Well, friends here I am. I made it through surgery. I made it through my due date. I made it through. There was laughter, there was Percocet, there were surprisingly few tears, there were neurotic panic moments, and there was an outpouring of love from family and friends. When I woke up the day after my surgery I felt the most intense sense of relief. The septum was no longer making my uterus a hostile environment, the due date was no longer looming, I was breathing.
The surgical experience felt as alien and sci-fi as I had imagined (with a fun side or post-traumatic flashes from my d&c). This time they marched myself and six other people (who all happened to be men I offhandedly observed) from the first triage area to the pre-op area. I had to unceremoniously say goodbye to Chris in the hallway. Being in a solemn line up of patients in matching gowns and grippy socks made me uneasy. There was a very lambs-being-led-to-slaughter vibe as we were herded down the comfortless hospital hallways. Upon arriving I was assigned a curtained-off pod where I sat in a chair covered in a sheet and reflexively started to cry. My fellow lambs all seemed to have a doctor immediately sit down with them but mine was nowhere to be found. I sat alone with numb tears rolling down my cheeks. An orthopedic surgeon who can only be described as looking like a classic "dude" walked by and peered into my pod on the way to his patient. "Oh don't cry", he quipped glibly, "it's not that bad". Um hey, buddy, I was actually supposed to be in here having a baby today and instead I'm having part of my body surgically removed so how bout you let me be the judge of how bad it is, kaykay? Thaaanks.
The rest proceeded as expected -- the merciful curtain of anesthetized darkness, waking up shivering uncontrollably and being packed with blankets by every nurse that passed, the coming back into your body in the surreal way that modern medicine allows. They let Chris come into the post anesthesia care unit briefly and he stroked my hair and told me that the doctor said it went well and reported that Joan Rivers had been taken to the hospital (or I may have just overheard that from a passing nurse... I was heavily sedated). When I was more awake I went to another recovery room where mom, dad, and Chris took turns coming to sit with me. A nurse brought me tea. I was given instructions & prescriptions and shakily got into a wheelchair that was ultimately rolled out to the car by Jeremy who stopped by in an old fashioned candy striper uniform (again, that part could have been the drugs) to verify with his own eyes that I was still alive.
I don't remember the car trip at all, but I got home. I laid down on the sofa and realized : It was over. And everything felt... different. In some ways I think I was waiting for this day to see if my heart could actually handle it and then when it did it was pretty unceremonious. I had to surrender the better part of this year to doctors, to the workings of my body that were out of my control, to processing the worst emotional pain I've ever felt, but here I was on the other side. And the clearest feelings I could zero in on were relief and readiness. Readiness to reclaim myself. It felt pretty euphoric to recognize that that's all I had left to do.
I took a week off from posting a blog entry last week not because I was so terribly physically laid up, but because I didn't want to reconnect with this journey quite yet. The distance that I feeling was really refreshing. Now I've dipped back in and it feels so good to talk to all of you from this new place and perspective. This blog was always about the ways we find to keep breathing and laughing and moving through the hostile environments life sends us through and this is part of that. I can't say I have any idea what ever forward means from here, but I will keep you posted as I figure it out...
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When I was in grad school I wrote my master's thesis on the "shadow side" of the bride role. One of the things I talked about was that when going through a big archetypal event (like marriage, or having a baby) people feel activated by their own relationship to the event and then entitled to share whatever opinions or thoughts may have occurred to them. It's always the other person's stuff thats being projected, but that doesn't make it any easier for the bride-to-be or mom-to-be who is already in a sensitive place. This definitely happens way less with regards to miscarriage because people don't really like to talk about it (slash are afraid to talk about it) as a general rule, but there have still been some real doozies in my experience. Sometimes they are actually hilarious.
