It has been so long since I have been here!    So much has happened since I last came here.   My IVF cycle worked and I am pregnant with twins again.  I am now 3.5 months along and both babies are doing great.  I think we are having a boy and a girl.  When my last set of twins died, I never thought in a million years that 6 months later I would be pregnant again.   Certainly not with twins!  I am so thankful and feel so blessed.

My OCD issues are still there but they are so much better.  I get stronger every single day.   It is the tiniest of steps that are being taken, but every week or so I notice the progress and I have to say I am so proud of myself.    My brain doesn't set the alarms off over every tiny thing now.   I am gaining confidence again and am starting to feel more "normal" .    I still check….but only once or twice.  When I look back at where I was after my twins died….oh my God.  It would take me 45 minutes just to stop checking one room.  And now I do the whole house in that amount of time.    And I have done it by just forcing myself to live with uncertainty and discomfort.  No matter how much I want to go back and check…I don't do it.    I get hung up every so often and my brain gets "stuck" on checking something…..but as soon as I realize I am doing it, I make myself stop.    There have been many nights where I lay in bed and can't sleep because I want to go check so badly, but I just don't let myself do it.  It is so HARD sometimes.  It makes me feel like I want to crawl right out of my skin.  But you know what?  It really does work.  Just like my book said it would.    Every time I don't check…..it sends the message to my brain that I am in control and everything is okay…and those alarms gradually have gotten quieter and quieter over the months.  

I still have my bad days every now and then.  But that is normal, I guess.  I will never be perfect.   But I am just thankful to be improving.  That is all I can ask for.

I read something somewhere…I can't remember where….that said that people with OCD checking issues feel a tremendous responsiblity to keep everybody safe.   And it said that I should ask myself why I feel it should be left to me and me alone to ensure that nothing bad happens to anybody I love.  And that really made me stop and think.  I thought "yeah!  Why DO I feel like it is all up to me?"   And my answer is that I don't trust anybody else to do it "right" and I feel I am the most competent person to handle the job.  I feel like everybody else just doesn't take it as seriously as I do and will screw things up and somebody will get hurt if I don't take charge.      Well, all that is really pretty ridiculous!  My husband for example, managed to stay alive and raise a son for years before he even met me, and somehow kept them both alive without my help.    Why should I think he couldn't handle the job now.  Especially when he is a firefighter!   Yes, it is pretty ironic that I don't trust my husband, the firefighter, to keep my house safe from fires in the middle of the night.  lol!  I blame him though because if he didn't tell me all the horrible stories about children dying in housefires he was on, then I wouldn't have this fire phobia that I have.  Its not his fault though I guess.  He had no way of knowing that my drama seeking brain would take those stories and run with them.   Anyway, I just realized how much pressure I put on myself to keep the world safe and it has made me stop and think that I am just one person and all I can do is the best I can.    I can try not to be careless and to be responsible and after that, what is going to happen will happen.  That way of thinking has helped me a great deal.  

I hope I continue to be brave and continue to take steps towards being a stronger person.  I am really glad to be back here.  Things have been so crazy that I haven't even thought to come here.  But I realize that I will always have OCD so I need to continue to participate in OCD support groups however I can.