It's not every day someone tells you they've had "fun" in your uterus. This was exactly the sentiment of my (slightly disconcertingly) chipper surgeon at my follow up appointment. She said, "This case was just so cool, I loved it!!". I told her I was glad to provide her with some excitement. I had hoped that an ultrasound would be done to visually confirm that all went well, but my doc wants to wait until I'm off the post-surgical hormones to get a clear view of how my body is handling the procedure. Everything seems to have gone well though. All signs point to a success (can we all collectively knock some wood though please because you know how the Universe likes to have a giggle at my expense). 

I asked my doctor, assuming we confirm that the surgery was successful, when she thought we could try to conceive again. She said she would be comfortable with it much sooner than I expected! I stared at her holding by breath waiting for the catch. This year has not prepared me for a plan that doesn't come with significant detours, caveats, and compromises.  So I also inquired if any special precautions would be taken when I get pregnant again with regards to my newly renovated uterus. She replied "Not really". She said that she would pretty much be "downgrading me" to a "normal pregnant person". The idea of being "downgraded" to any sort of normality (whatever that means...pretty sure that's not a thing, but still...) gave me full body chills. It gave me a kind of concrete feeling of hope. Then just as she gave-eth she took-eth away a little by reminding me that there wasn't actually any guarantee that the uterine septum was the reason I miscarried in first place, but that the best we could do was remove the potential obstacle and hope for the best with my next one.  The crazy part is, I actually do feel capable of hoping for the best right now. 

Nine months ago the idea of a version of myself who could see the bright side of this would have felt like a fantasy (or a joke). Maybe you're out there reading and you just miscarried for the first time and it feels like that version of you will truly never exist. I wanted to share this little chapter of my journey because I felt the same way at many (and I mean many) stages along the way. Maybe you're not at a point where you can let yourself feel hopeful yet. That's okay. I think that's part of it. Just try to take my word (or store it in the back of your mind for later) that this day exists for you in a future you perhaps can't see yet. That applies to whatever you happen to be going through that feels never-ending or is plaguing you. Everything on Earth changes, and that goes for the pain too. 

I'm still on a road that doesn't have a clear end. There are still ups and downs and scars that I am driving away with. There are definitely so many more unknowns than knowns, but the quality of the journey keeps altering so I guess I'll just keep on driving forward and see what's next. 

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...

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. 

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.

The other day I had to go for an HSG--in case you don't know, it's this test where they shoot you up with dye under an X-Ray and see what's cooking in your uterus and fallopian tubes. I was told it was incredibly uncomfortable by several trustworthy sources (no, not just google) and so I was nervous. The details of the procedure were fairly uneventful--first take a pregnancy test (because they just like to rub it in, I guess), change into another hideous sacky hospital gown, assume a compromising position in an exam room, and have something decidedly not fun done to your insides. The physical discomfort was reduced by taking a bit more than the recommended dose of Advil beforehand (disclaimer : I'm not a doctor, I'm not a drug pusher, and I am in no way recommending going against whatever medical advice your doc gives you, but when my "sources" suggested I go to town on the ibuprofen, I did, and for me, it seemed to help). The good news was that my fallopian tubes are in great shape (in case you were losing sleep over that) with no sign of the blockage that the MRI had originally suggested. Which brings me back to this bizarre world in which I live where I utter sentences like "At least now I only have to have surgery on my uterus". But hey, one less surgical intervention? I'll take it.

The takeaway from this experience had very little to do with the actual medical details, however, and more to do with taking new steps on my continuing quest to find ways to decrease the emotional discomfort. The thing I was left turning over in my mind was the idea of how to merge this odd world (a world of tests, discovering "egg reserves" are a thing, cryptic acronyms, ovulation, surgical interventions, and the depressing purgatory vibe of old waiting-room magazines) with the world I have (for the most part) comfortably been navigating up until this point.  How do I integrate this bizarre new world that has been thrust upon me with my pre-miscarriage life? How does it become just part of business-as-usual without feeling like it is stealing a little bit of my soul? 

Here's a piece that I am adding to the puzzle of the particular predicament of integrating the two worlds : it has to do with the way the day of my HSG appointment rolled out. Chris just started a new job so he couldn't leave to accompany me to the appointment as he usually would. Mom offered to fly in, but it's really not that big of a deal and so that felt unnecessary, so everyone's favorite series regular, my best friend and platonic life partner, Jeremy, was up to the plate (that dear man has a special place in Heaven where they erase all the knowledge of my uterus that has been forced upon him over the last 6 months à la Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). The day turned out to be not nearly as miserable as I had anticipated. I had visions of the collective sadness and sense memory of returning to the building where I had my D&C crashing down on me hard, but it didn't really go that way. I am just now putting together why that might have been so I can recreate it in the future. Here's what I can deduce... 

