Negatively Positive

So it happened again, and this time, I am somewhere between apathy and anger.

I didn't really think it was going to happen this soon, did I?

Maybe I was hoping it would. I didn't prevent it, did I? Last time I tried on purpose it didn't work. This wasn't an 'on purpose', but a 'whatever'.

Maybe getting away from the stress of my job for a week was what it needed to settle in. This is the second time in 6 months I've come back from vacation pregnant. Good thing I got pat downs this time, both ways.

It's only at the 5 week point right now. It was 6 weeks last time when things went wrong, so I guess we'll wait and see.

I look over at the supplement powder I bought when I was in California and realize I can't have it now. It has ingredients that may possibly in some universe be potentially harmful. It pisses me off. What a waste of money. I'll have to wait who knows how long to enjoy it. I even had coconut drink in the fridge, waiting for it. That's all gone now, at least.

And I really want a Diet Coke. I know how bad it is for me, but I want one. Just one. It's more of a risk now than it will be in a few weeks, but part of me doesn't care. Last time, I didn't have a drop of caffeine the entire time and it didn't matter. I feel like I should be able to eat and drink and smoke whatever I want (I don't smoke, but that sounded good), because last time I was perfect and it died anyway. So who gives a fuck.

It's the hormones. That's what everyone says. The hormones, they can cause depression as well as anger and sadness and everything else attributed to pregnant women. They make me worry over every little twinge in my abdomen that happens when I turn a certain way. Every little pink spot sends me into a panic.

I got my blood checked yesterday, because I saw a spot on Monday and it was too late to be implantation bleeding. The doctor said everything looked normal, so as of now, no impending miscarriage, no disaster, no reason to worry.

But there's always a reason to worry. Life is proof of that. And it doesn't matter how much I worry, because it's basically out of my hands anyway. It's the complete lack of control that freaks me out, not knowing if I should just go ahead and have my Diet Coke because in a couple of weeks it'll be gone.

There is hope that once I pass the six week mark my anxiety will fade away and I'll start to enjoy this. Well, maybe enjoy isn't the right word. Just being able to be positive would be nice, but I don't have it in me right now. Half the day when I'm at work I'm trying desperately to stay awake, and the other half I want to strangle my customers and co-workers. I'm feeling the familiar bodily discomforts that tell me my hormones are doing what they should. And when I'm home, well...

My bed is soft, and I have to practice sleeping with that stupid body pillow I bought, anyway.

Rolling in Babies

So, it's happening. A lot of those people who were pregnant are having babies. That's what they do, right? It shouldn't seem so shocking and weird to me, but it is. It feels like, just as I got used to fact that they were pregnant, just as I was okay with seeing all their baby related things, now it's not just a belly or an ultrasound, the baby is really there, in all of the pictures and cuteness that entails.

Not like that's a bad thing. After all, it's going to keep happening. All the pregnant women I know right now (A LOT) are going to have their babies. One way or another, the baby is going to come out, and so far it seems that everyone is having great luck and healthy babies. I am glad. I would never wish the sadness of losing a child on anyone, even one that was early like mine. But it is making things harder, a little. I'm not sure I can figure out why.

Perhaps it's not really the loss that I'm feeling. Dealing with that has been a lot better lately. I can say the words 'when I was pregnant' without feeling sadness or shame. It's a fact. I was pregnant. It really happened, and I wanted it to. It just so happens that I'm not anymore, but everybody already knows that.

No, it's something else. It's seeing all these babies, and already having been asked by a well-meaning co-worker (who is expecting one of his own) "When are you going to have a baby?" I did tell him about the miscarriage when it happened, but perhaps he forgot, tossing that information in the round file of his brain as people do. It really hurt my feelings though, and I don't think he realized it. I'm not angry, but he can't possibly know what I went through. I hope he and his girlfriend are very fortunate and they don't have to learn.

