April Fools

Warning: this post may contain some awkward or TMI anecdotes, mostly about pregnancy.  If you do not wish to think or read about what goes on during the 9 (actually 10) months it takes to grow a tiny human inside of your (or actually my) body, please feel free to return to perusing Facebook or Twitter, or more appropriate posts from the blogosphere.  If you continue on, don't say I didn't warn you.  

One of the annoying unique aspects of being pregnant is the frequent trips to the doctor.  With a "normal" pregnancy, you'll visit your friendly ob/gyn practitioner over a dozen times.  If there are complications, say you have a low riding uterus that threatens to release your still developing tiny human before his due time, you get extra visits.  Lots of extra visits, complete with extra ultrasounds.  (And not the nice kind where they squeeze goo on your belly and look at the baby through said gooey belly).  And at every visit you pee in a cup, hobble onto a scale (like I want to know what I weigh these days), have more of that goo smeared all over your belly, and answer a myriad of awkward questions.  I have to say, some of those questions are hard.  Like, shouldn't there be multiple choice or something?  There's a lot of pressure in having to accurately describe each type of pain, it's duration, it's origin, and it's reaction to a dozen different factors from my position to the state of my bladder.  What happens if I forget?  I can barely remember my name these days!  Other questions feel ridiculous if not down right insulting.  If I wasn't smoking at the beginning of my pregnancy, what makes you think I'd take up a nicotine habit just in time to screw up junior's neural pathways?  Good grief.  But the question I hate the most (and screw up the most often, incidentally) is "What number pregnancy is this for you?"  

I remember after each of my pregnancies with the girls feeling grateful that my number of pregnancies was equal to my number of healthy, full term babies.  I breathed a sigh of relief not to be in the more-pregnancies-than-live-births club.  So the first time I went for a prenatal visit with this pregnancy, I answered The Question without thinking: "This is my 3rd pregnancy."  It took me a couple of minutes to realize my mistake at which point I bumbled all over myself that it was actually my fourth pregnancy, I had a miscarriage a few months ago and totally forgot... not the miscarriage, but to mention it."  Of course my doctor already knew about my miscarriage so I think the question was part of a test to see if I had started smoking.  Good grief.  Then of course there is the added complication that I have 3 children.  So now I'm explaining how I have 3 children and 3 pregnancies, only one of the children isn't biological or even mine actually, but that's a long story.  At which point I'm wondering why she doesn't just screen me for drug use.  But I digress.  

Back to miscarriages.  I've been giving it a lot of thought because today was the due date for my third pregnancy.  I am not a very superstitious person but I remember calculating my due date after that positive pregnancy test (who am I kidding, I had the due date calculated at least a week before I took the test...just in case...) and when I saw that it was April 1st, it made me paranoid.  After a year and a half of trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant, an April Fool's due date seemed like a bad sign.  Month after month I calculated possible due dates and decided each time that it was truly perfect timing.  Then came April 1st.  And while I still don't believe in bad signs or the power of a practical jokester holiday to end my pregnancy, I can't help but think it's ironic.  The whole mess of infertility and the miscarriage and now a complicated pregnancy has been ironic.  And when I think of how we got pregnant with Sofi while I was breastfeeding my 5 month old and on birth control, well, it all just defines irony I guess.  

So today as I've been thinking of a pregnancy lost even as I give thanks for the little guy I'm carrying today, I thought I'd share with you some of the things I've learned after going through a miscarriage.  Because while it is statistically common to suffer a miscarriage, it is far less common to talk about it.  There were things I wondered about or foolishly assumed when I heard that someone had miscarried, things that I see or feel or experience very differently now.  So for those who have wondered, but have been fortunate enough not to find out for themselves, here are some things that I learned from my miscarriage.  

First, miscarriages hurt.  Not just figuratively, but literally.  You walk around for days trying to forget what happened or move on at least, only your body has to constantly remind you that it's getting rid of the baby you had pictured yourself holding.   My miscarriage happened really early (I was only 5 weeks along), so I would imagine it would be more painful the further along you are.  I was also fortunate enough to miscarry on my own, without medical intervention.  In the future, I will be so much more compassionate towards those women who have to face medical procedures on top of coping with their loss.  

