seasonal anniversaries [trigger for pregnancy complications w/ happy ending]

[MamaDryad]

My son was born in August 2016. In early March I started having contractions, well before the point where he would have been viable if I'd gone into full-on labor. They continued for about a week, then the medications I was given finally stopped them, and then it happened again about two weeks later. I had to leave my job (teaching college classes) because the classroom was so hot that I'd start having contractions again every time I went in. We were eventually able to stop them a second time (and my son actually went two weeks overdue in the end and was born big and healthy), but it was a very frightening time.

Ever since then, early spring really messes me up, and every year, it's snuck up on me. The weather turns beautiful... why am I having panic attacks? Yesterday, after dropping him off at school, I had a little walk through the park, and I saw crocuses, and I felt that familiar tightness in my throat. But this year, I'm in therapy for the first time. So I went home, read through my journal from that time, and wrote up some notes so that I can tell the story to my therapist this Friday.

What I had forgotten, though, is how much of my FOG dissipated during that time. When I was sent to L&D, around 7:30 in the evening, I remember thinking "I want my mom" for the first time in my adult life. And I remember knowing that she wouldn't be there for me, even though she probably would have insisted on showing up, because she'd already started drinking (5pm on the dot, every day of my life). She wouldn't have been a source of support for me, just another stress factor I had to manage. My wife was working late, and I was alone and scared, and I realized I had no mother.

In the aftermath of that, I got so angry. Probably some of my anger at her was misdirected; it was a scary time, and my emotions were all over the place. But it was also the first time that I had a concrete, measurable demonstration of how much she stresses me out: every time she'd step on one of my boundaries during that time (calling me late at night, calling my wife, manufacturing drama of her usual kind), I'd start having contractions again. Of course the stress of dealing with her had damaged me before in chronic ways, but now I could FEEL it in the moment. She was putting my baby in danger, and she knew it and didn't care, because what was important to her was maintaining control over me.

It was the first time I really pushed back against some of her guilt tripping and revisionist history, and when I look back now, I can see the groundwork for NC being laid. I gave her so many chances, before and since, and she deliberately blew them all. I don't know how much of it was about being in a stressful situation and knowing she would make it worse, vs. my mama bear instincts kicking in for the first time. But it was the real beginning of the end for my relationship with her.

I don't know what my point is in writing all this out. I hope this is the right place to put it. I just needed to express it somewhere where people who understand might see it.