What's the issue though? On the one hand, I want people to know that I want to try again. I'm not against the having kids things, although I should be. Logically, I should want nothing to do with it. But I've already established that there is no logic or reason to any of this. So it's ok for them to want to know. But on the other, I did already try, and it was a failure. Things have to be started all over again, from the ground up, from the very beginning. It's a lot to wrap my brain around, saying that once again, I'm starting with nothing, trying to make something. I really don't want to be asked about it, I don't want to talk about it, and I feel like I should wear a pin or something that says 'Don't ask me about having kids unless you want me to never speak to you again.'

Maybe it's a little anxiety since I'm going home. Lots of friends and family know my situation, but not all. I dread the reality of having to explain it to people over and over again should they pester, should they ask, even if it's in a friendly, concerned way. I can only hope that they will err on the side of common sense and leave well enough alone.

Here's hoping.

The Whole Tooth

April is a busy month for me. My birthday, my wedding anniversary, and also the month when one of my two annual teeth cleanings is due. This year I have even more going on with a prospective move on the horizon, but as I understand the importance of tooth health these days, I make time for the dentist.

I've been going to my current dental office for a year. I started going about a week before my wedding last year, because I finally decided to get over myself (I had a very painful extraction of all four wisdom teeth and I never wanted to have anyone touch my mouth again). Last year, everything was all right - they got off as much junk as they could and said I was lucky not to have more problems. Six months ago, they uncovered a very small cavity and I had that filled. No big deal.

And then this time, they finally discovered why I have a 'pocket' on the back side of one of my upper back teeth. The dentist actually fully cleaned the tooth and stuck a mirror back there...and then a weird little camera. He discovered a cavity that has been hiding back there for who knows how long. Monday I finally get it taken care of, whatever that entails.

This bothers me for two reasons. First, because I've been there several times now, and this is the first time they ever bothered to really look at the damn thing. I have a small jaw, so they really can't see much back there, but still. They're getting money to do this, they should be thorough. And second, I have had chronic sinus infections for years. I get a cold, it's followed by a sinus infection, I get antibiotics, I feel good for a little while, and then it all comes back. Part of me wonders if this tooth has something to do with it. I know my upper wisdom teeth were all grown up into my sinuses - when they got pulled, I could breathe better than I had my entire life. Kind of bummed me out when the holes closed up.

And to follow that, if I have an infected tooth like that, would it affect a pregnancy? I wouldn't want to say that it was responsible for what happened, but I sure did have a nasty sinus thing going on during those few precious weeks. I guess it's one of those many things I get to chalk up to 'unlikely, but I'll never really know'.

I won't know, because this damn tooth is getting fixed before there is a chance of any other baby taking up residence in my body. This is the last thing I can do that will make me feel safe to try again, I guess.

The New Normal

So, everything is as it should be, I suppose. I have grieved all I can grieve, made as much of a deal about it as I wanted to, and memorialized it how I wanted to. I have an amazingly supportive husband who may not understand why I've done these things, but respects my need to do them. People all around me have offered their shoulder to cry on, arms to hug, or ears to listen to my woes. There was even a day at work the management almost sent me home (which is one of those things that never happens unless you're throwing up exorcist style) because I was too sad to do my job. That's right, it was the two month anniversary of my miscarriage, I had just started my cycle (which meant no new baby) and I just couldn't help myself. I was crying.

At work.

I've never been a crying sort of person. In fact, I've looked down on those who were 'emotional idiots', crying at every little sentimental thing, because I felt they were out-of-control weak humans. Oddly enough, my husband is a very emotional person, but I could tolerate such a thing because I felt, in a way, that it balanced me. I could be the strong one, he could be misty eyed. That was okay. I used to cry on occasion, but always privately - in bed, in the shower, always at home, always alone. It was my sorrow and mine alone and I didn't need anyone else to bear it with me.

Perhaps this is one of those 'mother' things. My mother was very emotional, very sensitive, always thrusting her feelings out onto other people. Maybe I have always been a little sensitive myself and it bothered me to be in the constant bombardment of her emotions and drama. But I couldn't stand it. As I got older, I couldn't stand to cry. I wouldn't be like her, crying at every little thing, letting every tiny detail upset her, having huge issues of stress and anxiety. I would be strong. I would put up walls, I would deal with my emotions privately, I would smirk at the world and let it come. Darkness had already come and gone many times. There was no reason not to let it come again. I would stay strong. The walls had held through everything and they were still standing.

