Working on It

Mixed

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:37:16 -0600

I’ve got a lot going on in my head this week.

I’m still having trouble with the whole “everyone I know is pregnant phenomenon.” I don’t want to hear about it. But pregnancy has been one of my favorite subjects ever since I hit adolescence, so I’m really conflicted about it.

Yesterday I had another good moment of finding unexpected comfort and solidarity in my circumstances from another coworker.

I’ve never been so glad (and probably never will be again) upon the arrival of my monthly visitor! (See? Exclamation point!) Not even when I didn’t want to get pregnant. I haven’t had this particular visitor since July 31, and was happy that it took just under 5 weeks post-D&C. It actually really helped temper my usual Monday blues.

I miss being pregnant. I liked it, despite the weirdness, fatigue & nausea. I was really looking forward to having a belly, and I would have had one by now.

I’m nervous about getting pregnant again. Not that it won’t happen right away, but that it will take TOO long. But mostly because it just means at least three months of worrying about the outcome and not being able to count on having a healthy baby.

No Longer Happy News

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:42:00 -0600

I just found out about yet another friend’s pregnancy, bringing up the total to, oh, almost everyone I know. And it kills me that my first response is to get sad and cry. (This was not in person, by the way, but over email. I don’t know what I would have done in person. Probably a wan congratulations & a forced smile. And she would understand.) It’s not that I don’t want to be happy for her. I AM happy for her. But my own sadness is bigger. My brain immediately started trying to pep talk me: “It’s OK, this is great for them, she’s 4 or 5 years older than me, I’m glad everything is going well for them,” etc. etc. But I couldn’t stop the tears. I don’t want that to be how I react to someone’s good news. But it’s visceral; I have no control over it. And I can’t force myself to hurry up and get over it. That’s not how grief works. I don’t want to be grieving, but obviously I have no choice but to keep living it. Ugh.

Nervous

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:09:09 -0600

I’m starting to feel nervous and impatient about getting the results from the chromosomal testing. Tomorrow is 4 weeks since the D&C, and they told me that it might take that long to get the results back. I know it’s going to be really emotional to have to be in that place, where we find out what was wrong with our poor baby. Especially because we will probably go in to the midwives’ office to get the results in person. We’ll be able to find out if it was a boy or girl. And we’ll know what killed him or her. Knowing that we’re closer to getting the results but don’t have them yet reminds me the nightmare’s not over. I’m hopeful that the results verify what Dr. Abramowitz suspected—that it was a fluke, not likely to happen again. But I’m terrified that they won’t—that instead of being able to try again when my cycle comes back, we’ll have new questions involving genetics.

Thanksgiving was hard. I had been looking forward to the holidays this year, celebrating them with this extra joy in our lives. Getting to the holidays is now just a reminder that everything still feels wrong. And it was unexpectedly different to be out of town & spending a night away from my own bed. Apparently I’m still clinging pretty hard to my routine.

Comfort

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:48:04 -0600

I have a coworker with whom I haven’t always had the easiest of relationships—but she’s one of those people who never has an easy relationship with everyone, so I think everyone else at the workplace could say the same thing. She has been a generous source of comfort since everything started happening—letting me know that she didn’t need me to talk about it with her, that she just wants me to know that she’s thinking about me, and reminding me with hugs and hand squeezes.

Even today, when I’m coping visibly better and everyone is done offering their sympathy, she came in and held my hand for a few seconds. And I appreciate that so much. Really I still need all the comfort I can get, and receiving that comfort in unexpected places helps get me through the day and reminds me that I’m not alone.

Knife

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:20:00 -0600

So you know what a knife in the gut feels like? When your sister-in-law, who’s due date is the same as yours was, posts as her Facebook status: “Feeling flutters already.” Even better? Reading it at work.

Inadequate

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:20:07 -0600

I noticed a new feeling today: I’m feeling inadequate. I failed at having a baby. It didn’t work out because something went wrong in my body. I failed at getting all the way to the end of a healthy pregnancy. I failed my baby by not being a good enough vessel for him/her to grow and develop properly. I don’t understand why I don’t get to be a mom. Why we weren’t permitted to continue our joy & anticipation. To have a family.

