Today I should be 6 weeks pregnant. Instead, I’m depositing large clumps of the interior of my uterus into every toilet I visit, leaving some sort of sadistic trail of bloody breadcrumbs back to my broken womb. Every time I go to the bathroom, the bowl fills red with what was supposed to stay inside and nourish and grow my baby that will never be.
Man, miscarriage is fucking depressing, huh?
This week has been bewildering. Some moments, I feel fine. Than I get confused–wait? What just happened? DID that really happen? Why am I not more sad? It seems odd to even associate that word miscarriage with myself. I’m having one of those? That happened to me? Really?
Other times, I weep. Sometimes I feel grateful that my loss was so early. Before the embryo’s heart ever started beating. Before I saw a little blob of cells on a blurry black and white ultrasound screen and brought a picture home to tape on the fridge. Other times, I find myself jealous that I didn’t get even one.more.day with those precious cells. Sometimes I feel like I haven’t had a “real” loss. Just a chemical pregnancy. (Which I think is a pretty fucking dismissive term, if you ask me.) Other times, I think of June 27, 2010 and it flashes in my mind like a bright, blinking, neon sign. And I want to sit and cry until there are no more tears left. Cause we will not be 40 weeks pregnant on June 27th. We will not be preparing for the arrival of our baby that week.
We have decided to be very upfront about our loss. That means, besides work, we will tell pretty much any friend or family about it who asks. S. even posted it on facebook. (Although, to be fair, S. only has about 25 facebook friends and they are all actual friends, not random high school acquaintances or work colleagues.) I refuse to stay silent about it because too many women do. Besides, the validation of our pain has been kind of stunning. After suffering in silence for so long…so many months of broken hopes and dreams…it feels like a revelation to have so much support right now. And while this is, yes, worse than the 14 BFNS that preceded it, the pain isn’t all that different. So, in some ways, the sympathy we have been receiving feels like a validation of the two years of suffering we’ve been through, not just the pain of the last week.
The eight days I was pregnant were such a whirlwind. I never recovered from the shock, or the emotional whiplash from a Friday afternoon spent thinking about diminished ovarian reserve and donor eggs to a Monday afternoon positive beta. The first three days were such a blur. Finally, on Thursday night, with a doubled beta and the new PIO shots, I thought I would get a chance to relax and try and enjoy the fact that my body was pregnant. I woke up Friday morning feeling happier than I had all week, and fully intending to enjoy every second between that morning and Monday’s beta.
I saw someone pushing a stroller and tried on the possibility that that could actually be US next summer! That morning, as I was running an errand, I saw a mom playing on the sidewalk with her toddler. And, for the first time in months and months and months, I didn’t hate her. I didn’t feel full of bitter jealousy and resentment. I stopped to watch and smiled. The little girl ran up and down the sidewalk on her wobbly legs, laughing, mom trailing behind. And I thought…that could be US soon. We finally get to be a part of that joy. The joy of raising a child.
I had two hours of bliss that morning before I started bleeding red.
Although my brief pregnancy was characterized by a lot of shock and a lot of fear, I did savor one emotion dearly. The fact that I no longer was stuck on pause. I remember walking home from work two Monday’s ago thinking: “Today, I am 4 weeks, 1 day pregnant. Tomorrow, I will wake up, and I get to be 4 weeks, 2 days pregnant. Time is no longer standing still!!! Time is finally moving forward!!!” It was the best feeling of the world. Like being released from jail. Finally, finally, there was an end in sight to all this endless waiting.
I think right now, being returned to the waiting–that is the hardest part.