One of the keys to bringing these conflicting worlds together is to actually just go ahead and physically mash them together even if it feels unnatural at first. I didn't set aside a day just for the energy of appointment. I could have. If I had left a little more room to wallow, believe me, I would have. Instead I met Jer for coffee in the morning as we do eight billion times a week, we grabbed a bite, we laughed at the serious-looking nurse who I feared would not be able to tolerate my sass-mouth in the exam room (she turned out to be excessively lovely), we marveled at the inexplicably and heart-wrenchingly beautiful United Colors of Benetton ad that were the secretaries at the hospital Radiology Department (clearly sourced from Central Casting), I told the doctor a funny story while she sent my uterus into unpleasant contractions, and we followed it all up with strawberry frozen yogurt with rainbow sprinkles. Afterwards, Jeremy put my drowsy butt into a cab back home and instead of the slow-motion cry I expected to have while feeling like a zombie ransacked of all my sparkle, I just felt like a slightly more tired, achy version of me.  

In short, I was just myself in a weird situation instead of letting the situation shift me off my usual trajectory into weird energy. Trust me, I know it is SO not easy to find laughter and normalcy in these decidedly abnormal circumstances. I know that being in medical environments such as these can start to feel disconcertingly similar to an Invasion of the Body Snactchers scenario. There have been plenty of times I've sat in a waiting room desperately wanting to separate myself from the other downtrodden uteri present. I've wanted desperately to scream, "Just so everyone knows--I'm not like all these other women! This isn't my life! I just took a wrong turn!" However, I think a key to unlocking this whole thing may be working toward a certain acceptance that these experiences are more an innocuous part of my world and less an interloper determined to wreck my entire existence as I know it. I'm not suggesting I should brush over honoring the magnitude of the physical and emotional trauma, but I also don't have to give it all the power. I do not have to be a pod person version of myself in this storyline. I am not "That Reproductively Challenged girl". I am messy, ridiculous, optimistic, silly, emotional, sarcastic, mush-ball Becca who happens to be making a special guest appearance in the Valley of the Infertile. It is a landscape I hope to not walk forever, but as long as I am here I will continue to look for ways to claim ownership of my stay. 

When I was diagnosed with a jankity uterus (to use the medical term) I was referred to a reproductive endocrinologist/surgeon who I was told would discuss my options moving forward. Being the Type-A gal I've always been, I called immediately to schedule my appointment and get the show on the road. I was given an appointment ... two months from the date I called.  Now, maybe that's reasonable in the world of Waiting For A Manhattan Specialist Who is Really Good at Her Job but it is just NOT reasonable for Very Impatient and Anxious Foiled Mama with Eight Thousand Questions. So at first, I was a bit disheartened, but then before long I gave into the fact that the next step was simply waiting for my appointment to arrive. I love my OB and this was the surgeon that she highly recommended so I decided it was worth the wait. I got comfortable with the whole waiting thing. I took weekend trips, I had cocktails with friends where the conversation did not revolve around my tragic reproductive system, I did a lot of writing, I started remembering that I am actually pretty valuable and even fun as a person separate from all the difficulties of the last six months. 

Then the day came. The day of my long-awaited appointment. It seemed surreal that after all the anticipation, all the ignoring, all the adjusting, all the distancing, all the moving forward, all the reclaiming of my role as a wife/friend/daughter/sister, it was now time to plunge back into the role of the patient. By the time the day came I was completely dreading what I had been praying would speed toward me just a few weeks earlier (I'm just so very hard to please, aren't I?). By the time the appointment came around I wasn't even sure what I wanted anymore. I knew I wanted a baby in the ever-present aching way that I had become accustomed to, but climbing another mountain toward said baby seemed more than I could wrap my head around. Just when I had let my hyper vigilant mommy shield down, it was time to go back into battle. I met a dear friend (the one who has been through all this garbage too) at a cafe before the appointment and broke down in tears the second she sat down. "You're just going to let the doctor give you information" she told me and it helped calm me down. Sitting down and gathering information. Alright. That seemed civilized. I could do that.

