To say the last year has been an emotional roller coaster would be like saying a Tsunami is is just a little wave. My husband and I have been through the ringer. We had been trying to get pregnant for almost a year. Each month we went on the yo-yo of hope and disappointment, hope and disappointment. Some months we were super determined and some months we were just too tired to try. Then the Cubs won the World Series and for all you Cubbies fans out there who had been waiting 108 years for this, you know what a big deal it was. That night the stars aligned and a few weeks later we found out we were expecting. Sadly, that baby wasn’t meant to be ours and at 10 weeks the doc told us there was no heartbeat. Ten weeks isn’t long, but it’s long enough, and we were devastated.
Ten weeks isn’t long, but it’s long enough, and we were devastated.
We’ve been here before. My first pregnancy ended in miscarriage, but something about this was different. Now I knew what I was missing. I have experience with the indescribable joy that a baby can bring and now there was a hole in my heart where that joy was supposed to go and that hole didn’t seem to have a bottom. I didn’t want to leave the doctor’s office, I didn’t want to see my kids, I didn’t want to tell my friends, who had been so supportive, I didn’t want to move… Because then it would mean I would have to move on… and I didn’t want to.
Rather than wait for the miscarriage to happen on its own, we decided we would have a D&C. Footnote: If you have an opinion on whether or not I should have had the D&C please keep it to yourself. Decisions like this are hard enough to make without having judgy people weigh in on what you should and shouldn’t do with your body. You do you, and I’ll do me.
Now back to the worst day ever…
After the surgery, I tried my best to pretend to live. It was hard. I have amazing friends and family who let me grieve the way I needed to. I’ll write more about this one day, but for now, this is all I have the courage for.
Fast forward a few months to me crying, hugging my husband in our living room because he had just told me the test I took a few hours earlier, but was too afraid to look at, was positive. We were pregnant. The kids were asleep and it was just him and I holding each other ready to explode but trying not to be too happy. When you’ve had the rug pulled out from under you the way we had, hope can be pretty terrifying.
So, here are a few things that suck about being pregnant, when you’ve had a miscarriage.
1. PERINATAL DEPRESSION
I don’t know why I was surprised. I have a history of postpartum anxiety, I’ve had issues with infertility, and lucky me, I even got postpartum depression when I miscarried. (Yes, you can get PPD event when you miscarry) All of these are risk factors for perinatal mood disorders, but I guess since I know about this stuff and I have helped hundreds of women through their own struggles I thought I’d be immune. Sure enough, right on time at 10 weeks, I hit a wall. Actually, it was more like a deep soft squishy pit that I knew I could get out of but didn’t have the energy to even try. I remembered thinking to myself, I just want to take my family, put them in the car, and drive until we run out of gas. When I told this to a friend she said, “Well at least your family is part of your escape fantasy.” I laughed. It was the first time I laughed in a REALLY long time.
2. MATERNITY CLOTHES
…Buying them, wearing them, and actually putting them on hangers and in drawers. Fun fact, when you’re pregnant for the third time you get bigger faster. Three days before the worst day ever I pulled out the box of maternity clothes from the garage. Then we found out the baby wasn’t going to make it. I came home and stared at that box for over an hour. I don’t know if I was in denial or just didn’t want to deal with it, but I never brought the box back out. Every week or so I would see the box on the floor of our bedroom and think, “I should take that back outside.” But I never did, I guess I was my way of rebelling against the part of me that was too afraid of hope.
3 months pregnant, and looking like a stuffed sausage, I had to do something.
I stood staring at this box terrified to open it. If I were to physically take the maternity clothes out of the box and put them away, I would have to admit to myself that I’m pregnant and that my body will change and unless I want to look like Smee from Peter Pan I had better start wearing clothes that fit.
One weekend I was being particularly obnoxious to my husband about all of the stuff we had to do and how we were never going to get it all done and how I was so overwhelmed. Like most of these anxious rants, it’s never about the todo list. I shared with him how I was afraid to put the maternity clothes away and what it might mean if I did. He smiled the smile he always gives me when he remembers that he married a crazy woman with a heart that is two sizes too big for her brain. That night he came home with a typed up list of all of the things we wanted to get done that weekend. Tucked somewhere in the middle of my list was put maternity clothes away. It was the first thing I did that morning. For the rest of the weekend, I walked a little lighter.
3. ANXIETY
Exercise has always been a big part of my self-care routine. I workout nearly every day, not because I want a perfect figure, but because it literally keeps me sane. I have solved many arguments with myself by just running it out. Halfway through I feel the anxiety switch turn off in my brain and by the time I’m home whatever was bothering me doesn’t seem so bad. Now not only is going for a 5 mile run not an option, I’m I am literally terrified to even move. My mind races with these “what if” scenarios. What if my heart rate goes too high? What if I fall? What if, what if, what if… So I do nothing.
Not surprisingly, doing nothing does nothing for my anxiety.
Since I can’t exercise I’ve started to put a lot of energy into my female friendships. As an introvert its hard, but I find the more I do it the easier it gets. It turns out I have a lot of really great women in my life! We go on lunch dates, playdates, and I’ve had some pretty hilarious conversations on group test using only GIF’s.
4. DAYDREAMING
Daydreaming is one of my favorite past times, but if you couldn’t already tell, hope sometimes scares the shit out of me. I’m alright if I’m imagining the house I’ll live in one day or an awesome vacation we might take, but when those daydreams get mixed up with real life want-this-more-than anything-HOPE, my thoughts often turn to the worst case scenario. From time to time I slip up. I start to imagine what color the baby’s eyes are or how we might decorate the nursery and in the back of my mind I hear, “But what if something bad happens? You know your heart can’t take that pain again.” So I shove down the happy thoughts and do something practical like wash the dishes.
And what the fuck am I supposed to do with this!?! We bought this frame for the baby last Christmas and I miscarried on January 6th. It just sits on my nightstand. I look at it each morning and each night. Now that I’m just a few weeks away from this baby being born I’m going to have to do something…
Do I keep it? Throw it out? Do I replace the picture? So far I’ve done nothing. Maybe I’m scared that if I do something about the picture frame it will mean something about how I feel about the baby I lost or the baby I am now carrying. Maybe I’m still protecting myself from believing this baby coming and that everything will be ok.
Does being happy about this baby make me love the one I lost less? How can I replace the daydreams I had about one baby and transfer them onto another?
5. WHEN DO WE TELL THE KIDS?
Excuse me for a minute while I talk to baby number three…
I already love you more than anything and what I’m about to say won’t make any sense to you until you have kids of your own. I’m almost more excited for the kids to meet you than I am to meet you myself… notice I said almost! Just imagining the faces of your older siblings when they first lay eyes on you is enough to make a mother’s heart explode.
Ok, back to telling the kids…
Up to this point, our two beautiful children have been spared any real loss or disappointment. They are our world. I know it’s impossible, but I don’t want them to hurt. Period. Ever. I don’t want them to learn that despite being good people and doing right by others and trying your best, really bad awful sad things happen, and often times it’s for no good reason. So telling them they are going to be a big sister and big big brother is makes this whole thing so real. Not only for them but for me. Once we tell the kids I won’t be able to stop the flow of daydreams and hope because they will now have daydreams of their own.
Life is like one big game of He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, except with Russian Roulette emotional consequences.
I lay awake at night and worry. I feel like one wrong step would set in motion another miscarriage. I still get in my head sometimes, but with each week that passes and especially since I started to feel the baby move regularly, it does get easier.
I am just days away from meeting this little one and though I know the hole in my heart will never be filled but it does change shape and the edges do soften.
xoxo