And then the pregnancy happened, the miscarriage happened, and all those beautiful fortifications were destroyed. At first, it seemed like it was the hormonal letdown that was causing me to weep at nothing and writhe in mental agony. It let up after awhile, to a certain extent, but I have found that this experience has had lasting effects that I am not pleased about.

I realize that when a woman becomes a mother, her body undergoes a profound physiological change. In most women, it's not just that your hips are bigger or that your breasts will never be the same. The brain seems to change as well, preparing the women to be a mother, causing the deep natural child-rearing instincts to come forth. Even though I have no research to back this up, I have seen it happen in so many people I can hardly deny the truth of it. It's like the programming of the brain is rewritten to turn the baby into the center of the universe, instead of the self. This is a necessary thing - our offspring are born helpless. If mothers weren't willing to kill for (and die for) their children, our species would have never survived.

My pregnancy never reached that point, but my body was still undergoing changes that have not reversed. My clothes fit differently around my hips, I noticed. I bought bigger bras and I can still wear them. It's harder for me to lose weight than it was previously. And all the walls came tumbling down.

The post-pregnancy hormones knocked the walls down, and as of yet I have no ability to build them back up. My emotions are raw and turbulent. I take things so personally. Every little thing bothers me. I can't deal with people, and I can't deal with stress. I feel like the Grinch when I say, "the noise, noise, noise", but it's true. I cry. I cried at work that day, in front of managers, co-workers and complete strangers. Things build up, and instead of me being able to sleep them off, or work them off, or (heaven forbid) eat something sweet to take the edge off, I cry. I completely shut down and I have to go and cry. I don't even know how to manage this. Other people who have always been more emotional might have some idea about it, and I'd love to hear it. Because I feel half-functional. This is the new normal, the new me that has emerged from the ashes, and I am sorely disappointed.

If my mother felt like this day in and day out, it's no wonder she lost her mind.

The Power of a Name

Here I am in the middle of the two-week wait, sullen and biding my time. The gravity of what may lie before me does weigh heavily on my mind. As much as it gives me relief to return to the cycle I started before, I feel as though things are not quite finished. Almost, but not quite.

The mizuko jizo is set snugly into a bookshelf next to an olive green box holding the precious gifts for my lost child. The flowers I planted under the tree sprouted a few weeks ago, and though they have struggled with a few cold spells, they reach toward the sun more each day. Tiny green sprouts with two leaves, then four, then six. I water them when there is no rain. Two days ago, there was rain, and I didn't have a chance to see them. But the sun shines today, even though it reaches the Earth through a cold wind, so I will tend those little flowers once I put on shoes.

I spent time last week just marveling at the sun. It was streaming so warmly through the patio, filtering down through the leaves of that same tree. No photograph can do it justice, but perhaps I'll try again. Sometimes sunlight has the quality of almost appearing liquid, like droplets of light are floating on the top of water, and yesterday it was droplets of light on the leaves of that tree. It's at those moments that I know that we did the right thing to bury it there. In that place, bathed in that liquid light, the mizuko grows into the branches of that tree, is the leaves, loves the sun. It lives again in that brilliant, peaceful place.

That chapter of my life is ending as another one begins. But something feels unfinished. Many posts ago, I said that I could not see any reason to name a cluster of cells, that it made no sense to do so. I still stand by the fact that it makes no sense, but somehow I ended up doing it anyway.

Maybe it has a little bit to do with my Catholic upbringing. Long before I sought my own path in life, I learned the ways of Catholicism, and one of the things that I learned about in the time of my youth was the concept of Holy Innocents. I had forgotten about that term until I read about the mizuko jizo. After a few days of searching, I realized I remembered something else that had to do with the unborn - when I was a child, I had heard about the Holy Innocents, the souls of children who died before birth. My grandmother, who had taken it upon herself to impart me with spiritual teachings, had always been very adamant about her pro-life status. Not only was I brought along with her to abortion protests when I was very young, but I was also encouraged to pray for the souls of the unborn  who were lost, whether naturally or on purpose. It all came back to me very vividly once I thought about it, so I did a search for Holy Innocents to see what I could find. There were a variety of church web pages, explanations as to why a child had been taken so young (if it in fact was a miscarriage) and ways to seek reconciliation (for abortions). But there was one common theme that went through each and every page, and that was need to acknowledge the life that had passed in a permanent way - giving the child a name.