The appointment did begin in a quite civilized manner but gained speed like a tornado and ended up whipping us into an all-consuming vortex. I went in prepared simply to talk about surgery to correct my uterine septum and left with knowledge of a potential blocked fallopian tube, an appointment for a (quite uncomfortable, i'm told) HSG test, and down 12 vials of blood which were waiting to be analyzed for everything from genetic markers for disease to insufficient ovulation. All of a sudden we were scheduling a sperm analysis and bandying around terms like In Vitro Fertilization if X, Y, and Z happened to go wrong. Whoa whoa whoa whoa WHOA!!!!! I thought. I just barely wrapped my mind around this whole having to have surgery for a separated uterus thing! It was clear we were not in Kansas anymore. 

I left the appointment feeling flooded with the very information I thought would be comforting. My only life raft was the systematic plan that the doctor had laid out. The plan is complex and filled with PS's, Also's, and caveats (I won't bore you with those), but I tried to boil all the elements down to the very bare minimum : 1. do the HSG to make sure my fallopian tubes don't need intervention, 2. schedule uterine surgery, 3. recover, and 4. try again. Being the natural born worrier that I am I scoured the plan for actionable items. What can I do to make this go smoother, quicker, more successfully?? And then it hit me. There is NOTHING I can do. All I can do is put myself in the right hands (check), have a basic, but not neurotic level of information to be an informed self-advocate (check, for the most part, although some of this stuff has made me seriously doubt my understanding of the human body), and show up when I have an appointment (have you seen my planner?! check!!). 

It turns out the biggest actionable item on my part is reminding myself that no amount of googling, or fretting, or obsessing will change the plan. For better or for worse, this is the situation that I am in and now I just have to continue checking off boxes until that baby is in my arms. There will be plenty to do then I hear. Ideally I will get to a point where I can even luxuriate in the feeling of everything being out of my hands. I'm shooting for a very zen, Buddha take the wheel approach to this one. 

The interesting part that perhaps some of you can relate to, is that in the midst of all these things that I cannot control, there are a great number of things I actually can control that feel insurmountable (or simply uninteresting) in the face of all the medical commotion. For example, I could be developing a really on-point workout plan to lose the last of that post-miscarriage depression weight, I could be writing these blog posts well in advance instead of scrambling at the last minute, I could be kicking my private practice into hyper-drive. However, focusing on the things I can't control keeps stealing focus from those I can. Call it being human, call it just being ME, but I think finding a way to switch this imbalance of allocated energy is a big part of the work of moving forward. There is a fresh frontier of gray area between being gentle with myself and letting myself off the hook that I continue to butt up against and weed-whack through.  I'll keep on finding ways to transfer my desire to take control to those things I actually can control and as I do you better believe I'll continue to report back from the frontline. 

Here's a fun little bonus to an already less-than-delightful experience : miscarrying is expensive.  This is a part of the equation that never occurred to me until quite deep into the recovery process because I had a few other things on my mind. I promised to dig into the good, the bad, and the ugly on this blog and this definitely falls somewhere in there.

Now, I am sure this particular experience varies from person to person based on your insurance situation and whether or not you live in a place with universal healthcare (jealous!), but for me personally there was a cruel financial wallop to deal with on top of the emotional one.  There were many moments of staring dumbfoundedly (thats not a word) at astronomical medical bills and thinking of how much I would rather be spending thousands of dollars on cribs, strollers, tiny glitter shoes, and that French giraffe squeaky toy that all the trendy city babies seem to enjoy gnawing upon so very much. This frustration culminated with me (ever-so-slightly) losing my cool with a less than sympathetic insurance company representative and exclaiming, "Believe me!! If I could return this experience for a refund, I WOULD!!"

The fact of the matter is, no matter how financially troubled the bills made us in our day to day lives, we still were able to recognize (most of the time) that money is just money and it ebbs and flows and is ultimately not the most important thing. The actual dollars and cents were merely the vehicle for some much more stealthily disguised emotional hits. Medical bills became the physical representation of the lasting effects of an emotional trauma from which we were trying to distance ourselves. To see it all boil down to medical codes and corresponding price tags was painful. The harsh frankness of my hopes and dreams being referred to as "products of conception" and coded as a "missed abortion" made it hard to make peace with shelling out cash.  The lasting financial effects gave the trauma an exciting new means of haunting us all the more.

More than any of this however, was the way medical bills becomes the universal scapegoat within my relationship. When it felt inappropriate or difficult to express the grief and anger toward this experience or each other, it was much more comfortable to rail against the insurance companies, the waning savings account, and our neglected budget. We became so tense about managing our finances that it was clear at times we were just desperate to replace one stress with another more seemingly conventional and manageable one. Just like we had to reconcile allowing this experience to be part of us as individuals and a couple, we also had to reconcile allowing it to be part of the way we lived our lives for the time being. I think money is an example of the undoubtedly multitudinous commonplace things that get scapegoated in the emotional battlefield of surviving miscarriage. Riding through those moments is the true work of moving ever forward.

