Time Heals All Wounds (and Other Stupid Cliches)

Today marks a full week since my miscarriage. Seven days. 168 hours. 10,080 minutes. It doesn’t matter how you want to measure it, time since then feels like arbitrary numbers. In one sense, the intensity of the pain makes it feel like yesterday. Even the number seven feels too big. And in another, I feel like I have been heartbroken for so long that 10,080 doesn’t even begin to capture it. 

I want to start off by saying that I know the statistics. I know around 15% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. This means that, dear readers, more than a handful of you have first hand knowledge of what I am going through. I know that my story is no more special than any of yours, but as I am the author of this blog, I am going to tell it as I am living it. It may be very similar or quite different from your experience. To be honest, I hesitated to even write a post like this because I did not want it to seem like I think my loss is any more significant than anyone else’s. As I have stated from the beginning, I don’t know if I am “doing this right”. 

But since you’re here to read my story, here it goes. The last seven days have been….hell. I don’t know how else to say it. In the last week, I have successfully made it through one day without crying. It hits me at the strangest times: in the middle of dinner, when I am staring at myself in the mirror doing my makeup. Sometimes it stops as abruptly as it began, and sometimes I cry until I am dry heaving. Part of this, I know, is hormones. Within the last ten days, I have been pregnant, lost the baby, and completed another cycle of fertility drugs. I am trying to be kind to my body. I know she’s dealing with a lot and doing the best she can. 

However, if I’m being totally honest, I’m still pretty angry with her. I still want to write a “To Whom it May Concern” letter to my uterus. I want to demand an answer to why she betrayed me. It figures that I would get the uterus that slept through class the day “fertilized egg implantation” was covered. *insert eye roll*

In addition to the soul-crushing sadness and irrational anger, I also feel weirdly responsible. I know in my hodge-podge of emotions, this is the ridiculous one. While the rational side of me sees this, it still doesn’t prevent it. This sense of responsibility has driven me insane. I have become obsessed with “what did I do?” and “what didn’t I do?” Am I taking the right supplements? Am I taking too many supplements? I recently read that you want to keep your uterus warm during the two week wait to aid in implantation. According to Eastern Medicine, in order to do this, you need to keep your feet warm. So now I’m stressing out if I wore warm enough socks. I literally cannot make this up. 

Earlier, I mentioned the 15% statistic. That’s true for normal healthy women. For my condition, the rate is closer to 50%. Enter one more emotion: FEAR. I know I wear a bracelet everyday that says “Fearless”. This week, that bracelet has been a lie. Total bullshit. I am scared to death that this could happen again. And again. 

The other bracelet says “Strength”. This one is less of a lie, because I know that even if it does happen again, I’ll survive and try again, just like I am doing now. And the last bracelet is why: Hope. 

I finished the drugs for this cycle last night. So now I wait…and hope… that they again induce ovulation so that we can try again this month. 

So, in answer to the big question: How am I doing? I am okay. And I am not okay. It depends on the minute. I do know, however, that I will be okay. At the end of this road, whenever that may be, and whatever the outcome, I will know that I gave it everything I had. Literal blood, sweat, and tears. 

I also know, I am nowhere near the end yet.

(one. twenty-six. twenty-two)