So much has happened in the last year. My life has been turned upside down again. This time with much better results.
I have a son. A beautiful, funny, healthy little boy. But the only reason I have him is because I lost a baby last spring.
Today is Miscarriage and Pregnancy Loss Awareness Day.
Its weird knowing that if my last pregnancy had been successful, I wouldn't have A here with me today. It is the biggest conflict I have ever felt. In my heart, in my head.
I know its not a healthy road to follow down. That I really shouldn't look at it this way, but I do. Not all the time. It's not something I dwell on. But with today's awareness campaign and the anniversary of my EDD for the last pregnancy coming up. It's hard not to think about it.
I don't resent A. Not possible. Don't think that I do. I also don't see it as the good that came out of the bad. Nothing good could come from the pain of the loss. It just is. Two separate things that shouldn't be connected.
Miscarriage and pregnancy loss happen. They happen to good people and bad people. People who look after themselves and those that don't. There really is no preventing it.
Having lived through the loss and going on to be pregnant again. I don't think I can put into words the mind set everyday of that pregnancy that something could happen. That something has happened and I didn't even know it yet. The girls online call it PGAL brain, Pregnant After A Loss brain. Always waiting for that bottom to drop out. Holding your breath while the ultrasound wand gets put on your belly and waiting to hear that whoosh, whoosh sound that is a heartbeat. Seeing that beautiful living thing on the screen and knowing all is good in your world...today. For those few minutes everything in your world is right and good. You cry tears of joy and hold your partners hand so tight because you can. You ask every question you can think of trying to make sure that the babe is healthy and will live to see another day.
You want to connect with this little being inside of you right away. But you are afraid to. Afraid to love this little one that could be taken away in a moment. I know this is something J struggled with daily while we were pregnant with A. Yet you can't not love this little being that is sharing your body. It's in you. It's a part of you.
Miscarriage is not something that, for me at least, you just get over. People try and say the right things, not knowing they cause more harm. People sometimes think because I have had a successful pregnancy that the pain and loss of the miscarriage would go away. As if it could?
That is why this topic needs to become the norm and lose the taboo. The secrecy that surrounds miscarriage is stifling to those who go through it. Whether as the parents to be, their family or their friends. The taboo makes it so much harder to grieve, to move on.
Since my loss in 2012, I have noticed more mentions of miscarriage in books. Sometimes they take me by surprise and I have to live through it again. Sometimes they happen in passing during the story, and sometimes you get more. As much as it hurts to relive it, I am so grateful to the others who tackle the subject. Watching Meredith Grey on Grey's Anatomy go through her PGAL brain was weird and eerie, since I was going through it too.
When all you have left of the pregnancy is a hole in your heart and your love for a soul you will never meet. You hold that soul/being/person in your heart because its the only place you can.
I randomly came across a jewelry maker who has suffered losses of her own. She makes necklaces that, the first time I saw one online, brought me to tears. For a year I had looked for something, anything that represented my feelings, that I could use to memorialize my little one. The necklace that I found did that.
If you click the link it will bring you to her Etsy store.
I immediately ordered one. I wear it whenever I need that little bit of extra strength to get through the day. Because if there is anything that the 2012 baby gives to me now, its strength. Strength to know I can make it through this, whatever this is, because I lived through that. If I can survive that loss, I can survive anything.
I found this quote online. I don't know where it originates, but I love it none the less.
"Even those that never fully blossom bring beauty into the world."
So give the women (and men) in your life a hug today. Let them know you are there for them. Since 1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss, odds are someone in their life has experienced it themselves or through a loved one.
I know I will be holding A extra long and extra hard today.
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