Being Okay with not Being Okay
Twice.
Twice now I've gone to an appointment, walked in believing I was full of life and full of promise, only to leave with the knowledge that instead of being full of life, I was a human morgue.
I know every woman responds to miscarriage in her own way, and my description probably only suits me, but that is the best way I've found to describe it.
My body has twice refused to accept that the human that was growing stopped. Twice my body has held on to the lifeless embryo that was supposed to be my bouncing baby. And so in the meantime, when I wait between the news and the D&C, my body is a morgue.
My body is empty now, it is my own again, and it feels very hollow. No amount of cookie dough makes a dent (confession, I've always always been an emotional eater).
And I, despite answering what feels like a million times a day, am not okay. I say okay because I don't know what other word to use and because I'm not okay with the fact that I'm not okay.
There's no rule book for how to grieve a miscarriage. When a relative dies, the whole family gets together, brings meals, remembers fondly all the great memories, plans the funeral, and is expected to do some crying, but also some laughing.
When a baby no one ever met passes on? There's no funeral to plan for, no fond memories to talk about. Thanks to a hush-hush miscarriage culture, no one knows what to say. It's isolating knowing that no matter how good your friends intentions are, they can't quite latch on to what you're feeling.
And talking about feelings, let's go there for just a quick moment. When the D&C was performed, I was 11 weeks and 2 days along. That's 11 weeks of pregnancy hormones coursing through me, meaning that my emotions are about as stable as my toddler walking in my highest heels. In a moment, I can be calm, then furious at the world. I can weep so deeply that my cries sound more like an animal, and then stand up and walk to a task that needs done with efficiency and poise.
I'm afraid that if I laugh, if I actually enjoy myself, that I'm not mourning properly. That I'm doing something wrong. But if I stay in my grief I worry that I'm making too much of the loss. After all, there are women that miscarry and never tell anyone, who am I to go on and on when other's suffer worse?
But that's the problem, I can't compare my experience to someone else because they are not me. And for me, in this moment, I am not okay. I'm not all right. And I am finding a way to let myself be okay with not being at all okay.
Twice now I've gone to an appointment, walked in believing I was full of life and full of promise, only to leave with the knowledge that instead of being full of life, I was a human morgue.
I know every woman responds to miscarriage in her own way, and my description probably only suits me, but that is the best way I've found to describe it.
My body has twice refused to accept that the human that was growing stopped. Twice my body has held on to the lifeless embryo that was supposed to be my bouncing baby. And so in the meantime, when I wait between the news and the D&C, my body is a morgue.
My body is empty now, it is my own again, and it feels very hollow. No amount of cookie dough makes a dent (confession, I've always always been an emotional eater).
And I, despite answering what feels like a million times a day, am not okay. I say okay because I don't know what other word to use and because I'm not okay with the fact that I'm not okay.
There's no rule book for how to grieve a miscarriage. When a relative dies, the whole family gets together, brings meals, remembers fondly all the great memories, plans the funeral, and is expected to do some crying, but also some laughing.
When a baby no one ever met passes on? There's no funeral to plan for, no fond memories to talk about. Thanks to a hush-hush miscarriage culture, no one knows what to say. It's isolating knowing that no matter how good your friends intentions are, they can't quite latch on to what you're feeling.
And talking about feelings, let's go there for just a quick moment. When the D&C was performed, I was 11 weeks and 2 days along. That's 11 weeks of pregnancy hormones coursing through me, meaning that my emotions are about as stable as my toddler walking in my highest heels. In a moment, I can be calm, then furious at the world. I can weep so deeply that my cries sound more like an animal, and then stand up and walk to a task that needs done with efficiency and poise.
I'm afraid that if I laugh, if I actually enjoy myself, that I'm not mourning properly. That I'm doing something wrong. But if I stay in my grief I worry that I'm making too much of the loss. After all, there are women that miscarry and never tell anyone, who am I to go on and on when other's suffer worse?
But that's the problem, I can't compare my experience to someone else because they are not me. And for me, in this moment, I am not okay. I'm not all right. And I am finding a way to let myself be okay with not being at all okay.
Comments
Post a Comment