The Bitter End

After more than two weeks, the bleeding is finally over and this is it: the bitter end of pregnancy. I miss the bleeding. I'd actually rather have that sad reminder than nothing at all. The only good news is that it looks like I've managed to save $1,000+ by getting by without the D&C.

My doctor didn't recommend the "natural" route, and now, having taken it, neither would I. But my high-deductible health plan (no IF coverage) had a lot of deductible left, and I'd much rather spend that money on another IVF, because I must be a total masochist the first one did work, almost. I'm not ready to think about it yet beyond that point.

Also … it took a long time to get pregnant. My attitude was that if it took a little extra time to get un-pregnant, well, OK. Maybe a part of me needed to see the evidence before really believing it. I did fear the physical pain, which was intense, but the emotional pain and emptiness now are worse.

Now that the risk of hemorrhage is over, I don't have to be so careful physically. I can exercise. I may need to. At the start of the last cycle back in November, I noticed a new gym in my neighborhood that offers "fitness, fighting, and self defense." On a whim, I decided that if this cycle didn't work, I would sign up there and take out my anger on their punching bags instead of on my furniture, friends, and so on.

While that all sounds very badass, I remembered that I already have a gym membership I'm not using, because I'm researching protocols and driving four hours round-trip for treatments instead. So I might as well just go take one of the classes at the place I already know. Something different, though—no yoga (prenatal or otherwise) this time, but something with "Combat," "Attack," or "Xtreme" in its name.

Because, as disappointed and depressed as I am, I'm angry too. AM I ANGRY.

Memorials (Part 2)

After ordering this print and debating with myself some more, I also ordered a little pendant that says "Forever Loved." Picking one took a while.

I debated about it because the idea of buying something for an "occasion" like this just felt wrong. There are actually a lot of things a person can buy, from tacky to beautiful to extravagant. Shopping tends to overwhelm me even in the best of times. In this case, not only was it not fun, but it also made me feel queasy and even, I have to admit, a little ashamed.

Wasn't it morbid or—worse—frivolous? Why spend hours shopping for something when I could just spend the same amount of time crying privately for free? Was I distracting myself with stuff at this least appropriate of times?? Well, not successfully, that's for sure, since I cried through the whole experience…

I don't actually believe these judgments that came up reflexively. I just want a physical reminder because I miss the baby who was physically here. I want so much to have something to touch and to keep, literally, close to my heart.

So when the necklace arrived today, my first emotion was relief … followed by an aching knowledge that this is NOT what I actually want. This is not holding my child in my arms.

"Miscarriage of Justice" by Lina Scarfi

Keep Going

OK, Sir Winston, I'm still going ... through other people's blogs at 3:20 in the morning. Will I ever sleep normally again?

Stick It

A while back, a single friend and I had a funny (and healing) talk about the stick-figure family trend. We both felt rubbed the wrong way by the stickers, then a little embarrassed by our own apparent envy, but then still annoyed. They present such a small and conformist slice of life. Can we get more creative here?

How about stickers of a woman surrounded by doctors and syringes (a picture of our own infertility treatments at the time)? It could work for other medical problems, too! What about the unhappy couple, backs to each other, both on their phones to someone else? Or the happy but long-distance couple, stuck on opposite sides of the car?

Don't get me wrong; I truly don't wish troubles on anyone or expect anyone to wear them with pride. But we all have some. The people I respect and envy most tend to be the ones who acknowledge it and keep moving forward all the same.

Memorials (Part 1)

The Lumineers' song "Ho Hey" ("I belong with you; you belong with me; you're my sweetheart") was special to me while I was pregnant. Lately, I haven't heard it much—maybe once in two weeks. The break from it was a relief. Then on Sunday, in just a few hours of flipping through radio stations, I heard that song five times.

I had been planning to order a little print with the lyrics to put in the baby's room. On Monday, after some internal debate, I went ahead and ordered it anyway. It belongs in my memory box along with the ultrasound pictures, the journal I kept for the baby, and the magazine I couldn't resist stealing from my RE's office in December because the cover headline said "2012: A Year of Incredible Miracles!"

Gathering these things helps me to focus on the baby instead of on my own general hopelessness. It's actually a comfort. It’s one of the few actions I can take that still feels motherly.

Endings

I just sent a card, signed with love, to my ex's ex-wife.

It's not as strange as it may sound. She's never been a problem to me. She and he had a child together and live in the same town, so they've maintained a friendly (not close) relationship, as grown-ups try to do. They were married a long time ago. She ended it after recognizing that she was a lesbian. In fact, at the very same time that he and I started dating back in the 90s, she started dating her wife. Now the two of them are separating.

