When we were only around 6 weeks pregnant, we started having this conversation about how this would be our last 9 months to travel just the two of us, so we booked the ubiquitous "Babymoon" (what travel site or women's magazine or major hotel/resort brand came up with that garbage anyway?). We couldn't necessarily afford it, but money is no object in the face of blind joy. We figured we'd thank ourselves later. I wrote a lovely letter to the Airbnb.com renter telling her all about how we would be coming to use her tropical oceanfront condo as a Babymoon escape, pushed send, the deal was made, and I promptly set to fantasizing about sunning myself under a palm tree complete with cute little baby bump sticking out of my bikini. 

Fast forward to today (when I would have been around 18 weeks…gosh that's hard to wrap my head around) with the reservation date quickly approaching. The renter lady emailed me to confirm our arrival details. She wrote : "we're happy to be welcoming you and your husband to celebrate your babymoon". I had forgotten she knew. It was like taking a bullet. A bullet I tell you. Ok, no, I've never taken a bullet per se, but I have to imagine. 

It got me thinking though. About Miscarriagemoons (is it possible i just coined the most bizarre term ever uttered?) They actually seem like kind of a brilliant idea, right? It's like a Babymoon! With booze! (that's how we'll advertise them) Chances are there is no time in your life when you have been more in the need of a vacation or in need of a chance to reconnect with your partner over something exciting. I, for one, certainly can't think of a better reason to drink guilt-free pina coladas (and I've dedicated considerable thought to the topic). I'm counting on stupidly high levels of Vitamin D to counteract the Ghosts of What May Have Been and we'll go from there. I'll report back from the other side!

EF FAIL #2: Because it's not as easy as you would think to destroy the evidence 
(and a bon fire just feels so permanent)  

This stack of items was super exciting to accumulate, 
but now they have to be hidden from me at all times so I don't have a total mental breakdown :

The Belly Book : I lovingly answered questions about the day I found I was pregnant, my cravings, our plans
Prenatal work out DVD : I know! how about instead I gain like 10 lbs of hormone and depression weight?!
Pregnancy, Childbirth, & the Newborn : I feel like this book actually radiates an aura of pain from wherever I hide it
Taking Charge of Your Fertility : aaaand instead it took charge of me
Children's Books : I always superstitiously lied and said these were for other people's kids,
 but [full disclosure] they were really for mine

Alright. I took the photo. Back to their hiding places they go. For now. 

This bottle of Veuve Clicquot 
has been taking up residence in my refrigerator since the day I found out I was pregnant. 
(That day happened to be right before New Year's Eve.) 

I remember thinking briefly : "Oh darn, I won't be able to have our nice champagne", 
but then laughed at what a ridiculously easy trade it was : a baby in return for bubbly. I'll take it. 

Every time I remember I can drink since the miscarriage it's like a sad little present. 
I think : "Oo! I can have a glass of wine"  and then remember instantly why that is. 

I have had plenty of conversations & laughs with friends over glasses of wine since all this happened, 
but I have not been able to bring myself to touch this bottle. 
It represents the very first moment I let myself believe I was pregnant. The start of it all.

Today, however, is my birthday. 
And I am going to pop this sucker and toast to moving Ever Forward. 

What my pregnancy process confirmed is that not-knowing is ten-times more frightening than bad news. I suppose I always knew this, but never have I felt it so acutely. 

The morning I went in for my follow up ultrasound I felt like the world had been drained of oxygen. I was frozen with fear as snow pelted down and I took a slow motion cab ride uptown to the hospital. I had prayed and prayed for the week from Hell to speed by, but as it did, and as I got closer to the day of my appointment the dread built to a fever pitch. Would my greatest fears be confirmed or would I be given back hope? Keeping positive energy flowing felt like a battle and I was never more than a deep breath away from sobbing. 

The way it all unfolded felt quite unremarkable for all the drama and build leading up to it. I felt oddly grateful that the ultrasound room was less foreign this time although the silence of it was still deafening. I stripped from the waist down and draped myself with a scratchy hospital gown. As I sat on the exam table I sent a last-ditch effort blast of positive energy toward my uterus. I steeled myself for what was to come and leaned back. When the ultrasound tech told me to hold my breath I was confused, first of all, because I was sure I hadn’t breathed in days anyway, and secondly, because they did not ask me to do this at my last appointment. I focused my eyes on the screen perched above me to see something flickering on the screen. They were asking me to hold my breath so they could count the beats. Even though intellectually I knew that flicker on the monitor was a heartbeat--the thing I had longed so desperately to see--I could not accept it. Chris squeezed my hand and lifted his eyebrows in excitement, but I returned his glance with what can only be described as deer-in-the-headlights eyes. I simply wouldn’t let myself feel excited because I was so desperately trying to protect myself. 

