But If I Did, Well Really, What’s It To You?
It might surprise you to know that I hate drama. I’m probably one of the least dramatic people I know, save for begging Ashley that I can wear transvestite make-up in her wedding, and I like it that way. But over the past 2 months, and past 2 miscarriages, I can’t help but feel I’m turning into this disgusting drama queen. Thankfully she seems confined to my head.
I’m also less surprisingly not much of a dweller. Bad shit happens to me and the only thing I can control is how I handle it. If I spend my life mourning my childhood, I’ll never enjoy my adulthood. These past couple months, though, between the loss of my beloved friend Steph and all of these fucking miscarriages has really taken a toll on me. It’s funny, I didn’t realize WHAT was wrong with me for quite awhile.
Most of the day I’m fine, really I am. I function, I care for my two thriving (breathing) children, and I don’t sit around mourning my losses. Somewhere between 3 and 4 PM I lose it and I don’t feel like I can continue being someone else’s answer to everything. I fight off panic attacks and try as best as I can to get through it all and I succeed. I’m breathless in a room full of air these days, and I don’t know how to catch my breath.
By chance (seriously) I was walking through Target (where else?) and I found myself in the maternity section. I fingered some of the billowy shirts and despite my dislike of Target’s maternity wear in general, I wished desperately that I could buy one and need it for something other than my beer gut. I guess it just heightened my feelings of loss, dreadful loss.
I can’t help but really miss those two sad souls, those two sacs of disjointed and deformed chromosomes, the two doomed embryos that my body expelled. I try as best as I can to remind myself of the logic, of the reality, but I can’t help but be saddened. It’s a sadness no sweet and adorable puppy will touch, not even remotely.
I’m not pregnant and I wish like hell that I were. But I don’t want a new baby, I want my old embryos back. I want them back in my body, and I want this whole thing to be a terrible dream. But my dreams tend to involve having The Sex with characters from television, and I know that for now, for right now, this is my new reality.
I am so, so sorry.
I won’t say anything else because really, what can I say.
Maybe just this: you are a very strong person.
I wish I knew what to say besides the awful ‘I’m so sorry”. We in dead baby land tend to go for the ‘this just fucking sucks’ line which, if nothing else at least begins to reflect the anger we all feel.
I am mad for you too. Noone needs to have hope smashed into tiny pieces even once but back to back is cruel. And it fucking sucks.
xxoo
The answer to the problem is clear: avoid Target.
(Don’t mean to be flip, but I thought you could use an obnoxious response right about now.)
I am so sorry. Which is the comment that has probably kept you from talking more about this issue. Truly, I’m sorry and I’m thinking that a shot of bourbon, neat, or half a Xanax at three each afternoon is appropriate. Truly, I’m thinking of you.
Oh, Becky. Life can be so fucking cruel. I’m sorry it’s been this way to you as of late. I wish you could have those baby-embryos back. I really do. XO.
I love you. I’m so sorry for what you’re going through – it breaks my heart (literally makes my heart ache for you). I know that nothing anyone says can make it hurt less but do know that I understand what you are going through. I’m here if you need me. The anger, frustration, hurt can be all consuming. I lost my second baby 3 years ago and it STILL hurts like hell. I kept a journal online for awhile, specifically for grieving, and that did help some. I just wrote in it tonight actually, for the first time in awhile. If you want the link, let me know. (Not that I think you should or anything unless you want to. But you know, I can’t just mention it and then not offer the link!) I won’t be offended if not!
Wow, how could you not dwell on it, you know? I’m glad you have somewhere to go (ahem…here) that you can get it all out so that you don’t have to handle it *all* alone. We can’t take away even an ounce of your sadness and loss, but we’re here for you all the same. So sorry for your lost little beans.
I am so sorry. I have been praying for you. Do you think that you might need some Paxil, or Effexor?
Would your doctor prescribe it for you?
Hugs
I hear you my friend, I hear you! Life sucks! *HUGS*
Yeah, we get attached to embryos. Even if they are only a few dodgy cells. I sometimes think about Jasper’s six brothers and sisters that didn’t make it into my ute. It’s sad.