It was a combination of time, reflection, and open conversation that got us through this phase. I guess the best we can hope to do is practice being more aware of when our rage and sorrow is being displaced and then focus back in on the important things like communication and connection with our loved ones. For me personally, I had to make a conscious effort to be gentle with myself. I allowed myself to recognize that this was simply a time where it is impossible to have full control over many areas of my life, both large and small. Miscarriage comes with an unimaginably steep emotional price, but learning acceptance and pathways to peace in the face of that price is the kind of hard-earned life lesson that can't be bought. 

I'm sick and tired of thinking about miscarriage and babies and fertility. I'm tired of my emotions being dictated by it. I'm tired of the look I see on my friends faces when they gear up to be supportive once again. I fear (possibly based on paranoia rather than reality) that everyone is sick of hearing about it, but the truth is that no one is more sick of it than I am.

I'd like nothing more than to let it go. In fact, armies of 4 year-old girls obsessed with the movie Frozen seem to be belting at me to "Let it Go" every day. I'd love to oblige. Truly. Because this stinks (and their off-key toddler singing is loud and hurts my ears). However many factors seem to be conspiring against this goal. 

Two months after my miscarriage my pregnancy hormone levels were still not reading negative. My OB was following my levels to rule out a partial molar pregnancy (still is, actually).  She told me the drop was admittedly quite slow, but nothing to be particularly concerned about as long as they were consistently trending down. It seemed that my body was quite literally refusing to let go and clutching desperately to this pregnancy. I became best friends with the lovely nurse who drew my blood every week. She wears bright red lipstick and always compliments my shoes. We have a schtick about the weekly blood draw being our fun little tradition. She talks about her son and I talk about how my week went. It is usually a surprisingly cheerful part of my day even though it involves getting poked with a needle. I brought both Chris and Jer in to meet her so I guess that means she's now officially in my crew. We hug like old friends. So, letting it go seems increasingly out of the question as this little show and its players have firmly woven themselves into my day-to day. They are so much the fabric of my life right now that I can no longer pretend they are something separate. 

For a long while, I would give a weekly report to my nearest and dearest that pregnancy hormones were still surging through me. We'd usually have a snarky banter that went something like "well, we could have told them that" referencing the fact that I was still acting totally bonkers on a fairly frequent basis. I could just as easily laugh giddily about this as break down in spirit crushing sobs. It was anyones guess which it would be (don't I sound delightful?). They say postpartum sadness is unspeakably hard when the pregnancy results in a baby, and I was completely unprepared for the effect it would have when the pregnancy resulted in me being alone with my thoughts. The hormonal free-fall and consequent sluggishly resolving chemical imbalance wreaked havoc on my ability to emotionally move forward. 

This experience has refused to let go of me in more unexpected and cunning ways as well. This was made abundantly clear when I had to go get an MRI to rule out a uterine septum (SPOILER ALERT : I have an almost total one! which means more antiseptic-soaked surgery blog posts to come before carrying a baby is even an option for me. So basically I am in the Olympics of reproductive malfunction and I'm gunning for the gold in several categories). In the days before the MRI I found myself a total wreck. This was not uncharacteristic in general (please refer to the lingering pregnancy hormones), but it was out of the ordinary as it pertains to a simple MRI. I nearly started hyperventilating talking about it over coffee one day. I worked in an intensive care unit for years, for goodness sake, and thought I was almost fully desensitized to most routine medical interventions. Turns out there was some definite post traumatic D&C effects lingering in me that sprung to life at the thought of another IV, another allergic reaction to hospital tape, another runway walk in a scratchy light blue gown and grippy socks. 

This whole experience has burrowed down deep and rears its ugly head when I least expect it.  There are still pregnancy website email pop-ups to which I can't bring myself to unsubscribe. On a day that happened to coincide with two births in my family, I got a very conspicuous email announcing  "Congrats! You're in your second trimester! Start telling the world!". I know I set myself up for that sucker punch because I have complained in the past about how cruelly relentless and annoying those emails are and I could have easily stopped them by now, but I haven't. Part of me also still wants to see them. This part of me defiantly and stubbornly doesn't want to make it easier to forget. Maybe I am not ready to release the parallel universe version of myself that is now moving through the normal stages of a healthy pregnancy.

I guess the heart of the matter is, there is too much focus on letting go. I've been guilty of slipping into the false sense that the end goal is a version of me who does not think about my miscarriage. Moving "ever forward" is not about detaching from what happened, it's about learning to carry the weight of this experience with increasing dexterity and humor. It is about allowing the sadness to be present, but not chaining myself to it and giving it all the power. The sadness and pain deserve honor and respect because moving through those emotions is what is shaping me into a stronger version of myself. 

