a tale of love and loss

*Warning: This post is a real downer (if you couldn't tell by the title). If you're not in the mood for a downer, close the window right now. This is your last chance to get out.*

So I've been absent for awhile. What's up, guys? Still trying to find my voice now that I'm actually trying to have a baby instead of waiting to try to have a baby. I'm not sure that I want my blog to turn into a mommy blog, but it's hard because I'm eat-sleep-breathing TTC right now. So I feel like there's nothing else that I have to talk about. So I haven't been talking at all.

I'm talking today, though. I'm talking because I need to use my words and this blog is my outlet for that. So I apologize in advance for the word-vomit.

Last week I was pregnant, and this week I am not. Of all the scenarios that I imagined in my head, this one never came up. When I first realized that I would find out whether or not I was pregnant around the time of my birthday, it was a binary result: either I would have gotten pregnant this cycle and it would be a VERY happy birthday, or I would have not gotten pregnant this cycle and it would be momentarily sad but I would move on with my life. Instead, inexplicably, I got neither. And both. All at the same time.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, September 25, I discovered that I was pregnant. This did not come as a shock to me, as I had been certain that I was pregnant since the day after I ovulated. It was a very exciting day though. C was on his way home from a work trip, so I spent the intervening couple of hours writing a funny card to tell him and writing a postcard to the baby. I had bought a package of 10 postcards with plans to write one to the baby every 4 weeks, and then frame them in the gallery wall. So I wrote a message on the postcard and hung it up on the wall. C came home, saw the card, and it was a very happy night. I told my sister via FaceTime, and the three of us were very much looking forward to that second pink line getting darker and darker.

Well, that didn't really happen. The next morning, the line was lighter. On Friday morning, the line was lighter still-- barely there. By Saturday, the line was gone. I vacillated all weekend between depression and denial. I kept taking tests, willing the second line to come back. Perhaps those negative tests were faulty. Maybe it was vanishing twin. On Monday, I called my OB/GYN's office to see what I should do. Although I called at 8, I didn't receive a call back until after 2. They told me to come in for a blood test. A blood test would give us all the answers. Not 20 minutes after I hung up the phone, I went to the bathroom to find that the blood had started. That was it; I was losing my baby. And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

I never envisioned this scenario, so it all really caught me off guard. I had never thought about how I would feel if I had a miscarriage. Miscarriages happen to other people, not me. Yet here I was, mere hours before my 29th birthday, doubled over in both emotional and physical pain.

I'm still struggling with how I'm "supposed" to feel about all of this. A wise man once said "comparison is the thief of joy." Comparison can also be the thief of sorrow too. It's good to have perspective, to know that your bad hair day or trip up (or down) the stairs isn't the worst thing that could happen to you. But it can also be bad, when you tell yourself that you're not allowed to feel sad/angry/frustrated about something that happened to you just because it wasn't the WORST POSSIBLE THING that has ever happened to anyone. Like, I shouldn't be sad because I only knew that I was pregnant for a few days. Women who are much farther along than I was lose babies all the time. Stillbirths still exist. Kids get cancer and people still die of horrible diseases. But saying that just because what I went/am going through isn't as bad as all of those horrible things doesn't mean that I get to be sad is disingenuous and mean. I very much wanted that baby, and I am sad that he/she is gone.

So yesterday was a rough birthday. The worst one yet, in fact. I'm trying to not let the voice that says "fuck it. I don't want to do this anymore." win, because I know that's just the depression talking. (p.s.- AWESOME timing to taper off my meds) It sucks though, because I really don't think I'll be able to experience the instant joy of seeing that second line ever again. I think it'll always be like, "Yeah, well, we'll see about that." I'm sad about losing that too, about losing my innocence.

I'm slowly wading through this, and it will probably take me a little bit to get back to normal, but I'm going to try to blog more in the meantime. I started this blog for me, and while I enjoy that people read and are interested in what I have to say, I can't let it stop being for me. If I start writing too much about TTC and I lose readers, so be it. (Sorry guys, love you!) So we'll see what the next few weeks and months bring. Until then, thanks for sticking around through my recent hiatus.