Twelve days after I was told that their was no more heartbeat thrumming away inside of me, there were still no signs of natural miscarriage. My pregnancy symptoms were beginning to abate ever-so-slightly, but the knowledge that I was still carrying around two gestational sacs and a non-viable embryo was beginning to feel like a heavy burden with no end in sight. After you miscarry, there is often a choice to make that few people talk about which is strange considering the prevalence of the experience (but I suppose also not strange considering how little all of this is spoken about). It seems cruel, but after the saddest moment of my life, I had to decide if I would wait indefinitely for my body to begin the process of miscarrying, take a medicine that would cause me to painfully contract and miscarry at home, or go under anesthesia for the surgical route. After speaking to my OB about the risks of natural and medically induced twin miscarriage I made the decision to go with the surgical route and scheduled a D&C. I hated every second of making that decision, but the doctor recommended it for me and I also felt it gave me the best chance of moving forward physically and emotionally.
As I perused endless websites and message boards about what to expect before, after, and during a D&C, I kept coming across the term “rainbow baby”. At first, I took a knee-jerk liking to this term due to my natural affinity for and fierce allegiance to gay culture. I learned however that in the “online miscarriage world” (to which my first response, if i’m honest, was: “please kill me that I’m part of this”), it actually refers to a baby conceived following a loss. I shied away from the cheesiness of the term in that context initially, but as I read more about it I found myself completely moved in spite of myself. As a drama therapist (read: metaphor junkie), I suppose it should not come as a surprise that it began to really appeal to me. I love the idea that a rainbow doesn’t erase the pain and destruction of the storm, but rather is evidence that something beautiful and light can emerge after the darkness. In a perfect world I will end up with a little double rainbow baby (and i don’t mean more twins--just a darling little homosexual son to soothe my heart with his winning tiny fashion sense and delightfully sarcastic world views).
As an added bonus to finding out I had miscarried, I was told that there was evidence I had a uterine septum--a condition that would make future, continued miscarriages an inevitability without surgical intervention. This fact took the liberty of snatching away the last shreds of positivity I had been gripping for dear life. Every time someone would say, “you’re young, you’ll get pregnant again” or “people are often more fertile after a miscarriage” I would think, “yeah, but it's going to be a bit more complicated than that for me”. I suppose I could have been much more hopeful than that, but I was just not in a “glass half full” place at the time.
However, despite my newfound (and in hindsight, temporary…or at least not consistent) negativity, I set the idea of a rainbow baby on a shelf of very precious and private hopes for the future and decided on some deep hidden level I would move forward toward this magical little unicorn.
As I perused endless websites and message boards about what to expect before, after, and during a D&C, I kept coming across the term “rainbow baby”. At first, I took a knee-jerk liking to this term due to my natural affinity for and fierce allegiance to gay culture. I learned however that in the “online miscarriage world” (to which my first response, if i’m honest, was: “please kill me that I’m part of this”), it actually refers to a baby conceived following a loss. I shied away from the cheesiness of the term in that context initially, but as I read more about it I found myself completely moved in spite of myself. As a drama therapist (read: metaphor junkie), I suppose it should not come as a surprise that it began to really appeal to me. I love the idea that a rainbow doesn’t erase the pain and destruction of the storm, but rather is evidence that something beautiful and light can emerge after the darkness. In a perfect world I will end up with a little double rainbow baby (and i don’t mean more twins--just a darling little homosexual son to soothe my heart with his winning tiny fashion sense and delightfully sarcastic world views).
As an added bonus to finding out I had miscarried, I was told that there was evidence I had a uterine septum--a condition that would make future, continued miscarriages an inevitability without surgical intervention. This fact took the liberty of snatching away the last shreds of positivity I had been gripping for dear life. Every time someone would say, “you’re young, you’ll get pregnant again” or “people are often more fertile after a miscarriage” I would think, “yeah, but it's going to be a bit more complicated than that for me”. I suppose I could have been much more hopeful than that, but I was just not in a “glass half full” place at the time.
However, despite my newfound (and in hindsight, temporary…or at least not consistent) negativity, I set the idea of a rainbow baby on a shelf of very precious and private hopes for the future and decided on some deep hidden level I would move forward toward this magical little unicorn.
(gotta keep laughing through the rain…)
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