Second, miscarriages hurt.  Ok, I know that was my first point.  But this time I mean emotionally.  It's not just the feeling of loss and disappointment and guilt even (because even though you logically know it's not your fault, you also intrinsically know that it was your body alone that your baby depended on to give him or her the chance to grow into a tiny person who would love math or play soccer or grow up to be a nobel peace prize winner...).  I think I had a fair idea that those feelings would be difficult to sort through after a miscarriage.  What took me by surprise was the actual sense of life lost inside of me.  Like death crept in and life seeped out, leaving this hollow place that should have been filled with fingers and toes and a beating heart.  It may sound dramatic, but it's the best way I can describe it.  

Third, getting pregnant again is terrifying.  We waited until we were 3 months along before we shared the news, and even then I immediately wished I could take it back.  Other people we knew were announcing pregnancies at 8 weeks or even earlier and I remember feeling jealous that they had the luxury of taking for granted the fact that their pregnancy would result in an actual living, healthy, breathing baby.  I was throwing up several times a day at that point, completely exhausted and constantly anxious.  And I remember thinking that it was so hard to constantly feel sick without allowing myself to also feel excited; to be exhausted from growing a tiny human that I couldn't allow myself to connect with.  I had this tradition where I went out and bought something for the baby the I day I found out I was pregnant.  Isabel has a little pooh bear and Sofi has a giraffe she named "Raffey."  I loved telling them that I bought their stuffed toy the day I knew they were in my belly.  So the day I found out I was pregnant last July, I went out and bought a little baby Cookie Monster.  I still have it, and honestly I don't know what to do with it.  It seems too sad to get rid of it, but sort of morbid to keep it for the "new baby."  Incidentally, with this pregnancy, I didn't go out and buy the traditional gift.  I couldn't bear the thought of losing this baby and maybe more after, and then ending up with a closet full of toys for babies that were never born.  I know, so totally depressing.  (I did break down and buy a little Mickey Mouse the day we found out we were having a boy).  Finally, Matt gently pointed out to me that I always referred to the baby as a possibility rather than a reality - as in "if the baby's born" or "if this pregnancy gets to x weeks..."  So slowly and deliberately I began talking about our baby, planning for his arrival, getting excited about all the things you're supposed to celebrate with pregnancy.  I still feel anxious, I calculate the days and odds of survival if he was born right now, and sometimes I have to force myself to think of his birth as an eventual reality and not just a possibility.  And I wonder if it will take holding him in my arms to know he's really ok, or if even then I'll worry obsessively that he'll stop breathing in his sleep.  I've always prided myself in being an intentionally non-obsessive parent, but that may go out the window.

Last, getting pregnant again doesn't erase your thoughts of the baby you lost.  I find myself wondering, especially today, if it would have been a boy or a girl.  I wonder what he or she would have been like, if they would have looked like one of the girls (who looked nothing alike when they were born), would I have worried obsessively about him or her or would I have taken their health and existence for granted the way I did with my first 2 babies?  I always wondered if you had another child after a miscarriage, would you look at that child and love them so much that you'd be able to accept the loss that made their life possible?  I wonder now, once I hold my son if it will all feel worth it.  And I force myself to believe and say out loud, that in only a few more months I'll find out.  

I started the book 1000 Gifts just before I had the miscarriage and continued to read it even as I struggled with the range of feelings, only a few of which I have had the time to share with you.  I don't have any real answers, I don't know why I spent months begging God to give me a baby only to wind up asking Him why He allowed me to experience the joy of life given and devastation of life lost.  But as I read that book and practiced gratitude for all things, great and small, I felt Him carry me through death and offer me peace that passes understanding.  It was a month later that we faced the possibility of cancer with Isabel and then celebrated her healing.  And it was a month after that when I held another pregnancy test and told God I would trust Him no matter what.  I can tell you that the only reason I trust God is because He gives me the strength to.  My story, while it has some dark pages and periods of loss and pain, is truly a gift.  I have on many occasions felt guilty for the brief pity parties I have allowed myself to attend.  Many women struggle with infertility without the blessing of already having given birth to 2 beautiful, healthy babies.  And while today is a due date that came and went without the baby I hoped to hold, this week I begin the 3rd trimester and final countdown to meet my firstborn son.  This world is full of life and death and hope and disappointment.  But today, this day of fools, the day after we celebrated Christ's resurrection, we are reminded that we don't belong here anyways.  We were created for so much more and this world will always feel empty as long as we try to find our meaning within it.  

One more thing I've wondered since the miscarriage (and by wonder I mean more abstractly, not in a needs-to-be-settled-in-theological-debate sort of way): When is our soul created?  I don't know if the baby I lost had a soul, if he or she is in heaven or if it even matters.  But happy due day little one - you were loved and you are missed.