Blindsided

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:59:00 -0600

When I was about 9 weeks along, a particularly annoying (friendly, but annoying) patron who is always very jovial & calls me by my name, guessed I was pregnant. I must have been super bloated that day.

Tonight he was in the library, and I set about avoiding him. I was terribly unsuccessful. He came to the desk, stood there and waited for me while I helped another patron with a rather long question. He handed me a brochure for a “Baby Language” workshop and asked me to let him know if I tried it. Then he asked how much time I had left. I awkwardly said “well, we’re going to be trying again,” and he awkwardly walked away.

The tears started falling instantly. I was immediately a mess, and had to leave the service desk to go cry for a while. A good cry, a talk with Jed to be comforted, a little more crying, and a talk with a coworker to take my mind off it had me recovered fairly quickly, but still feeling unfairly raw and fragile. I had been doing so well, but within a carefully constructed routine. My new normal isn’t quite ready for the harsh world.

Numb

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:28:08 -0600

After Monday, where I cried over and over again, I haven’t really cried since. I’ve gotten choked up a few times and shed a tear yesterday, but that’s about it. Maybe I’m starting to heal. It’s only been 9 days since the D&C. Each day I’m farther away from it. The feeling of constantly being on the edge of crying has been replaced with an odd numbness, like I couldn’t cry if I tried. I’m still thinking really sad thoughts though. Obviously I’m not back to normal. I also feel like my brain isn’t working properly. My memory is gone—I can’t remember what I did last week, or what I was planning to do 5 minutes ago. I can get really focused and passionate about something at work, and then realize it doesn’t matter and I don’t care. My whole life was derailed when I found out I was going to lose my baby; everything else that happens just skims the surface.

I’ve noticed the last couple days that the baby isn’t the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning. That gives me hope that the next day I’m off work and Jed isn’t home I’ll be able to get out of bed. But it also makes me sad, like it’s too early to not feel so tortured. I was pregnant for three months, and I’ve been grieving this baby for three weeks and three days. This time last week I hadn’t accepted that my baby was gone. Am I starting to accept it? Am I ready to accept it?

What Not To Say

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:00:51 -0600

In my family and work lives, people have been remarkably compassionate and understanding. Not everyone responds to this kind of thing in the same way, and not everyone feels the need to approach me and directly give me their sympathies. It’s a rough thing that not everyone’s comfortable talking about. I don’t fault anyone for their reaction of lack thereof.

I do fault one coworker for being particularly insensitive, brought on by a typical (for this person) and rather annoying social ineptitude. Annoying Coworker, I didn’t need you to:

Approach me on my first day back and ask me to tell you the whole story.

Tell me all about your early miscarriage. My situation is different.

Tell me how it will all be better when I hold my baby in my arms and count their fingers and toes.

Approach me as I was beginning a shift working with the public and ask me all about my D&C.

You know what, just leave me the hell alone, OK?

Just like every other woman who’s ever lost a baby, I’ve heard this one a bunch, and just like everyone else, am unconsoled by it:

“At least you’re young, you can always have another baby,” or variations thereof.

I can see on your face that you know this isn’t reassuring, so you really don’t need to say it. I realize I’m relatively young and that this won’t be my only chance to have a baby. That does not in any way lessen the pain I’m feeling over losing THIS baby, the one that was supposed to be born in May and be my first baby.

Finally, if you don’t know what to say; whether you can’t identify with the situation, or you’re made uncomfortable by other peoples’ suffering, or your personality is such that somehow your experience of my trauma becomes all about you and you now feel so awkward that you find yourself incapable of selflessly reaching out and offering your sympathy (not that I know anyone in this latter category or anything…): Tell me you don’t know what to say. You’re sorry to hear it. You’re thinking about me. Keep it simple. Or avoid me. I probably won’t notice, because this whole suffering thing is pretty relentlessly distracting.

If you’re in my family, though, avoiding me or my husband because YOU feel uncomfortable isn’t so nice.

Empty

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:01:00 -0600

After we left the hospital, I told Jed that I didn’t feel the sense of relief that some people feel after the D&C. I just felt empty. The next couple days I was pretty focused on managing the pain and staying distracted. And then I realized, I suppose when I was ready for my brain to go there, that there was nothing left but to be sad. No next steps, nothing else to wonder about or prepare for. Just the sadness of my baby being gone, the tragedy of our dashed hopes and canceled plans. Crushing sadness that feels like it will last forever.

