Hellobee

**I wrote this post for my personal blog way back in August 2012 while I was not-so-patiently trying to get pregnant again after losing our first pregnancy to miscarriage. We were extraordinarily fortunate to be able to get pregnant again relatively soon and had a healthy pregnancy that led to the birth of our first son, who I refer to on this blog as “Big P”, in July 2013. Despite the fact that almost 6 years, 3 babies, a big move, a new house, a new job, and many other life events have happened since writing this post, I still vividly remember this time in my life and in many ways it still shapes how I think and parent today, as well as how I talk to other women who may or may not be going through their own struggles with pregnancy and infant loss and/or infertility. I thought it was worth sharing here for National Infertility Awareness Week (although I fully realize our journey to pregnancy was much easier than many and does not even technically qualify as “infertility” as it did not take us a full year to achieve pregnancy).*

If you were anything like me as a pre-teen (let’s hope not as I was pretty awkward and nerdy), you thought touristy t-shirt stores were very cool. You know the ones I’m talking about, right? Those stores crammed with flimsy overpriced t-shirts adorned with stupid, although admittedly clever, quotes about “naughty” topics like alcoholic beverages, private parts, and bad words?  I LOVED those stores as a sheltered 11-year old. Thankfully for my parents’ sake, walking into one of those stores and giggling hysterically at a t-shirt about male genitalia was about as rebellious as I got at that age. (Ok I also cursed a few times at softball practice, made fun of my Spanish teacher, and snuck into an R-rated movie once, but I digress.)

The highlight of my 6^th grade field trip with the marching band (I repeat … awkward and nerdy) was purchasing of one of those shirts. The one I picked out read as follows:

“Mental Anxiety

Mental Breakdown

Menstrual Cramps

Menopause

Did you ever notice how all women’s problems begin with men?”

Clever eh? Never mind the t-shirt was two sizes too big (I was a very petite 11-year old; a feature that sadly did not “stick” through puberty and beyond) and an ugly grey-white color that always looked dirty. Not to mention, as an 11-year:

• I had very little anxiety about anything except whether my mom would notice if I skipped practicing my clarinet that night or not (the anxiety I experienced in 7^th grade though, when all of a sudden girls turn mean and nasty, more than made up for my relative carefree existence as a 6^th grader); and

• My understanding of menstruation amounted to the following:something gross called a period would afflict me on or around my 13^th birthday and it would allegedly involve extreme pain and blood, might make me cry and be mean to my little sister, and would require the use of those weird products in “that aisle” of the grocery store.

Hopefully it goes without saying that I knew nothing about mental breakdowns and menopause at that age. Regardless I thought I was very cool when I wasted my hard-earned allowance to buy that t-shirt and immediately yanked it on.

Anyhow, I tell this silly story mostly because it makes me laugh and breathe a sigh of relief I survived middle school relatively unscathed, but also because that stupid t-shirt reminds me of another “M word” that causes lots of problems for post-menstrual and pre-menopausal women, including recently me (hint the word starts with M [duh] and ends with carriage).

If you’ve spent time talking to me lately, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that, while our lives are generally happy and fun, we have been going through a rough patch. Anyhow, in case you are wondering, I had a miscarriage a few months ago. I debated whether to discuss this on my blog or not, as it is a messy topic that understandably makes some people uncomfortable, but it felt superficial and unauthentic (two things I try very hard to avoid being) to write away and ignore this big, life-changing thing that happened.

For those of you finding out about this for the first time, I apologize for not sharing the news in person. I hope you understand how difficult and uncomfortable it is to tell people that you lost a baby you desperately wanted when they didn’t know you were expecting in the first place. There is no good way to initiate that conversation and it is only now, weeks later, that I feel like I can talk/write about it with a level head and without bursting into tears.

Speaking of perspective, I realize and am comforted by the fact that I am not unique or different because I’ve had a miscarriage.  In fact, I’d bet a hefty sum of money that most of the people reading this blog (I assume most of you are women – do men read blogs about topics other than the NFL draft?) have had a miscarriage and/or know family members or friends that have had one. It is also reassuring to know that most women who have miscarriages go on to have perfectly healthy pregnancies and are now worrying about more important things like raising happy normal babies and children.  But, as much as I tell myself that, miscarriage is still hard and messy.

