I know I'm not the first to go through it but that doesn't change how I feel about it. I know some people can go through it and move right on. I know some women can survive it and find success if they just keep trying. I know there are others who feel like me: confused, questioning... Lately, I am admitting I am sad, I am seeking answers, I work to surrender it, and then there are moments that I try to self diagnose, I attempt to move on by creating a reason for why it is the way it is.I know I've been crypitic--the truth is, today it's hard to see the word: miscarriage. My eyes well up when I think back on December 23, 2009 and I crumble a little.
I woke up this morning thinking about a shirt that is tucked away in a drawer and I can't shake it from my heart today. It's a shirt that probably doesn't fit the son I have now. It's a shirt that I can't pick up, I can't unwrap, and I can't get rid of. (breaking down for a second. give me a minute....)
The shirt says "Big Bro." I think of it and I remember how I told my husband we would be having another baby, I remember the shock on his face, I remember how excited I was--how different it felt to find out this time, to wonder how we'd keep it a secret so we could tell all of our family on Christmas morning...we wouldn't say a word, we'd just have our midget walk in with his shirt on and see who noticed. We printed cards that we were going to send out that announced the stork was coming again.
We never got to do those things. No one got to share in the excitement I had except for my boss, a friend, and us. We lost the baby on what is traditionally my family's Christmas eve and I went numb. I couldn't tell anyone, I didn't want anyone to know, I felt so broken. There was nothing I could do it make it stop, there was no way to save this little life I loved and I felt like I had failed as a mom and as a wife, afterall, it was my job to protect my child(ren) but all I could do was watch and feel my failure until a final blood test would say, "it's done."
So I woke up thinking about a shirt that has probably now outgrown my son, a shirt that had a message of excitement and hope and a shirt that turned into a painful reminder. I saved it thinking, "We'll still need this. He'll still wear this," but now I am not sure. Now I don't know but it wasn't until this morning that the actual shirt's fate and it's reality struck me. I showered remembering how I felt that Christmas-- this is the season we are celebrating the birth of Mary's son, the birth of baby Jesus but this season I am mourning the loss of my baby. It seemed wrong, unfair, and a painfully ironic.
Today I get questions: when will you have another? how is your body doing? and I get statements: you can't have just one! when you have your second baby....
I hear them, I store them, and later I regurgitate them to answer them for myself--I give reason to my heart to help me move on: "I think I am only meant to have one. I would be a bad mom to two kids. God has something to teach me." Funny thing is, the answers I give myself don't feel final, there is still this stifled hope that I am wrong but with each negative test I take and each physical problem I tackle along the way, I still hope. I wonder--if my job weren't so stressful, if I proved to be a better mom to my one, if I had enjoyed it more the first time, if if if....
I am so blessed to have one amazing little boy. Some days, I feel selfish even wanting more than what I have. Other days, I wonder, why does it come so easily for some and not others? Today, I am just taking a moment to cry about something that really hurts inside, something I don't talk about, and something that is so personal it has changed how open I usually am....
