You know that feeling when you hold your body like a pencil and jump off the diving board into a swimming pool and go down, down, down, down and just when you think you cannot go down anymore your feet touch the bottom and you bob toward the top?<\/p>\n
I think I’ve gotten there. It doesn’t feel quite the same because unlike in the swimming pool when I climb madly back and break through the surface into sunlight and air, I have no energy to fight my way to the top. So I’ll float slowly. And learn how to breathe water for now. At least it finally feels as though I’m heading up.<\/p>\n
I’m beginning to think that when they send you home with discharge papers that include parameters like, if you bleed more than this or your temperature goes above this, they should also include parameters for your spouse that say, “If your wife becomes emotionally dysfunctional beyond this point, do this.”<\/p>\n
In all honesty, I thought that I had grieved the loss of our baby long before we ever got to the D&E. By the time we scheduled it, I was feeling such incredible feelings of relief at the thought of this long, horrible journey coming to an end and the prospect of actually feeling better physically that I actually did feel stronger physically and emotionally. The news I got on Friday was a huge shock. By that point I was so stretched emotionally I was at the “just tell me what to do and where to go next” point. The weekend went by in a blur. <\/p>\n
Monday, the day I absolutely dreaded because surgery wasn’t til 4 and I had to be NPO from midnight on turned into a lightning flash when I got the call to come in early on my way home from taking the school children. I didn’t even have time to take Liam to his sitter and barely had time to shower. The next day my mom was here and I thought the worst was over. Physically I was weak and lightheaded. Emotionally, I was just so, so, so, so glad to have it all over.<\/p>\n
And then came Wednesday afternoon about 3:00. I have no idea what happened. I just know that something inside of me snapped. And from then on, things went from bad to worse and then much, much worse. I was completely blindsided by a depression I never saw coming. <\/p>\n
Before we found out about the molar, I was talking to a friend and I told her I’m going to be ok with this …. unless I get to my due date and for some reason we’ve been unable to get pregnant. I did not want to go back to the horrible darkness pre-Liam and I knew that while I’d learned some things, I would not cope well with that. And then when I first heard about the molar, I reasoned that I would still be ok. Yes, we’d have to wait forever; but at least I’d know that. It wouldn’t be about feelings of failure and why and the endless monthly roller coasters of hope and dashed dreams. And I would be ok.<\/p>\n
But suddenly I wasn’t ok. Because all of a sudden I was face to face with memories and the knowledge of what moments in the next year were going to feel like all at one time. I knew what it was going to feel like the week I would likely have been pulling out maternity clothes. I knew what it was going to feel like when it got warm to stay … my mental marker of when I would be over the worst of my morning sickness. I knew what it was going to feel like when the fall baby clothes came out in stores. I knew what it was going to feel like when I pulled into the parking lot at Kroger and a dad walked out whistling with a bag of diapers in each hand. I knew what it was going to feel like when I got to my due date and looked at another newborn baby. I knew what it would feel like to hear another woman tell me she was pregnant and then watch her belly grow and she would have her baby and I would still not be pregnant. And all of a sudden I was consumed with grief so large I could not cope.<\/p>\n
I could not tell myself to take it five minutes at a time. I could not tell myself anything. And every day grew horrendously worse. I went from being able to tell myself to walk. To fix the boys breakfast. To get the school children. To stop at the stop sign. To completely falling apart. Saturday morning I sat on the couch, unable to move. I could not lie down. I could not answer David’s questions except to shake my head. I could not even see clearly. I stared out the window at the lone house far in the distance and felt as though my brain and body were detached. And for several hours I stared and sobbed horrible, gut wrenching, body spasming cries by turns. I felt nothing. No sadness. No anger. No grief. Nothing. I did not know when I would start crying again or when it would stop. It just happened completely out of my control and I sat there and let it happen because there was nothing else to do. David would fly upstairs every time he heard it start and pull me over against him to hold me until it was done. And in between outbursts he would keep the boys occupied in the basement. Both of us helpless and clueless and me not even caring. I’d gone from wishing I would have died to thinking maybe I was dying.<\/p>\n
Finally after about three hours it started to lift enough that I could move and go to bed. By mid-afternoon it broke. I realized my vision was clear and I could walk around and talk and think. Liam stabbed me through my heart when he walked over to where I was lying on the couch and said, “Me dee ‘ou in ‘ou eyes” and I realized it had probably been two days since I’d made eye contact with him. I was physically ill all day with what I thought was a GI bug and in retrospect think not. No one else got sick. I was home all week …where would I have picked up a virus? Liam had three spread out isolated incidents that we later realized were related to something he ate. When I started cramping in pain equivalent to labor Saturday night on top of all the diarrhea and vomiting we called the on call OB who said I may be reacting to the antibiotics. Seems a little severe and delayed for a drug reaction, but maybe. I think it was the hormonal cascade coupled with grief. <\/p>\n
That night after I threw up for the last time, my head cleared enough for me to talk with David about all the things that were going through my head. I cried again … but this time they were reasonable, sad, trickly tears.<\/p>\n
I haven’t cried since then. I know I will. But I hope and pray my feet really did touch bottom and we won’t have to go there again. David told me later he was completely freaked out. Can’t say that I blame him but at the time I was too clueless to realize it. Yesterday I talked with a friend and when I described what happened she said a friend of hers was warned after a hysterectomy that if that happens to call immediately because it means her hormone levels are dropping too fast. I didn’t have a hysterectomy. My hormone levels are supposed to drop. So I don’t know that they would have done anything anyway. How are you supposed to know the awful things that can happen? And if they will go away or if they won’t?<\/p>\n
The friend I talked to yesterday is the same friend who told me her mom said, “treat your body as though you had a baby.” I was so glad she’d warned me. And when I hit the thick of it and felt a million times worse than I expected, I was even more thankful for all the friends who came alongside and said, “My miscarriage was much more traumatic to my body than any of my experiences in childbirth. It took me much longer to recover.” I doubt that it’s true across the board (I’ve heard some pretty awful childbirth stories), but it definitely is true for me and hearing from them has given me courage to believe that someday I will be well again. I’ve never had baby blues (I just have those all nine months of pregnancy); postpartum hormones were happy ones at my house. This feels like one crazy hormonal soup concoction that I hardly know how to deal with.<\/p>\n
I’m still learning the hard way many times, but one thing I have learned. When my mom says, “you need to take care of yourself” it is the truth. That used to be my cue to grin and go past whatever limits she suggested to prove how strong I was. But just after I had Adam and did not listen to her suggestions, I got burned. And I realized that when you are the mom, there is no mom figure to pick up the pieces and take care of you if it falls apart. If we as moms do not take care of ourselves, we hurt ourselves and our families. So I’m resting instead of pushing. Cutting myself breaks instead of blaming myself for not being capable. Not feeling self-guilt or feeling stupid about what I’m not doing. And I know that sometime I’ll have to pick up the pieces of undoneness, but hopefully I will be strong and able to do it when it’s time.<\/p>\n
For now, I am overwhelmed with gratefulness that I can actually see my boys and feel their sweetness again, that I can look at David’s eyes and feel his strength, that I can smile when Liam giggles, and that when the sun shines I can feel it instead of wearing a jacket when it’s 74 degrees.<\/p>\n
This is the road to recovery. I can feel it. And when I recuperate from the five pounds I lost on Friday and Saturday I think I will truly feel it. Maybe today I will be strong enough to call for the pathology report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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