Every time I have to tell myself this, I become the 1 in 4 statistic again.
"I'm sorry sweetie..." the Dr. says. And I stare at the ceiling and think "Here we go again"
"I'm not seeing a heartbeat."
I blink and think "God is still good."
Words like D&C, cytotec, ultrasound, heartbeat, all come tumbling out and I'm an expert so I tune it out, knowing the drill. I know what's next, I've navigated these waters many times before.
I become exhausted just thinking about the physical, emotional, and mental strength i'm going to have to muster up in the next coming weeks, and I instantly want to hide.
So hide I do for those next few days. I call out sick, put on the biggest sweatshirt I can find and throw the hoodie on. I hide under the covers only coming out for food and to see my kids. The only energy I can muster is for those two kids who made me a mama on Earth.
Those next few days my heart breaks a little more and I hide even further into the covers. Darkness is comfortable and the darker it is, the more safe I feel. The darker it is, the less real it seems. But the stabbing pain in my heart tells me otherwise. Those breaks in my heart carve a line so deep, it meets the lines that were made by heartbreak many years earlier with my first miscarriages.
Each time it breaks me. Each time it hurts. Each time it changes me. Each time I have to tell myself God is still good.
But then something happens I'm not used to. Nothing happens. I decided to play the wait and see game and literally nothing happens. I come out from under the covers and make my way back into a functioning member of society. Well sort of. I get back into a semi routine, always waiting. Always waiting.
I get back into my therapy at home, working out. My first workout post heartbreak and I had to wear a cap to hide the tears I cried during the workout. A cap makes me feel safe. A routine is comforting, but I still wait.
I start to laugh again, i joke, i go about my day. All while carrying an untold story inside me. It feels wrong to keep something so sacred a secret. But at the same time I don't know what else to do. So I keep waiting.
I've never had to wait this long so I'm pretty much every single emotion in the book you can think of. I can't even miscarry right. Is there a right way? I don't know, all I know is that I'm angry at my body, at my God, and that I have to go through this yet again. It's not fair to go through this once, but 4 times? This isn't the expert status I'm proud of.
You see, grief for me comes in waves. When a wave hits me is when i frantically run toward the darkness. The covers, a big hoodie, even the corner of the shower will do. Anywhere where I'm not exposed. If I didn't have kids to take care of, a job to go to, who knows how long I would be held under my security blankets.
If I think too long and hard about it, I cry. If I think about the ultrasound where I saw the heartbreat, I crumble. If I don't think too hard about it, then I can function during the day. But what kind of mother am I if I don't savor every single moment with their baby, even if it be for a short moment in time?
I know there's no right or wrong answers in grief. I know my feelings are mine and mine alone, but that doesn't comfort me. Nothing comforts me because there is nothing to comfort a grieving mother. There is just time. Time to learn how to fit this ache into my life. This empty feeling that feels like hunger pains to me has to find a spot in my heart to nestle in. And as time goes on, the pain isn't there everyday, it's like it hibernates. It's always there, but you learn to live with it.
I'm never the same person I am going into a miscarriage as I am coming out of one. Each time, a piece of my soul shifts, and it's a feeling that's indescribable. It's something I can't put into words, or even show you. How do you show what broken feels like?
It makes me tired. So very tired. My soul, my body, my heart, my mind...just utter exhaustion. But I carry on, do momlife, survive the day, and my soul shifts.
It's nothing bad or good, it's just...different.
A new normal, a new scar on my heart, new emotions to navigate, and just wait for time to pass to start healing.
It's all exhausting.
I wish I knew how to make broken look beautiful. I wish I had a guidebook on how to survive heartbreak. I wish I could turn back time. I wish my body would do what it's supposed to do.
I wish no one to ever have to experience this level of silent torture.
"I know for that as long as it takes, her pain will also be her comfort. It will be all she has left. Grief is love's souvenir. It's our proof that we once loved...
...The journey is learning that pain, like love, is simply something to surrender to. It's a holy space we can enter with people only if we promise not to tidy up. So I will sit with my pain by letting my own heart break. I will love others in pain by volunteering to let my heart break with theirs. I'll be helpless, and broken and still-surrendered to my powerlessness...the courage to surrender comes from knowing that the love and pain will almost kill us, but not quite."
-Glennon Doyle , Love Warrior.
I feel like I've said too much, yet barely spoke my truth at all. How do you measure one's grief in words? I feel like I've rambled on forever, yet haven't even touched the surface on how I feel.
This is grief.
It's complicated and messy, random and raw, quiet and far too loud.
Time will pass and the ache in my heart will start it's hibernation. It'll come out when something triggers it, but it will never leave, it's here to stay. It's comforting and intruding all at the same time.
"She was brave and strong and broken all at once."
-Anna Funder
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