It is less about letting it go and more about letting it be.

In the days following my d&c my body was completely unfamiliar to me. I was so distended I felt like my uterus entered a room 4 feet before I did. The very fact that I could feel my uterus (a body part that up to this point I really only had a theoretical knowledge of) was unsettling to say the least. I felt my organs shifting and settling in the absolute most bizarre way. I couldn’t get into a comfortable position no matter what I did and when I laughed it was like sandpaper scraping against my raw insides. This was certainly not what I was prepared for when the doctor said the recovery “will feel like the tail-end of a period”. For those of you that don’t know, there is literally no planet where the end of a period feels like that. And for those of you that do know, you can back me up. I talked to my girlfriend who had been through this before and she said “oh yeah, my body felt normal again in about a month”. A MONTH??!! This was a cruel level of D&C related humor for which I was NOT prepped. 

In the meantime I tried to keep things business as usual. However it was becoming increasingly clear that I hadn’t the slightest idea what usual was anymore. One night, four days after my surgery, I made plans to have dinner in the city with Jeremy and a couple other friends. An hour before I had to get on the train I started to feel like someone was jabbing my uterus with an icepick. Pleasant. When I begrudgingly told Jer how I was feeling, he responded with a very understanding, “Don’t push yourself!”. Don’t push yourself. I’d heard it so much lately. In part I wanted to listen to it, but another part of me was prepared to do any amount of pushing necessary just to feel like a normal person who does normal things. The flaw in this logic was, of course, these weren't normal circumstances. And worse than that, it was seeming abundantly possible that there wasn't any “normal” to begin with. And for argument's sake lets just say there was a "normal", well, I certainly wasn't going back there. My hormones were free-falling, I was crampy, I was often sad, I’d get weird pains out of nowhere and was entirely indignant about all of the above. I kept thinking : this experience took my baby dreams-- did it also have to sap my energy, my physical comfort, AND my ability to function appropriately in my world??!

So, I decided to trek my stabby uterus to the train anyway. I had to. As I made my way through the Meatpacking District I felt like the first earthling to land on Jupiter. I walked past two bearded guys smoking cigarettes in standard issue hipster uniform, a girl in sky-high heels laughing shrilly, a cute couple walking huddled close together against the chilly February air. I observed each of them distantly like a scientific researcher studying a specimen and not like a fellow member of the human race. Were these creatures happy I wondered? How must it feel to laugh in a way that isn’t met with a corresponding wallop of pain? I mentally slapped myself, shrugged off the jewel-encrusted mantle of self pity, and turned up my music to drown out my thoughts as I trucked my achy self toward the restaurant. The dinner was fine. Nice even. Low lighting and a couple strong cocktails helped. But engaging socially felt a bit like working a muscle that had atrophied. Talking about normal things like iPhone malfunctions and gym anecdotes felt clunky and insincere, while simultaneously wildly comforting. I wondered if I seemed normal from the outside or like some creepily vacant pod person. I made a mental note to ask Jeremy later, but I don’t think I ever did.

After dinner the group decided to go bowling. Now, this is something I would not generally do under normal circumstances (isn't it cute how I've created this myth that my life used to be "normal" ...ha!) so the fact that I happily went along speaks to the depth of my desperation to trick myself into believing that I was fine. There was a little version of me inside my head saying “just go home! you’re in pain! no one cares but you! why are you doing this!!??”, but there was also a counterpart that was already luxuriating in the crisp air and playful conversation as we walked toward the bowling alley too much to listen. As I was playing (badly), the neon lights and Top 40 Hits almost entirely drowned out that little naysaying voice. I drank beer and leaned comfortably against Jer gossiping and giggling while waiting for our turns.

I put myself into a cab at the end of the night and felt physically wretched, but blissfully calm about it. Looking back I recognize that day as the start of a big shift for me. I realized I had to let go of this concept that one day things would be as they were. Instead it was up to me to keep putting myself into situations that no longer felt quite familiar...until they were again.  This has by no means been simple. When things start to feel better emotionally my body would remind me that they were not and when my body began to heal my emotions would take a turn pulling the old "not so fast". I think this is an aspect of healing from any loss or trauma that no one tells you about : healing is not linear and your body and soul will heal at different rates. This day also got me thinking about seeking to find a balance between taking care of myself and pushing to seek a new normal. It's a frustrating push and pull, but it also might be the ticket forward.