Another ultrasound tech entered cheerfully stating “sometimes it’s nice to have a second set of eyes”. I wasn’t buying. Something was wrong. I felt it. The doctor came in and with a tentative look said the baby was there, but measuring two weeks behind what they would expect at my calculated eight and a half weeks and that the heartbeat was a bit slow. "Slow for six weeks or for eight?" I asked trying desperately to piece things together. Then the doctor said that the “other sac” now appeared to be empty and not viable. I stared at him like he was suddenly speaking Mandarin. “The other sac?” I managed to choke out. Apparently this was a twin pregnancy that no one bothered to mention to me at the last ultrasound because they were pretty sure I was miscarrying. My mind was beyond blown. I laugh now remembering that I asked, "Is that normal!?". I guess it took my dumbfounded self a moment to recognize that two sacs meant twins. The doctor chuckled humorlessly and said, "Well we see it all the time".  A wave of foggy information washed over me about something called Vanishing Twin where one sac ends up being reabsorbed or miscarried and the other one usually goes on to develop normally. I was only half able to hear. In an instant I was forced to simultaneously process that I was pregnant with twins, but now I am not. More waiting was prescribed. We’d know better how the remaining embryo was doing in ten days I was told. Ten more days of limbo.

When we walked into the waiting room my mom leapt up and asked for the report. We told her and she looked overjoyed to hear there was a heartbeat. I wanted to be excited too, but anger came out instead and I brusquely insisted we should not get our hopes up. I told my sister and closest friends and everyone's instantly positive outlook felt like a threat to my tightly-gripped delusions of rationality and neutrality about the matter. It took days for the icy defense mechanism to melt away and before I decided to give myself permission to feel hopeful. There was nothing there before and now there was a heartbeat. That was a clearcut move in the right direction. I was even able to fairly quickly make my peace with the fact that the one twin was never meant to develop. All my energy was turned toward "The Shrimp" as we affectionately nicknamed the embryo. 

So those ten days of waiting took on a different quality. During the previous week of waiting, it hurt too much to acknowledge even in the smallest way that I was pregnant for fear that it just wasn't true.  During the ten day waiting period, however, I knew that I was pregnant and whether it was for the next eight months or the next eight minutes, no one could take that fact away from me.  There was a heart beat flickering away inside my body. I let myself lovingly rest my hand on my belly, I allowed myself to take small glances at the pregnancy apps on my phone, and I unlocked fantasies of baby names, cribs, and due dates. I let myself refer to the baby like I knew she was coming and it felt good. 

Ever Forward Fail #1: Get Plenty of Rest

I was told so often during this process-- take care of yourself and get plenty of rest. It seemed like a sensible enough stepping stone toward decreased anxiety and eventual healing. However, I have to imagine the most common response to people telling you "get plenty of rest" is rampant insomnia. At least that was my experience. And nowwwwww introducing for the very first in my "EVER FORWARD FAIL" Series : 

The Top 10 Things I Found Myself Doing in the middle of the night when I was not getting this supposed, elusive, healing rest:

10. Obsessing. Obsessively : Maybe my calculations were off and thats why the baby is measuring small. Maybe it was that cold medicine I took before I knew I was preggo that is causing all this. Maybe a black cat crossed my path and sprayed me with evil luck. Maybe I'm obsessing too much. Am I obsessing too much ?

9. Organizing. Badly : There was an evening that I spent the hours of 2AM- 4AM shuffling things around in my medicine cabinet and in the morning it still looked-if possible-worse. I wondered if I had dreamt it. I hadn't. I was just that dysfunctional at the moment.

8. Eating. On the Floor : Why on the floor, you ask? Reasonable question. Something about impending doom makes you do bizarre things. Like sitting cross-legged on the floor eating your way through a box of tasteless water crackers. Sure, we'll say it was because I was nauseous. 

7. Reading. Without Comprehension : I would say this experience has provided me with a stack of approximately 15-20 unfinished books. I would be up at like 3 AM staring at the pages and by around 5AM I'd have turned a handful of chapters without having the slightest clue what I just read. Then I'd lose interest.

6. Looking at Facebook. All of it : I would stare at the glow of my iPhone for hours on end in the wee hours of the morning (I know, I know, that's supposed to make it even HARDER to fall asleep). By dawn I knew what you thought of every episode of House of Cards, "What City You Should Actually Live in", where you went on vacation, your snarky take on celebrity affairs, and had seen every cat video on the Internet. 

5. Message Boards. Satan's Candy : I read thousands of pregnancy message boards and worked to stretch and contort each one to fit my situation and glean maximum comfort out of each. Please refer to #10.

4. Wallowing. Like No Other : Now, I enjoy a good wallow under normal circumstances (see : My Spotify Playlists : "All The Worlds Beautiful Sadness" and "One Stop Shop for Melancholia" … I wish I was taking creative license here, people), but this experience took it to a whole new level. I didn't indulge too much during the day, but at night… well, I did. 