Last week I had a preoperative appointment at the hospital. They did a physical, asked me a lot of questions, had me fill out stacks and stacks of medical history forms, and drew a bunch of blood. The lady who drew my blood waited until it was just she and I in a tiny room and then began to chat with me. At first it was nice, she asked about what I did for a living and what surgery I was having and why. When I told her, her face got grave and she lowered her voice a bit and asked if I believed in ghosts and spirits. I instantly began looking around the room for the hidden camera and toward the medical supply closet out of which I assumed Ashton Kutcher would be popping momentarily. I tried to be diplomatic and responded that I believe in spirit and energy and prayed that she didn't press me on the specific ghost issue. She then proceeded to imply that maybe if I just relaxed I wouldn't have miscarried (incredibly helpful, thank you). Next she went on to tell me that because I am a therapist that perhaps the ghosts or bad energy of past clients are attached to me. I asked if she could point me in the direction of the nearest ghost cleansing facility. No, actually, I just nodded politely and did my best to wrap up the conversation. She instructed me that I should be particularly careful about hugging or touching people other than those who I am very close to because that is a surefire way to transfer energy and ghosts. I mean, I had no idea. Here i've been depositing ghosts all over town! She also told me that she has a sense that as soon as I get pregnant again I should not work and I wondered if she was planning on bankrolling me for those 9 months. This whole experience actually made me laugh, but I imagine if I had been in a slightly more fragile place it might have been pretty distressing. When I told my girlfriend afterwards she said, "I feel like this stuff only happens to you!". It may be true that the ...um... eclectic personalities of the world sense a certain kinship with me and feel comfortable unleashing the full power of their colorful belief systems. I guess I'm okay with that as long as I can keep reasonable boundaries. In a way I was grateful for this conversation, because in the midst of a week where pre-op hormones and stress were making it difficult for me to find the humor in it all, this lady swooped in with a diagnosis of ghosts on the uterus that I found too brilliant not to laugh about. Thank you, lady, I would have hugged you had we not already discussed the clear and present dangers of that. Today is going to be a short post because there are times in this process (and in life in general) where you don't know what to say. I've been honest about pretty much every other aspect of the journey and I want to be honest about this too. There are times when finding a fresh perspective just isn't easy.
In this two week stretch leading up to my surgery and would-be due date I'm feeling adrift (which is a nice way to say I've been a total mess of a zombie on the inside). I partially want to be coddled and partially want to be left alone. I partially want to talk because that's usually what makes me feel better, but I also don't want to (slash don't know how to) talk about it. The hermit lifestyle is seeming oddly appealing. This week is filled with pre-operative appointments. That means a lot of sitting in waiting rooms with medical record forms that require me to fill out : Number of pregnancies : 1. Number of live births: 0 (yeah, ok, I get it, thank you for hitting that point home, Universe). Yesterday I stared down at that very line and couldn't tell if I wanted to laugh or cry or just use the paper to throw away my gum. I honestly couldn't tell if I was bored by it or still freshly tormented by it. I think we're allowed to have these moments. There are still so many in betweens and unknowns and things that can't be controlled that having it all sorted internally seems like a whole lot to ask. I was going to skip writing altogether this week, but I decided against that because I do want to say this : if you are out there not knowing how to put your finger on how you're feeling (no matter what happens to be going on in your life), I get that. I am working on giving myself a break. I am working on telling myself that there is no time limit on figuring it all out. I'm working on remembering that being lost is a crucial part of being found. I hope you can do that too. Since the very first days of being pregnant one date was set apart from all the rest. August 28th, 2014. My due date. I've gone through phases with August 28th. First it was a beautiful shining jewel of a date that I longed for, then it was a date I tentatively circled in my planner, then it was a mark in my calendar that I hated myself for writing it in pen and not pencil, and then finally, finally, FINALLY it was a day I decided I would set aside to do something really special for myself. A little while after my miscarriage, my mom gave me a tiny gold ring engraved with 8-28-14 and a teeny heart as a way of honoring the experience as a whole. I remember when she gave it to me she said, "You don't have to wear it if it makes you sad, I just wanted you to have it". When I first received it I didn't know how I felt about it. However, as the days have