I resisted this idea for quite a while. I couldn't know the gender, I rationalized, so I couldn't say anything other than 'it'. There were plenty of unisex names out there, I just didn't see a reason. It was a mizuko, and that's what I would refer to it as.

But it nagged at me. What was really stopping me? Was it because the Catholics had suggested it? Maybe in part, but that wasn't the only reason. Perhaps it was because there had been no embryo. It didn't form the fetal pole. It didn't even have an up, or a down, or a right or left. It was just a ball. Did that make a difference?

In truth, I have named inanimate objects before. Living things of all kinds, too. Snails, caterpillars, worms, fish, a cockroach - all more sophisticated life forms, yes, but all had such humble beginnings as a ball of cells. And wasn't my grieving really wrapped around the life that could have been, that would have been? Wasn't I shedding tears about the baby I wouldn't hold, whose life was cut short because of some genetic mishap? Didn't that potential deserve as much consideration as a cockroach or a snail?

Well, actually, I somehow decided, yes. Before I even realized it, I had convinced myself to choose a name. I remember, I was in the bathroom stall at work, just standing there, trying to compose myself during a very trying day. Opening my phone, I searched a baby names database for something unisex, something simple, something that caught my eye and felt right.

It wasn't long before I found what I was looking for. Maybe it was a little trendy, but it wasn't some weird made-up word. It had an origin and a meaning that I felt was appropriate for us. I waited for the other people in the restroom to leave, and once I was alone in the bathroom, I walked over to the sink and whispered the name to myself. In the mirror, I watched my mouth say the words a few times. It was the right name. I could feel it. But I didn't tell anyone else about it because it still felt strange to name my miscarriage.

Over time I came to understand why the giving of name is important and why I have been hesitant to share it. Until a few days ago I had never spoken it to anyone, not even my husband. Maybe I read too many fantasy books, but as far as I'm concerned, a name has power. A name conveys existence. A name gives a person or a thing a place and a time and establishes relationship and purpose.

A name makes something real. And to name something I have lost makes the loss real.

It's been too painful to say the words, but I've been holding on to it long enough. The name deserves to be spoken, if only by me, only once. It's my chance to give the baby a place in our family that can never, ever be taken away. Today is the day I speak it, so today I can finally say goodbye, goodbye to my first child.

Goodbye, Kiley. May the Earth hold you warmly in its soft, sun-drenched soil.

The Joy of Solitude

I love to be alone, I really do. I was told once by a co-worker that if I liked being alone, I was abnormal, because humans are social animals. But being around people drains me, and I have a people-intensive job. When I get home, I like peace and quiet, not parties and loud TV. On my days off, when the husband is at work, staying home by myself is positively refreshing. It's like having a little stay-cation all for me.

And I suppose I am more reclusive right now, because I gain energy and perspective by being alone. Constant human interaction just makes me tired and cranky, and while I do enjoy getting out of the house occasionally, I have often thought, "I'd rather be home curled up in bed, or watching some history channel documentary, or just taking the time to immerse myself in a new piece of music. Please, everyone, go away, and leave me alone."

Maybe this is why I have so many end-of-the-world fantasies. It's true, there are a lot of people I would miss, but if just a few of them survived the end of the world with me, and the rest of the planet was empty of humans, it would be bliss. Hard work, yes. Dangerous, yes. But bliss. It's not to say I don't place a value on human life, but I think I would be better suited to a different era, where I knew just a few people, because that's all that there were in my immediate vicinity. This modern life of having hundreds or thousands of neighbors is only bearable because I don't know many of them...and I intend to keep it that way. It's not unfriendly, it's survival.

