8 Days

One week ago, I had a miscarriage.  Even just writing that sentence makes the reality of the experience so much more real, and somehow helps to solidify it as something in the past.  Knowing that it's been a week, somehow brings me so much relief and comfort.  This past week has been hard (I wrote about the experience in my last post).  There have been a few times during the physical recovery where I have had to remind myself to take it easy and very slow...something that's hard for me.  Emotionally, well, I think I am finally doing OK.  

At the end of the week, my husband and I went to bed, and I just started to cry, all over again.  It had been 5 days and I thought I was past the emotion, but I suppose my fluctuating hormones pushed me over the edge.  Kristoffer was doing his best to comfort me, but in his efforts, his perspective on the situation ...which was completely different from mine, became very apparent and I became even more upset.  I couldn't sleep that night.

The next day, we went to a baby shower for Kris's sister, who had watched our children the night we miscarried.  I wasn't planning on bringing up anything about the experience at her happy baby shower, but she must have know I needed a friend, because she had had the same experience herself less than a year ago.  In talking with Melodie, I felt so validated.  The pain and grief I was feeling...I somehow thought that because it was just a tiny little baby, and because I didn't really know this child...that my grief should have been lessened.  It wasn't.  It felt like a loss.  My little, tiny baby had died, and that's exactly what it felt like.  I kept thinking that I shouldn't be so sad over this little tiny thing that barely had received a body; but I was.  I thought that the grief I felt in losing this baby would somehow feel different than when I lost my dad; it didn't.  It felt like grief.  It felt like sadness.  It felt like I had lost something and I wasn't going to be able to see it again in this life.  I felt a sadness in knowing that all of those things I had hoped and dreamed for for this little one in just 11 weeks of being pregnant, were gone.  I talked to Melodie about all of these things, and she understood; she had felt the same way.  I talked to Melodie about the panic I had felt knowing I had to expel this dead child into the toilet and how horrifically macabre it was; and she understood, she had felt the same way.  I talked to Melodie about having to shift my mentality from being pregnant one day....to not pregnant the next day, and how distant I felt from my current self, like I was trying to catch up because I was still stuck in the past; and she knew.  I was so grateful to her that day and forevermore.  She validated all of my feelings...the feelings I thought I didn't have a right to feel.  She told me that the miscarriage was not my fault and said it was totally OK to be as sad as I needed to be, for as long as I needed to be.  The healing will come.  

I know I will hold this experience very close to me for quite some time.  I need to be close to it, because it's all I have of my little one who is gone, and my mother-heart will forever miss my lost baby.  Even though the memories are shrouded with sadness, I still loved this baby for 11 weeks.  I will heal the wound, and gently touch the scar and think of my lost baby, and remind myself that our baby chose us...our baby chose me to provide it with a body and to be reunited with some day.

The healing will come, day by day.