gone by I look down at that tiny ring and it is such a strange kind of comfort. It reminds me that what happened to me was important enough to memorialize. It reminds me of the sadness, sure, but also the love that is around me. And on the days that ever being pregnant feels like just a dream, I look at it and remember it happened and that I lived and am living though all that came after. As my thwarted due date draws nearer, however, I find all sorts of emotions being kicked up. Emotions that I thought I had fairly successfully resolved are back and fresh as a daisy. Suddenly I'm noticing every woman who looks like she's about to pop (would it sound paranoid if I said I feel like they're following me?). I have to hold myself back from manically grabbing each of them and asking : What would I be feeling right now?? Do you feel so, so lucky?? For this and other reasons that also point to me becoming ever-so-slightly unglued, I made a plan to reclaim my due date. I thought treating myself to a massage or a day trip or a fun evening with friends would be the right way to not give August 28th all the power. The Universe apparently had other plans for me that day. As I've shared in previous posts, post-miscarriage testing revealed a uterine anomaly that has to be surgically corrected. Due to insurance issues and Chris switching jobs I knew I had to do the surgery before September 1. And what was the only day that my doctor could perform the surgery, you ask? Why, 8-28-14, of course. I kid you not. I actually almost burst into a fit of laughter when the medical secretary told me. I think somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it would work out like this, because as we have learned, the Universe loves to have a bit of a chuckle at me. I hung up the phone with the secretary and felt that initial blast of dark humor dissolve to make way for the the weight of the world crashing down on me. The thought of opening my eyes in a hospital bed post surgically on the day that I theoretically would have been there to give birth just seemed so cruel (of course I'm not underestimating the silver lining of being benevolently knocked out by general anesthesia for a good portion of the day). I called in the High Counsel of Talking Becca Off a Ledge and conversations with them slowly helped me to begin to reframe August 28th. Perhaps one way or another my energy was meant to change that day. I'd like to believe that the powers-that-be had earmarked that day for some sort of Earth-shifting event and maybe it just isn't the one I expected or hoped for. To be honest, I have no clue how I am going to feel when I wake up on the 28th. I am sure I will be nervous and maybe a little sad, but I hope that in addition to that I can view the day as the start of something new. The last 9 months didn't conclude with a baby for me, but that gestational period instead brought forth connections, growth, insight, and new depths of emotion and empathy. It brought me thousands of chances to practice keeping my sense of humor in the darkest of times. It brought me a greater knowledge of the incredible support system I am lucky enough to have around me. It brought me all of you that tune in to read this blog every week (for which I am flooded with gratitude). August 28th was clearly always meant to be a charged day for me, but I think at this point I will be able to have a hand in how it unfolds and what it represents. Now when I look down at the date engraved on my ring I will not only think about this experience, what it taught me, and what it left me with, but I hope I will also see the date when a new chapter began. A few weeks back when I asked for guest blogger submissions and I received a very special one from one of my favorite bloggers Marisa Bardach Ramel (check out her blog Sally's Circle ). In the past I've written about the idea of "Rainbow Babies" -- the children that are born following a miscarriage. Low and behold, Marisa is a real live Rainbow Person who was kind enough to share the unique perspective that it has given her. Since the experience of miscarrying, I've talked about how many people have stepped forward to say that they have also experienced it, but what I haven't mentioned as much is that an equal amount of people have shared that their parents experienced a miscarriage either before or after they were born. I've been fascinated to hear the impact that miscarriage has had on their lives and the dynamics within their families. Despite the fact that is not talked about very much, the phantom of miscarriage lingers on in big ways and small with every person it touches. The ramifications are not always negative. In Marisa's case it has left her with a rich understanding and well of hope for those who have been through this expeirence. However she can explain better than I can so without further ado... I'll pass the mic to Marisa.... Guest Blog: I am the baby that came after the miscarriage I always knew there was another baby. A baby who came before me but didn't. A baby boy that Mom had already named Ryan Drew. From the time I was a young child, Mom told me about him. I could almost picture him. Curled up for eternity in the fetal position, a splash of light brown peach fuzz on his head and sleep-closed eyes. Always underwater. Always