I will say that having virtual neighbors and friends doesn't bother me nearly as much. Maybe it's because I don't have to expend any energy talking to them, so it keeps this simpler. And I can't be misunderstood, because I have the time to choose my words carefully to mean exactly what I want to say. There is no social awkwardness, no worries about conflict through mistaken meanings, just thoughts passing back and forth nice and simple and clear.

Perhaps, among humans, this does make me abnormal. But it feels normal to me.

Cycles and Circles

The world is full of circles, and cycles.

The moon has a cycle, the earth has a wobble, the galaxy has a rotation. It seems when referring to tiny and to giant, everything is a circle, or a cycle.

Bodies are the same way, especially women's bodies. The oceans within them travel with the moon and the tides, season after season. They flow and change as long as they are capable of giving life.

Life seems to have its cycles as well, as least for me. There are times when there is nothing of importance happening, and others when every little thing I see and touch is broken.

But it is a cycle, this life, and broken things can be made whole. It is a simple thing for the universe to turn one thing into another, whether we like it or not. Our present form is incidental, particles going from one place to another who stopped long enough to make us solid. It almost seems strange how much time we waste in our lives, since we know that is the case.

Buddhism describes the universe as a cycle, being created and destroyed over and over again but never being gone. They think of life as the same, that a soul is reborn again and again, the universe recycling the energy as the machine that it is. Modern physics seems to agree, at least with the recycling part. Nothing can created or destroyed. They made it a law.

Sometimes, a cycle can end and begin in the same moment. The image of a serpent swallowing its tail comes to mind. It can't really swallow its own tail, but at that moment when it makes the attempt, it's hard to know where is the beginning and where is the end.

There is so much happening. I know I am letting go. I smile at babies and talk to them in funny voices. I look out for my pregnant friend at work, and tell her to take a break and go eat something, because the baby needs food. Maybe because it's now okay for me to try again, I feel like I'm back on even footing. I don't have to be in mourning forever. No one made me shave my eyebrows or singe my hair or wear black for a decade. I am back to having a choice, a frighteningly uncertain choice. If I were any other animal, it wouldn't be the thought of a choice. I would just do what came naturally and what happened would be what happened. Perhaps it's not a blissful ignorance, but a mourning cut short by the demands of survival.

Isn't this the same, though? But it doesn't feel cut short or pushed aside too soon. Maybe it's some sort of hormonal amnesia, the kind that some women talk about when they remember childbirth. Their brain is flooded with hormones that convince them procreation is the highest calling, that their pain and suffering are well worth the result. I don't dispute that the motivation may in fact be true, but I find it interesting that a women's body works this way. When I witnessed a birth, for example, I was incredibly moved by the experience, even though it was no child or relation of mine. I was able to understand at that moment why it was worth it, see how suddenly one person became two, watch as that unique life took her very first breath. For the first time, I knew there was no shame in being female and no reason for any little girl growing up to hate her body. It was a sacred and beautiful thing.

And I knew that I wanted to do that, too. I wasn't sure if I'd be any good at the mothering part, and I was a little concerned that the permanent change in my brain would make me into a person I wouldn't want to be. There would be a lot of issues I'd have to sort out, conflicts I had with my own mother, ways I wouldn't want to be like her. I'd be capable of doing better, right? I wasn't sure.

So for the longest time, I thought it would be a bad decision to have a child. Then, I met a person that I somehow decided would be just the right father. And now that we've been through one cycle of failure, we're both concerned with what the future outcome will be. And it's agreed that is really up to me to decide when I feel right about giving things another try. I still have anxiety when I think about the future. What if I really can't have kids? How long will it take for this to work? Will I be happy when it does, or even more worried?

Having too many choices makes me want to wait to let my anxiety pass. But at some level, it isn't entirely my choice. Something in my brain that has no logical basis wants to fulfill this drive and it won't let a miscarriage stand in its way.

So as the cycle passes through death and loss and grief, it re-emerges into the realm of possibilities, and an infinite number of futures lay themselves out like roads before me. Which way will I be led? Which outcome will I receive? There is no answer.

Not yet.