Identifying

And I know a lot of what is bothering me.

I can tell now that there are a lot of things that are all coming together and weighing me down. That's one huge problem. I need to separate them and learn how to deal with each of them individually - rather than taking them as one large problem.

Problem One: I'm terrified. We're going to start trying again very soon and I'm absolutely terrified. I honestly don't know how I will handle another miscarriage or another ectopic. What will I do if that happens? Will I be able to mentally handle another one? I'm not sure. It's taken such a toll that it's really scary to think about.

Problem Two: What if it works? The last three times, clearly there has been something very wrong. A genetic abnormality; an ectopic pregnancy, an unknown miscarriage. We only know so much. What if I am just pushing my luck? What if I am just supposed to be happy with the beautiful little girl I have and not try for more? If I have another child and there's a serious disability, then my daughter will suffer from a lack of attention - that's just a simple fact. Any child that has any different ability needs more attention. Am I just being unfair and should I just settle with what I have?

Problem Three: It bothers me that I can't speak openly about this. I missed a TON of work last year due to the surgery and miscarriages...yet no one except my boss knows. How do you bring that up in conversation? When we went to a conference a couple weeks ago, people asked about the new tattoo I have on my wrist of double hearts. Of course, I put it in an obvious place because I wanted to be reminded daily of it. And I don't mind explaining it, but we were all sitting at dinner. How can I say, "Oh yes - I got it because we lost two babies last year?" How is that fair to anyone else? So I have to be elusive when others ask if there is a meaning and just say "yes." Unfortunately, I want to explain the whole story, but I'm afraid of laying it all on someone. It was really DAMN hard to go to work every single day and pretend like everything was ok. Like I didn't have surgery the day before or like I hadn't been in the ER four times in one month. I couldn't talk to anyone and it was the most difficult time of my life...and the loneliest.

Problem Four: Comes from problem three. I care about people. I want to be liked. I have recognized everyone at work and in my life for whatever they have going on - whether it's a birthday or award or promotion or whatever. I always get someone a card or a present because I feel like it's the nice thing to do. And then my birthday came and there was no reciprocation. Don't get me wrong - I don't do these things expecting anything in return. But I do hope that something might come back to me. I hope that someone will acknowledge. And yes - those of you reading this did acknowledge and I love you for it. Thank you. I think I'm speaking primarily of people I work with...perhaps I need to just create more of an identity away from work and make sure they don't have this much control over my own feelings and self-esteem.

In any case, I just kept hoping for a happy birthday email from people I work with. It never came. I thought they were confused and it would come today. It didn't. I'm sad. In the past month, I've recognized three of theirs - and they've referenced mine. A simple email would have made my day, but apparently I'm not that far on the radar. It makes me sad.

I have to focus on what I have. I have wonderful friends who, unfortunately, live far away. I wish I could bring you all here and keep you here. I have a beautiful family that I adore. I need to focus on the positives...sometimes it's just hard.

love you!

Continuing

I find it funny that these thoughts are almost always on my mind. I've been obsessed with thoughts and ideas before, but never like this. Something Marcy said really resonated with me: we don't know what to say. We don't know how to feel. In fact, isn't that what's true for any situation? Who's to say how we should react or feel.

I think often about friends I know who have lost children - babies and children - and I think about how my own grief must seem. While I have no honest memories of that person, those people live every day knowing what they lost and what that life brought to their own lives. But I don't know what to say to them either. I'm beginning to think that maybe that's the biggest problem here - it's not that I'm grieving, but it is that there are so many of us and that there are so many people with so many problems that they can't talk about. When you see someone going through something terrible, you feel like your problem can't even come close to comparing or to measuring up - why would you bother someone who has a bigger problem than you do.