Yet she looked beyond her own problems to mail me a short but heartfelt and handwritten sympathy note, signed with love. How unexpectedly kind. So I sent her one in return.

No more unhappy endings, please—not for me and not for anyone.

Always

by Sweet Lemon Art

What Doesn't Kill You

Speaking of facing grief with dignity and NOT the standard decorum...

I just listened again to comedian Tig Notaro's mostly ad-libbed show from last summer—just days after her cancer diagnosis. It took my breath away. Here's how this article describes it:

"A frightfully nervous Tig Notaro stood just offstage at the Los Angeles club Largo while Ed Helms introduced her. The audience of 300 and Miss Notaro's fellow performers that August night had no idea what she was about to do. They had no idea she was going to address the trauma and pain that had been the past few months of her life, or relay the bad news she had received just days earlier. They had no idea she was about to perform the bravest set they had ever seen..."

The whole recording is available on iTunes. A free excerpt of it is here.

Dignity

"As you face loss, hurt, and conflict, invite a sense of your own dignity. Sit up, stand up tall. Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion." (Jack Kornfield, A Lamp in the Darkness)

I like this quote, so I've been thinking about what it means to have dignity … and I'm honestly not sure. At what point does "invite a sense of your own dignity" become "pretend that you are fine when you are not"?

I'm pretty sure that dignity does not just equal decorum, which means conforming to all the rules of polite society. Dignity has more to do with honoring a person's worth, which is something inherent, I guess. But what does that mean in real life? After two pain pills and a sleepless night, these distinctions seem pretty obscure. They still seem important, though. I need some kind of guidelines to follow.

Staying in pajamas all day does not conform to the rules of decorum, but when is it actually undignified or unhealthy? Does it matter whether I've consciously chosen to be gentle with myself, or whether I've just given up? And wouldn't scolding myself for feeling defeated be undignified in its own right, if dignity requires patience and compassion like the quote above contends?

See? It's confusing. When I get caught up in these questions, my mind eventually drifts back to the days right after getting the bad news. I found myself responding to everything with an attitude of "So what, who cares?" I'd look at my unmade bed and think, "It doesn't matter." I’d look at work piling up and think, "I don’t care."

Then it felt very important to stop, even physically put a hand over my heart, and acknowledge, "I DO CARE."

No, these things can never mean as much as my baby's life. I may act on them (the work) or not (the bed). In any case, I cared enough to notice them.

The point is that the part of me that cares (to whatever small degree) about other things is still alive, and it wants (to whatever small degree) to stay that way. Maybe that is dignity.

Hello, Blank Page

"For some reason, just before I take a look inside myself I always think it's going to be fun." (Alan Alda, Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself)

OK, I know that this is not going to be fun. I was planning to write a fun blog—maybe one about renovating the old house that my partner and I planned to buy, or maybe one about parenting (the project I looked forward to the most). I pictured myself learning things and spilling over with eagerness to share them. I was ready to jump in and get my hands dirty, literally: I would hang drywall and change diapers. I would take pictures and lovingly document the building of our life together.

That was the plan. In reality, the home is not to be, my partner of more than a decade is gone, and I'm miscarrying the much-loved baby who took years to conceive. Yes, right now. After 12 weeks of pregnancy, miscarriage is far from a quick thing; it's been going on all week. So no, this is not going to be fun.

And my first impulse is certainly not to write about it. My instinct, like most people's, is to escape from pain—to lock the door and turn off the phone, have a stiff drink or five, and smash things, then hide the baby keepsakes in a shoebox in the back of the closet somewhere.

And then … what? It's a dead end.

That's how I grieved the loss of my partner and home. Not only did escaping from the pain not work, but the efforts just hardened my anger and grief into bitterness and despair.

My heart, as I picture it now, is not like a faucet with separate controls for hot and cold. There is only one source, so to turn off the grief is to turn off all potential for joy as well, to turn off giving a shit, and even to turn off the energy I need to get out of bed and get through the day.

If it sounds like I'm still learning things and sharing them, however much the lessons differ from the original plans, I should warn you that trying to sound in control is a habit and a defense. The truth is that this is as lost as I've ever felt.

One new thing I've done this week, though, is to stumble across other people's blogs about baby loss. And that's how I came to be here, starting a not-fun blog of my own. Other people have put the unspeakable into words that are raw and still somehow beautiful. To borrow a line from The Velveteen Rabbit: "Once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." These other people's writing has been one of my few comforts this week. Maybe it's been a comfort to them, too?

If anything is guiding me now, it's this thought: I don't want to freeze up with bitterness and despair. If I have to feel these things, and apparently I do, then let the feelings stay fluid. Let me do what I can to keep the faucet open, if that makes any sense.