I’m sorry about this, Becky.
You don’t come across as a drama queen at all, not to me.
I hope you’re not thinking that it’s somehow wrong for you to be mourning those embryos. I have never–or don’t believe I have ever–had a miscarriage myself, but dude…those were at least a corner of your hopes in life, and they were taken from you. It’s a testimony to your strength that you’re still able to take care of your remaining family so well, but you HAVE suffered a loss–several losses. You have every right to take all the time you need to acknowledge that. Rant here, rave here, cry all you need; it’s part of healing, and we want you to heal.
I hope I’m not intruding with all this; we did just meet. But please just know that I’m pulling for you here. *hug*
I really don’t know what to say. While I am sorry that you’re going through this difficult time, that is of little value to you since you don’t know me, nor can you make any use of my sympathy.
I will, however, thank you for your honesty. It shows me that we were very fortunate that our year and a half of TTC never included a miscarriage.
I tried to cut through Meijer about a month after we lost Isabel and found myself in the baby department. I lost it right in the aisle – sobbing like an idiot looking at girl clothes.
And I have to say, I also hate drama but I haven’t been able to avoid any of it. You can’t rush it Bec – it’s all in there, and you have to walk through it, like it or not.
You are NOT a drama queen.
You are completely validated in feeling terrible.
It’s an awful thing to go through.
But you will heal eventually.
I’ll be thinking about you, in the meantime! 🙂
(((HUG)))
Sorry Becky. It is unfair.
I think a lot of those feeelings might have something to do with wondering why our bodies would fuck with us like that. Our bodies allow the embryos to implant, to grow for a while, and then die. The control is gone completely, and that’s when “drama” steps in – when we lose control, even if we never even had it.
I seem to think this is the hour in which you are quite often IMing with me, so perhaps I am not lightening the mood enough. Next time we shall talk of cute things like beanie babies and scrapbooking.
I find that I deal with different awful situations …differently. And while I may have been able to shrug off one thing, I end up dwelling on another. Grief has no rules that way. Bastard.
I hope you find the best way you can to cope with the losses. I’m so sorry.
Beck,
well, your normal, how else are you suppose to feel?
it will happen, but it just might take awhile.
Super hugs. We all heart you very much.
It sucks, and you will always miss them. But it will get easier with time. Maybe you can do something to honor them — plant some bulbs or a tree?
I totally had The Sex with Assistant Director Skinner from The X-Files in my dream last week. I wish it had been Mulder. Or even Scully.
P.S. — you should totally be IMing with me as well. I am awesome.
Oh, Becky. I’m just so sorry.
I know that empty feeling, that feeling of desperately wanting your little peanut back. Of wanting it to be 3 weeks ago when you were so happy you felt like you’d burst.
It is not dramatic or silly or self-indulgent to want your babies. To have bonded with them so strongly. To love them and grieve for them. The loss of any pregnancy is a tragedy. More than one? Is a devastatingly awful one-two punch.
Please give yourself time to grieve and feel, all of it. You need it. And if you want to talk, I will listen. Always. Because I know, I know, I know. I do.
Much too tragic.
It’s great that you can talk about it – that’s really important.
I hope all these comments of support help you through this.
And here’s another one from me.
I am thinking about you and feeling your pain. I wish you brief moments of happiness and a lessened amount of sadness sometime soon. Until then, do what you need to do to make it through each hour. (and maybe hire a sitter from 3-5 each day – for everyone’s sake.)
Namaste (because it actually suits here, not because I am a yoga fanatic.)
T
Even when you try to fill your day with constant activity and interaction..the quiet always seeps in somehow and threatens to swallow you whole. This my friend, is why I now take both wellbutrin AND zoloft. Cheers to you Aunt Becky, may your pain ease a little bit more each day. You will not forget, I like you too much to lie to you.
