Aftermath

I am having a harder time with this latest loss than I thought I would.

Probably the first and foremost reason is guilt. I had a lot of mixed feelings about bringing a second child into the mix so soon. I remember telling M that I would feel like an A**hole if something happened. Well, something did happen. And I do.

In my heart, I know that I would have loved a second baby to distraction, but I was very worried about how we were going to handle it all. I felt joy at the prospect of another baby, but I also felt what can only be described as utter terror, wondering how I would handle the gamut of the newborn days on top of life with a toddler. I know ambivalence cannot make a miscarriage happen. If it could, the earth's population would be substantially less. But I still hate that there were any misgivings about such a miracle.

I also think that this loss stirs up memories of old losses. I have been going through old blog posts and rehashing those feelings. For the first time in months, I opened the miscarriage basket, my intent being only to put away the pee sticks and sweet card that M had gotten me for the occasion. Instead, I ended up crying over the basket for a good hour, going through all of our little memorabilia from so many lost pregnancies.

I know the medical majority considers a chemical pregnancy to be a blip in the reproductive life of a woman. I have had doctors tell me that 50% of conceptions end in chemical pregnancies and that women in their childbearing years will have a chemical pregnancy every three cycles. I kind of don't agree with that, since most women I know who are actively TTC start testing really early. And no one I know has had that many chemical pregnancies . . . not even me!

I know there are people, friends and family included, that don't see this as a miscarriage, as a loss, as any reason to be sad. Believe me, I know this. We didn't really tell anybody about this pregnancy anyway, since it happened so fast. Even those that we did tell were sympathetic, but briefly, and then, life goes on.

Even I don't think that a loss at 4 weeks is the same as a loss later on. I minimize my own feelings, trying to tell myself that I am being silly, that it's time to move on.

But my heart is still aching today. The cramping has already subsided, the bleeding already slowed way down. It's almost over. And I am still sad.