in the womb. Floating peacefully. His story was a sad one, and I listened solemnly. As I grew older—9, 10, 11, 12—Mom spoke of the D&C, her depression, and the way no one talks about miscarriage. I pictured her crying over an empty crib that my older brother Jordan was too big to use. A crib just waiting for another baby. Mom's doctor told her that she'd be very fertile after the "miss," as she called it. Sure enough, just a few months later, she discovered she was pregnant with me. That was Mom's angle in telling me the story. "If we hadn’t lost him, we wouldn't have had you," she'd say with a loving smile. I grew up knowing I was her happy ending—and not just that, I was powerful enough to cure her sadness. It seemed only fitting that she would nickname me "Missy" or "Miss." I brought life back to that terrible word. In my twenties, a friend went through her own miscarriage. “Hang on,” I interrupted her, bursting to share my good news, which I was certain would be a revelation. "My mom had a miscarriage before me... and then she had me!" I was met with a terse nod and the briefest of smiles. She was still in the sadness, staring down at the empty crib. She hadn't yet graduated to the happy part where she meets her "me." (Though she did—a little boy with golden hair—a few years later.) So I guess I'm here to tell you it's okay if you can't see me yet. If you can't even allow yourself to fathom that I exist. I just want you to know I'm here, and that there is someone who will be your happy ending. It may be a baby that you conceive or have through IVF or adopt. Or your happy ending may be the unlimited love you find in your spouse, or the warmth you feel from your best friend or your mom. It might be a favorite niece or nephew, on whom you always go overboard on Christmas. Perhaps it’s a litter of huskies that you raise as your own, or an apartment filled with 32 plants that you water religiously. But I have no doubt it is there for you, just waiting to be discovered. I've railed on in this blog against the unfairness of the fact that my life is still very much effected by both the financial and medical ramifications of the most heartbreaking experience of my life. On a daily basis credit card statements, hospital bills, follow up appointments, and insurance documents pull me back into the murky mire of a pain that I keep mistakenly thinking I've outrun (I never have been much of a runner). This post is less about the features of that particular beast though and more about the response I have had to have to the inevitability of its presence in my life. I have had to build an armor of information and health-care system knowledge even though it very much goes against my natural inclinations (I'm a lover, not a fighter, you know?). I have had to obtain this armor however, because it is very apparent that those who do not have said protective gear are pulled under and trampled over in this battlefield of reproductive disfunction and medical need.
I am not a numbers person. I never have been. I got by in math class until I graduated high school and then let my math brain go into early retirement. When the bill comes at dinner I hand it to someone else to divvy up. I throw my pay stubs in an envelope and with little to no thought (until its time to panic at tax time). I forget to look at price tags and then have zero ability to quickly add up in my mind how much things are worth to determine if I'm being overcharged. So, when it comes to navigating deductibles and insurance coverage that same numbing of my synapsis always seems to occur. I can hear the insurance representative speaking in what seems to be a reasonable tone seemingly laying out a logical progression of thoughts, but her words are not translating into my language. It can feel belittling and I often feel the need to interrupt the representative and suggest that perhaps she ought to speak to a grown up about this rather than myself (then I remember I am one of those). So the first part of the armor has been wrapping my brain around deductibles, co-insurance, EOBs, COBRA, and all manner of other acronyms I never had reason to know before. I've had to demystify this process for myself and take ownership over it. I've had to remind myself that no one expects me to be an expert on everything (except myself apparently). It has been my new strategy to remind myself that informed deferment to the people that actually are experts on this stuff is okay. The next part of the armor has everything to do with self-advocacy as it pertains to my medical plan. It's strange that this should be difficult for me as a big part of my job at the hospital was being a patient advocate and encouraging patients to advocate for themselves. However, when it comes to my own life it feels quite a bit more complicated. I get paranoid. I do not like to be a bother. I don't like the idea of being the patient about whom the medical secretary secretly rolls her eyes. However, I am finding that if I don't keep track of the intricacies of my own medical needs and follow up on them with the doctors myself, they will often go unaddressed. Sometimes this takes multiple calls, call backs, emails, and, hey, sometimes it takes tracking down a physicians vacation home and staking out in the backyard overnight (kidding. don't be frightened). I think self-advocacy is key in many medical specialties, but there is an added layer that I am beginning to uncover when it comes to reproductive endocrinology. The more I am in this world and speak to other women who are as well, the more my theory is backed up. No physician or nurse or secretary would ever admit this, but there is a certain underlying attitude toward women who require reproductive support. I'm not suggesting this energy is created maliciously. It's indirect and never acted on, but it exists. It's palpable. It's a certain gentle implication of desperation, a nod toward the archetype of the neurotic woman with biological clock ticking , a hint of blaming deep-seated and justified emotions on simply being "hormonal". A certain degree of this exists, but you know what else exists and trumps all that? The questions that I need to get answered. If it takes persistence and fortitude to get those answers -- I've decided I am ready to go to battle. So what I am turning over in my mind today is how to be this empowered warrior in a strange land unapologetically. I am finding that the more of my genuine self I bring to the process, the more I am treated with humanity. I have had to rise above the paranoia about being "that patient" and reframe it for myself that I am the hero of my own healthcare plan. I've had to remind myself that when I was on the other side of this, I never thought patients with a lot of questions were a bother, I thought they were engaged. I felt for them. I wanted to help all the more. This is battle none of us signed up for, but we were drafted into it and now our best strategy is bravery, heart, knowledge, and hope. Over the weekend I was lucky enough to have a little escape with a dear girlfriend in her hometown by the sea. While there, I got to meet some of her family who were also in town. They were lovely and we had a great time getting to know each other. I felt instantly comfortable with them. As we chatted they asked how long I'd been married and about my job. Someone asked, "So are you guys planning on kids soon?" Dun dun dunnnnn. There was The Question. A question that has become unbelievably loaded for me this year. I've gone through phases with it. I'm in a relationship with it. It's my dearest hope and greatest enemy. It's nothing and everything. There was a time that question made me want to burst into tears. There was a time it made me extremely anxious. There was a time it made me angry. Now it does none of those things, but it still makes me squirm slightly only because I struggle with the right way to answer at this point in my journey. How do I answer honestly, while not making the asker uncomfortable? How do share without over-sharing? How do I keep the conversation casual, without glazing over and disrespecting the deep hurt I'm still lugging around? So I said : "Yes, we definitely want to, but we've had a bit of a bumpy road in that area". I figured, that gives enough that they could inquire more if they wanted to, but if they were uncomfortable we could just leave it at that. One of the moms present offered a tip she used when she was having trouble conceiving. I could tell the miscarriage drift hadn't quite been caught and that was totally fine. Then there were some questions about how long we'd been trying and it started to feel weirdly disingenuous not to clarify. I figure, it is part of my mission to be open about this stuff anyway, so I shared (in as breezy a tone as possible where this topic is concerned) that the problem hadn't been getting pregnant as much as staying pregnant. This time it was met with understanding and was responded to in as kind a way as I could have possibly hoped for. As has been shown to me over and over during this experience, warm openness is 99.9% of the time met with warm openness in return no matter how potentially uncomfortable the subject matter. Despite any slight awkwardness, I am so completely grateful for every person that shows interest in an open dialogue about something that is so easily and often brushed under the rug. This experience got me thinking about The Question. It got me thinking about how we talk about this stuff and the self-imposed timelines and restrictions we put on it. One of the first follow up questions that is often asked when I share about my miscarriage is : "Oh, was this recent?" When I say it was six months ago I wonder what that means to the asker. What does it mean to me? Does that mean I should be over it by now? Is the time to talk about it drawing to a close? Do I get some sort of extension because I still have so many unresolved reproductive medical issues? Of course anyone would say, there is no "right answer" to how long to mourn or how long to talk about it, but sometimes there is a certain undeniable internal pressure to "be okay" and to make it feel okay for others too. I guess the best we can hope to do is answer The Question in a manner that is consistent with where we are in our journey and not to judge that place. Maybe the answer is as simple as the truth. I can't control if I make someone else a little uncomfortable with the truth of what is going on with me and if I shy away from the topic I miss an opportunity to normalize the larger conversation about