I haven’t accepted it yet. I don’t want to have been forced to cancel that new, exciting stage of life we had eagerly entered. I don’t want my baby to be gone.

crying, crying and more crying

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:55:00 -0600

Yesterday was a little tear-heavy, but really not that unusual in terms of how often I cry these days. Here’s how it went:

I went to the midwife for a follow-up after my D&C. I guess not realizing that this wasn’t a regular prenatal visit, they called me up to have me pee in a cup & ask if anything had changed. Well, I’m not pregnant anymore, I told her. She got really confused and asked if this was my 2-week postpartum visit. I had a D&C, I quietly told her, as the pregnant woman next to me signed in. She apologized, chagrined, and sent me back to the waiting area, surrounded by pregnant women, some with babies in tow. I cried as quietly as I could, embarrassed to be sitting there by myself, trying not to sob.

The nurse called me back and weighed me. Ugh, I gained weight while I was pregnant and apparently even though I’ve had no appetite for the last three weeks, I weigh 2 pounds more than I did a week ago. As soon as I got into the exam room I broke down, and cried for the whole time I talked to my midwife. She gave me a really nice hug.

I cried on the way home, and cried some more after I got home and told Jed what the midwife had said, and we talked about wanting to be parents, and how we actually are now the parents of an angel baby.

A couple hours later I went to work. After a while, a coworker who has been giving me very comforting hugs and hand-squeezes sat down, took my hand, and said: “All the love and hopes that you’ve had, those weren’t wasted. Love is never wasted.” Then she walked away. I cried.

Not long after that, another coworker came and offered me a hug. I told her as we were hugging that I should have warned her that hugs make me cry. We talked for a minute or two through the tears about how I’m coping, how hard it is, how long it takes.

Then I had my regular monthly meeting with my manager, and one of the things we talked about was “how I’m doing.” Of course I cried. She’s a bit of a crier herself, and I think I even caught her chin wobbling.

I don’t think I cried again after that, except for the point where I was talking to yet another coworker about it all and got a little choked up. I spent the rest of the day, especially after leaving work, feeling like I was living a new definition of emotional exhaustion.

Over

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:37:00 -0600

This morning we saw our baby for the last time, laying peacefully in my womb, no heartbeat. Three hours later, he or she was no longer a part of me and we were on our way home, empty. I miss my baby. The physical pain is a distraction, but so inconsequential to this pain that I’m positive is going to be lifelong.

Suspended

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:49:17 -0500

I keep catching myself in “preparing for parenthood” mode—bookmarking an article about librarianship and parenthood, making note of the book about treating common childhood illnesses at home, realizing my new shirt will also make a good maternity shirt. Telling a coworker about how we thought we might dress up our 5-month-old as an acorn next year. Falling silent and trying not to start sobbing. I realize that my life isn’t in that place anymore, but my heart hasn’t caught up. I haven’t yet fallen out of the habit of preparing for baby.

I suppose we are still planning on having a baby, being parents. We will still get to do all those things someday. But right now I can’t help but feeling stupid for still—out of habit, before I remember and my heart slams back to the ground—thinking it’s an imminent reality.

Scary Vocabulary

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:22:00 -0500

Cystic Hygroma

Omphalocele

Thickened Nuchal Fold

Fetal Edema

Chromosomal Abnormality

Fatal

Protective

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:01:00 -0500

I kind of hate the ultrasound tech who first identified our baby’s problems at my midwife’s office. While objectively she seems to have sort of a distant/cold personality, compared with the midwives who are so warm and personable, I know that isn’t it. I wonder if someday I’ll have the same, unreasonable but instinctive feeling toward people that don’t like my kid.

Revised

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:02:40 -0500

When I joined Tumblr, I was newly pregnant. I was making a space for my house blog, and thought I’d maybe also create a little space for a more personal blog, to talk about my experiences with preparing for parenthood. You know, document my symptoms, our anticipation, and eventually our experiences when the little one entered the world.

A little over a month later, that world fell apart. There would be no healthy baby after months of glowing anticipation.