But they don't. I know that I need to stop measuring problems. My pain isn't any less real and my experience isn't less than someone else's. It's different. My experience isn't the same and my memories aren't the same. One of the things that always amazes me is how many people will sympathize or come clean about their own problems or a similar problem once one person does. Why do we feel the need to be alone in our thoughts and our grief? Any load that is shared is lighter on many shoulders; I guess that just means that I shouldn't be afraid to talk about it or to help someone else. But I am. What if they think I'm a downer or what if I make them uncomfortable?

Is that why I'm turning to a blog? So I can say the things that I need to say without fear of rejection or discomfort? So I don't have to look you in the face and see the confusion or sympathy or whatever other emotion might be there? I'll admit that I've never been very comfortable with people. Period. I've always felt a bit on the outside and that I didn't belong. Part of that was my own mind and part of that was just my own introverted tendencies. I think of one of the people I work with and how she always wants to talk face to face or over the phone and how uncomfortable that makes me. I think about how I send an email and then I sit and fret for hours about how it will be perceived or what will return. There's an instant gratification to a blog that seems to be similar to those personal conversations - except that it seems I am removing a great deal of the risk.

What hurts the most is that I have several friends who are due in the near future and several who have recently had babies. One of my friends was very close to me and I can't even bring myself to contact her now because she's due two weeks before I would have been. I can't see that and I can't handle it. It brings out a full panic attack when I think about it. But I'm a friend and I should be there for her. I shouldn't let my own thoughts and feelings stand between us so that I miss out on this time with her. It's something I'm really struggling with. I see so many women everywhere who are pregnant or with their baby and I really really just wish it were me.

My due date was December 24. That was the ectopic pregnancy. There's been one since then, but that's the one that's really sticking with me. I think that's why it's all building up right now - I see it coming and I'm thinking more and more about it. I should be in my last trimester. I should be getting ready. Every time Katie pats my belly and asks where the baby is, I cry. She doesn't mean anything. I don't think she even knows there was a baby - she just wants one.

I need to find a way to live and grieve and I haven't found it yet. Honestly, though, I think this may help. I feel a bit better now.

With love.

Me

I feel silly.


When I started blogging, there were only a few of us. We did it because it was a way to log our journeys and to share our lives with people who were interested. Now it seems as though literally everyone has a blog. So what's my point? What can I add? Where do I fit in or why do I matter?

Short answer: I don't. There's no reason to read this over anyone else's thoughts. We're living in a narcissistic society that believes that everyone wants to read about all of our thoughts and movements throughout each day we live. I don't think that. In fact, I'm pretty sure my life is insignificant enough that few would be interested in such minutiae. But I am sure that I have experienced some of life's gifts and that I'm not alone. I'm not alone, I'm not significant, but at the same time, I'm as alone and as lost as anyone who experiences any of this.

I've thought for a while about whether or not to even start this - to even open this can of worms. I've decided that this isn't for you - this is for me. If you find me and you follow me and you want to be involved, thank you. I love you for it. But you aren't my audience. I don't even know if I'm my audience. Is God my audience? Is it my babies? I'm not sure. I just know that there is no such thing as permanence, but I'm going to try.

In the past year, I've had at least two miscarriages and one ectopic pregnancy. I do have one living child that I adore more than life itself. I've decided that I don't want to go into the details right now. Each of those stories deserves its own space and its own time. Now is not the time. What it is the time for is grief and life. How do you grieve for a life that never was? I don't have a body or a grave or a monument that I can visit or that I can point to. There is no where that I can visit that will grant me any sense of peace or serenity. In fact, once I stop telling my story, there will be nothing other than a piece of paper in a medical record that will ever acknowledge that these babies ever existed.

Perhaps that's what pains me more than any other aspect of this experience. When I die, there will be something. A memorial - a gravestone - scattered ashes - memories - something. There is no one to remember my children. No one who held them or loved them like I did. There is no one who will ever know what was lost or what I felt when they were gone. They were medical waste - a procedure. Something that had to be completed and then done.

What else is there to say? I don't know...not today. Perhaps not tomorrow. But they will live on - I'm going to ensure that.