miscarriage. I think if we find ways to share from an honest and comfortable place, then others will pick up on that energy and everybody will benefit. I mean, I'm not saying you shouldn't also read a room before launching into a charming miscarriage anecdote (thats not a thing), but if the asker seems interested, then there is no reason to be embarrassed to share the reality of the situation. Answering the questions that get thrown our way after miscarriage without that pesky added layer of shame seems like an important step in the quest Ever Forward. It sends the message to others, and more importantly to ourselves, that life can move forward and feel normal despite experiencing something traumatic. What ways have you found to answer potentially tricky questions about miscarriage, infertility, or otherwise? Leave your suggestions in the comment section if you have ideas--i'm sure they'd benefit everyone who reads!! In the world of infertility and pregnancy loss there are many strange and unexpected circumstances in which I never dreamed I would find myself. In fact, I was blissfully ignorant to an entire world that so many women inhabit. Now I am oh so initiated and let me tell you : it's weird. It's so very, very weird, friends. You know that saying, "You Can't Go Home Again?" I was wrestling with that saying a lot during a recent visit home to see opening night of a play my dad directed. I wanted to prove it wrong. Initially, all signs pointed to this saying being full of bologna. For example, the second I got home I was cradled by the smell of the air, the comfort of my childhood home, the familiar faces, and the easy unpretentiousness of a place that I know like the back of my hand. I found myself smoothly slipping into the parallel universe version of myself that still inhabits that world. Can't go home again?! I thought. Ha! Watch me!
However as the trip went on, I couldn't ignore a nagging conflict inside me. The last time I was home for an extended amount of time I was there to be in a play. It was a moment in my life where I had just left years of working 9-5 as a therapist in a hospital environment. I felt liberated in many ways. I was happy and on fire. It was a summer of late balmy nights, local bars, memorizing lines by the water, doing what I love, listening to the same much loved albums on repeat as I drove around town, and quality time with friends and family. I felt young and wild and free and bursting with possibilities and life. During my recent visit home there were times it felt like slipping on an old article of clothing that you expect to fit a certain way, but after wearing it around a bit you notice the seams are pulling slightly in a way you didn't remember. Had it always fit like this or had time shaped me into something new? I started to wonder if maybe it wouldn't be quite so easy to go back home in the way I always knew it (ugh I hate being wrong). There was a strange dissonance between effortlessly clicking back into the girl I was last summer and feeling about a thousand years older after the physical and emotional torment of the last six months. It made me think of that trauma theory that one re-experiences the trauma in a new way with each stage of development. I feel like that might also apply to being placed into various environments. The sense memories of home lit up my recent struggles in a new and unfamiliar light. As part of the theatre community of my hometown I saw many, many friends and acquaintances at the play. There was an instant comfort with everyone, but also this odd feeling that I wasn't sure if the person I was speaking to was aware of my deepest, darkest personal reflections (cuz, ya know, crazy me went and put them on the INTERNET). It felt like I was re-experiencing my trauma through the eyes of all these familiar faces and they were re-experiencing me through the eyes of the trauma. Part of me desired to be recognized for the trail of tears that I have walked and another part desperately wanted to keep that from everyones' minds so I could be carefree, fun Becca again. Doing fine. Doing just great. The city is wonderful. No complaints. Thanks for asking. No matter how much traveling home made me long to morph back into the woman I was a year ago (who had no idea what was about to hit her), being home also shone light on the ways this experience has helped me grow. I feel more deeply than ever (I hear my closest confidents collectively groaning and saying, please! enough with the feelings! she feels deeply enough! no more! we surrender!!) and I take nothing for granted. I absolutely see the world in a very different way than I did just one short year ago. Yes, there has been more pain, but I have to imagine that with that comes the increased potential for joy. Maybe I was initially hoping that going home would magically transform me into the same old hometown Becca who isn't scarred by miscarriage, or infertility, or surgery, but by the end of the trip, I realized I wouldn't want to go backwards anyway. So no, I guess you can't go home again and expect to be the same version of yourself, but you can allow home to be a touchstone, a magnifying glass, and most importantly, you can let home evolve right along with you. |
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