3. Composing Epic Emails. Sorry Friends. : Sometimes 3 AM just feels like the right time to express your true feelings of undying love and soul connection to friends and family in a detailed novel of an email. Nope. I'm not drunk. Stone cold sober and hormonally imbalanced (which may be worse).

2. Crafting. At sub-par Levels :  Any one need a janky looking friendship bracelet made at 4 in the morning?? No? Ok. Well let me know because I have like 10 of them. 

1.  Staring Blankly at the Ceiling. This one is fairly self explanatory. 

If you search the annals of history and pop culture, you would be hard pressed to find substantial evidence of a sad moment in a old fashioned soda shoppe. It’s just not documented, because there is no reason for it to exist. Drinking a milkshake served to you by a fresh-faced kid in a white cap is empirically a joyful experience. However as we three sat in the corner of the perfectly restored and playfully old-timey Brooklyn soda shoppe, its inherent joyfulness lay on our collective chest like a ten-ton weight. The only thing I can think of that would have been more sad than the three of us in that soda shoppe was if I had been alone there. That was around the day when all babies took on a decidedly smug attitude and started glaring at me. This I could almost handle because, lets face it, babies have a certain well-fed smugness to them anyway that we all engage in an unspoken social contract to ignore. It was their pity I couldn’t stand--their tiny, swaddled, milk-scented pity. I swear a baby wrapped snugly in a sling plunked himself down across from me in a cafe and just sadly shook his head “no”. 

I should back up--to the moment when I peed on not one, not two, but six pregnancy test sticks. To the moment where I stood alone in my tiny bathroom starting at these fortune-telling sticks and they all beamed back up at me a resounding YES. YES! the thing that you have wanted since you were a little girl is happening. YES! it is terrifying and wonderful. YES! your body really DOES work the way it is supposed to after all. YES! to a happy new year. YES! to things falling into place. YES YES YES!  I always thought I would scream, and cry, and jump up and down clutching Chris joyfully, but my reaction was much more internal and subdued. Instead of a triumphant outward celebration, I quietly began to allow myself to believe in steps-- I let myself acknowledge that my body felt different, I let myself realize we really could fit a crib in the room with us, I let myself fantasize about this little miracle that was cooking inside of me, I allowed myself dreams of her little cheeks and hands and her smell. And then in the darkened room of my first-ever ultrasound after being poked and probed and prodded, I was told I may have allowed myself to believe too soon. I was told that this was most likely a miscarriage. We would know definitively in a week they said. And so began the longest week of my life that was kicked off by an afternoon of “walking around like zombies” (as my best friend Jeremy later described it) that lead us to that fateful soda shoppe. 

That day was the hardest I had experienced to date. The world skipped and jumped and raced around me as I moved in slow agonizing motion with the sound muted like I was underwater. My entire world hung in the balance while people selected books in the bookstore, bought tickets to movies, gathered groceries for dinner, and drank milkshakes. Looking back, I really only remember a foggy outline of the day. I know that I walked like I was moving through honey with Chris on one side of me and Jeremy on the other. I remember that day in black and white and blurred around the edges. That day faded into a night where I woke up repeatedly thinking it was all a dream only to remember it wasn’t and to cry myself back to sleep. 

Each day from there got a bit easier as I realized that hope was not lost and I could not surrender to thinking it was. It could have been a miscalculation, it could be a mistake, it could be so many things. There was a thin line to walk between the power of positive thinking and not wanting to make myself vulnerable by ignoring the potential worst case scenario. Impossible as it seemed, I managed to get into a place where more often than not, I believed in a miracle. I had just as much reason to believe things would work out wonderfully as terribly. I renewed my faith in my body and it’s power. I did all that I could to renew my faith that the Universe would make things happen how they were meant to happen. I let myself joke and be distracted. My mom flew in to put a blanket of comfort around my entire apartment and me within it. I ate the foods I craved with no guilt for the first time in my life. I read stories of mothers who had been told all hope was lost, but lived to see otherwise. I surrounded myself with people who I am lucky to say love me to an unfathomable degree. And I waited. There were days when I walked around in a fog and days where I laughed like life was normal. It was a strange sensation to live through a week that you knew ultimately would not matter in the history of your life. I would either look back on that week as the week before something wonderful or terrible happened ...or before more of the same happened. That week was the closest thing I have ever done to putting my entire life on pause. I ate. I napped. My mother dusted my bookshelves and organized my cabinets. Dear friends drifted in and out knowing there was nothing to say. I engaged in an epic battle against the magical thinking notion that if I let myself get negative, the worst would happen. It stood to reason that if I could convince myself to be truly positive, the best would unfold.

One thing I knew is that I had no choice but to move forward. Ever forward. Whether it was against my will or not I had to wake up every day and breathe and allow myself to be open to what was next.