I won’t bore you with many details about our actual experience except to say we were so happy to find out we were expecting and obviously were and still are devastated that we lost the baby. In keeping with my flair for the dramatic, I also had exceptionally bad timing as somehow in a 10-day period I found myself switching jobs/career paths, having a D&C, and moving houses. A word of advice – if you find yourself happily expecting a baby, you may want to hold off on any other big life changes, at least until your first OB appointment!  Thank goodness for our wonderful parents, both sets of whom came for their regularly scheduled summer visits shortly thereafter and provided much appreciated encouragement and love, as well as physical labor :).

I could write 20 blog posts about how I feel about the miscarriage (don’t be alarmed, I don’t plan to do so). It is difficult to try and “explain” in any meaningful or concise way how it feels to be so excited and happy one second and the next so shocked and sad you can’t even cry or how difficult it is to actually go through the process of diagnosing and treating a miscarriage. So I’m not even going to try to explain how I feel except to say this:

I would never have chosen for this to happen to us, but in a strange way I am learning to be thankful it did. It has taught me, among other things, not to take life for granted. You see, up until the “M Word”, while I wouldn’t say my life has been always been smooth and easy, everything had pretty much gone according to plan.

Happy childhood – check.

Survive middle school – check.

Finish high school – check.

Graduate from college – check.

Go to law school – check.

Find a job and pass the bar – check and check.

Buy a house – check.

Get married – check.

Move to a great place – check.

Advance my career – check.

The next logical step was to have kids. And wouldn’t you know, as soon as we decided “yup we’re ready”, we got pregnant. I remember thinking to myself “that was way easier than I thought it would be” followed shortly thereafter by “wow, this is unbelievable – everything is happening exactly how we wanted it to!” (If you ever find yourself thinking these types of thoughts, I’d strongly suggest knocking on wood and/or just telling yourself to shut up.)

I remember distinctly the moment when I went from feeling relatively calm (in denial?) about the miscarriage to sheer panic like everything I had carefully planned and prepared for was falling apart, which it kind of was. For better or worse this happened while I was on the phone with the scheduler at my doctor’s office, which resulted in a follow up “Are you OK?” call from my very kind OB/GYN.

As painful as it was, I think we all need moments like that once awhile – moments when we know, without a doubt, that we are not in control of everything and all we can do is let go of the things we can’t do and focus on the things we can do. I can’t bring back the baby we lost or speed up the “trying again” process, but I can choose to find the good in this situation. It has admittedly taken me more than a few weeks to stop feeling sorry for myself but I am finally starting to focus on the the many things we have to be thankful for. We were able to get pregnant. We can try again soon. We realized without a doubt we want children. I realized being pregnant is a normal beautiful thing, not some terrifying 10-month prison sentence. I have a wonderful doctor. Etc. etc.

As soon as I started to focus on those things, something amazing and wonderful happened … all of a sudden everywhere I looked I saw blessings. I re-connected with old friends and made new ones. I realized just how wonderful and supportive my hubby and family are. I saw hot air balloons and baby pigs on my way to work. I decided to run a marathon (ok some days that is not a blessing ha). I watched the sun melt into the mountains and fell in love with the beautiful state where we live all over again. I remembered old CDs I loved. I picked up a new hobby (sewing!). I started blogging. I watched my hubby play with our friends’ kiddos and realized he is going to be an amazing dad (not that there was any doubt). Most importantly, I learned to stop once in awhile and just enjoy my messy beautiful life. A few months ago I rarely if ever stopped to do anything other than to use the restroom, watch reality TV, or complain about my boss (to my credit, she was pretty terrible.) I even complained about being pregnant, something which embarrasses me to think about now.

The person I am today is different (hopefully better) than the person I was a few months ago because my life didn’t go exactly according to plan. So you know what? I am choosing to try and be thankful for the M Word. It doesn’t make for a great t-shirt slogan, but hopefully it is making me a better person now and someday will make me a better mom.

This post was one of my earliest on my own personal blog and a bit rambling, so thank you for sticking with it until the end. If you’re comfortable, please know this is a safe (and hopefully supportive) place to share your experiences with loss and/or infertility as well.