the sense of satisfaction that I get from earning my own money and financially contributing to our household. I like to be able to save money for retirement.
In addition, I have a deep underlying fear of never being able to find another "good" job again. This sounds silly when I write it out, especially since I am competent and have gotten a few unsolicited job offers since I have been in my current job, but there it is. When I was in high school and my dad was in his late 50s, he lost his sales job with his nice salary, expense account, and company car because his employer lost a patent infringement suit and was forced to downsize as a result. He never was able to get a similar job again. My intelligent, articulate, personable, college-educated father who had years of experience in industrial sales couldn't find a decent sales job in our economically depressed, rust belt area of the country. He finally became a long-distance truck driver to make ends meet. Although he made the best of it and believes that any honest work is honorable work, his self-esteem and bank account suffered as a result of the unemployment and change in occupation. This all made a deep emotional impression on me and has made me risk averse about leaving my secure, well-paying job.
I would gladly overcome all these emotional hurdles about quitting my job if I were quitting to stay home and take care of my baby. I still would feel scared, but it would be a "new job" and would be worth it. But quitting my job to stay home while I try to conceive and carry a baby seems like a much riskier proposition because I know that I very well could end up with no job and no baby.
Unfortunately, my employer doesn't allow part-time work and wouldn't allow me to take an extended leave at this point, so there's really no middle ground. It's either full-time or nothing. And I don't think I have the motivation and energy to seek out and start a different job right now, so it seems like it's either full-time at my current job or no job at all, at least for a while.
What do you think? What are your thoughts about the article and about decreasing stress? Have any of you quit your jobs to take a break, de-stress, and hang out at home for a while? If so, do you think it was a good idea or do you regret it?
