Something Lost

Lake Harriet at Sunset, Minneapolis, MN Photo credit: B. del Rosario

**CW: Pregnancy loss/Miscarriage

We went to see you, but you weren’t home. 

Upon visualization, the ultrasound tech said, “I don’t see an 8 week pregnancy.”  They offered a couple other alternatives to a failed pregnancy, but we knew those were a bit unlikely, though not impossible.  So we were sad, and we were hopeful.

  I believe it’s possible to hope and leave room for goodness, while you still know what you know in your gut.  It’s attachment vs. detachment. An opportunity for a surprise.  I know that I have tried to force and persuade and MAKE things happen or MAKE myself feel a certain way or hold things a certain way, but what I have found is that I usually end up miserable in the efforts. Allowance and force are very different energies, and force rarely yields the result desired.  Most of the time, all one can really do is wait and pray and hold hope.  So we did.

  Who knows if a little soul has a say in the matter of becoming part of this earth.  I imagine that’s a big decision to make - to stay in safety with the Maker or to actually be here with all the risk and uncertainty that comes with living in the world and interacting with humanity.  Maybe it’s a scary thought and maybe some souls would rather stay put.  I can understand that.  But then, in other moments, I am angry and hurting and will say, “We would have been good parents to you.  I promise.  You were already loved.  And you were wanted.” And it hurts that we won’t get to hold you in our arms and love you and watch you grow.  It hurts that I won’t get to feel you kicking before you’re on the outside, that you won’t keep me awake at night, running to the bathroom way too frequently, or craving random foods I may not have wanted before you.  Many days, it breaks my heart that you didn’t stay.

  A month since, the grief sits below the surface, my tears a little further away than they were those first couple weeks.  But they are very much still there, still bubbling up, still waiting for release and relief.  So, I let them come as they need to, even as I type this.  As someone who used to always cry all the time, about so many things (as my counselor put it, “It’s okay.  Your feelings just come out of your eyes.”),  I’ve never sobbed so deeply.  It’s like an out of body experience hearing myself grieve this way.

  When I finally knew that this pregnancy was ending, I sat on the floor of the kitchen while Pogi was washing dishes.  As I sat, our dog, Bradley, came over and put her head against my stomach and just stood there, resting the top of her flat head against me.  I leaned over her back, put my arms around her, and cried.  She knew.  Dog intuition is a gift.  She had been my nap buddy all through the first month of knowing. And she knew now what was needed.  The 3 of us sat on the floor, arms around one another, doggy head pressed to tummy, acknowledging sadness and letting go.  

  The next day, one of my past roommates, came to visit.  We caught up and then she ran to the store to get me some things I needed to get through this process (which included some chocolate date bites and hand lotion).  I felt so incredibly cared for.  I didn’t know what I needed or wanted, but was handed those things and felt so loved.  

  I went back to the OB clinic the other day for a shot I needed.  It was one month since I miscarried.  I had not cried much lately, but it hit me: being back in that same clinic, the disappointment, the hollow feeling in your stomach when you expect one thing but get what you don’t want.  As I waited in the office for 15 minutes post-shot, I talked to the nurse and cried a steady stream of tears into my mask.  I marveled at the way your body resets so quickly.  I was 4 weeks out and finishing up my first period since.  I thought about how upon my second ultrasound to make sure everything had passed, I saw my collapsed uterus, looking nothing like it had two weeks before.  Flattened out and sort of just folded and put away like a sweater in the summer.  And while there is wonder and amazement to how incredible and functional the human body is, I wanted more acknowledgement for what had just happened.  From my body.  Somehow.  I wanted to see evidence that it knew that it just did this phenomenal thing, creating the beginning of a life, and that it remembered and knew how incredible it is.  But it just reset. 

Like it’s meant to do.  

 So I will remember.  I will acknowledge that something began in me in September, and that it changed my life.  Not just for a moment, but for the rest of my days.  A friend, who experienced this kind of loss before me, shared an article with me recently.  It talks about how a baby, whether carried full term or not, links mother and baby at a cellular level.  That life remains a part of you for decades and decades.  Those cells pass through the placenta and help you heal and keep you connected.  They don’t just disappear.  So, as science shows and the Creator creates, I’ll (literally) carry you with me, baby.  Thanks for being a part of my life and my body.  Even though you couldn’t stay. 

I’m grateful to join the 30-some-odd-percent of women who don’t get to carry their babies to term. The ones who need to talk about it. The ones who don’t want to or don’t know how to. Just in the last month, I’ve heard more stories and learned about more pregnancy losses than I expected.

“It’s common.”

But, nothing about it is “common” to those who are experiencing it for the first time. Just because a lot of people have visited the Grand Canyon, that doesn’t diminish the profound moment for someone seeing it with their own eyes for the first time. So, I’m taking my time. Taking the time it takes. Knowing it’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to seek comfort in the company of others who have been there. It’s okay to nap. It’s okay to introvert. It’s okay to extravert. It’s okay if I’m not always okay. It’s okay to miss and cry and not be 100% and to let the dishes sit dirty for a bit. That’s okay too.

So, mothers: those of you who wanted to keep carrying that baby, those of you for whom that loss came as a relief, those of you who fall somewhere else along the line in this vast spectrum of the feminine, mother, maker, matrix of life, nurturers, learners, growers, whatever stage of joy or grief or sadness or gratitude you find yourself in...I see you, I love you, I’m with you.  You are most definitely not alone.