I am truly hoping that you are able to find some peace somewhere with this…
I am sorry. I’m sorry that tragedy should have visited you, and that this is so unfair. Sending you hugs and a vodka straight up.
{{{{HUGS}}}} I am thinking of you.
I have been there. I am so sorry.
I have sooooo been there – different Target, but same thoughts.
When we lose one, or two, or … more, people tell us we can try again. That invalidates all the feelings we developed for the ones we lost (no matter how little time we had with them).
Our society doesn’t do a great job of letting us acknowledge miscarriage as a loss – not just some health or biological blip – WE LOST A FAMILY MEMBER. It is not just a matter of physically healing to make room for the next uterine inhabitant – we have to deal with the grief from losing the one(s) who had already been in that uterus.
Of course you want your embryos back – they were yours and you loved them like a mom.
You are far from a drama queen. You read my blog. I am the drama queen. I yell and scream at my blog and I do whine alot about losing Samuel. I can’t do it outside of my blog because people get sick of hearing it. I use my blog as a outlet because if people don’t want to hear my bullshit then they don’t have to read it. It’s no fucking fair that our babies are dead. I wish I could give your babies back to you. I wish everyone’s baby could be alive. ((( Hugs ))) I fucking hate death.
Can I have your dreams? Please? I don’t even need to know who these people are or what shows they’re from.
Not drama. Life. Which sucks occasionally, and more for some than others. And sometimes, even though our brain completely comprehends that the double helix didn’t quite mesh and the lining petered out and frankly it’s probably for the best all things considered, it takes the heart a while (sometimes a long while) to catch up. Just because Darwin was right about a few things doesn’t mean we have to throw a party and jump up and down about it. It hurts.
Thinking of you.
Hey Aunt Becky,
I hope you’ll have a great Memorial Day Weekend!
I’m wish I could come up with something more than i’m so, so, sorry that you are going through this, but I haven’t been there so I can’t even begin to comment. I have struggled with PPD and anxiety over the loss of being pregnant (which is light-years different from pregnancy loss, I know). And damn, why is it that even the non-maternity tops in Target look like maternity tops?
Don’t be afraid to talk to people about what you feel, whether it be a professional, a friend, or even just your blog. You will feel the way you feel as you work through this, but you shouldn’t have to suffer in silence.
Oh cock! I fucking hate being depressed. Listen, of all people I’m not one to even weigh in on losing a pregnancy but seriously, sometimes it’s meant to be. Okay, kill me now but…why am I feeling equally miserable and I have two new babies???? I can’t get a thought in edgewise between the fucking screaming and worry that is accompanying these newborns and one with problems. So, if I can be so bold, there was obviously something wrong with your pregnancy and the next one will be perfect (I pray). In the meantime, you have a zillion people pulling for you and just because I said all that cliched shit in no way means you shouldn’t feel as bad as you feel. Want to have a cocktail with me?
Oh Becky,
I am SO sorry. And pissed on your behalf. You are not being a drama queen. Things are sucky right now. Blog about it, talk about it, have an appletini or three. . .whatever makes you feel better is what’s important.
I’m so, so sorry. The pain gets better over time, but not even the birth of a healthy child afterward will make it completely go away.
I still think about my miscarriages every day, and wonder about the people they might have become.
I find myself in the same boat regarding the writing about it. I want to, to some extent, but I don’t want to come across as some mellow dramatic bitch, ya know? It fucking sucks.
You don’t come across as anything but a grieving mother. And I will kick the ass of anyone who dare says different.
♥
Those almost-babies nestled in your heart and are still there, even if their physical beings took off. That makes it so hard. I know.
I always hated hearing “It’s God’s way of saving them from a horrible fate (i.e.-deformity).” That’s the worst explanation/excuse/response ever. It doesn’t make you not want them.
I don’t often do dream sex, but I had some with Brad Pitt the other day. I don’t really like him at all, but I read a quote in Elle from an artist that said how wonderful he was to help Angie adopt (the artists husband refused). It was all wrapped up in a child and a marriage that ends and Brad the returning prodigal husband. I’m messed up.