highs and lows

Here I sit in a different type of waiting. Waiting to miscarry this pregnancy. It’s a weird sort of limbo to be in, thinking every twinge and cramp might be it, to check for blood every time I use the bathroom. Each day that passes I don’t think about it quite as much, so much so that I am afraid that when it does start it is going to catch me off guard and totally wreck me. I no longer feel pregnant with the exception of slightly sore boobs and a heightened sense of smell. At least I am no longer nauseous, it’s a certain type of cruel to have pregnant sickness and to not actually have a viable pregnancy. So what does one do while they are waiting to miscarry their surprise pregnancy? I am going to go back in time a week ago and do a little recap.

Last Monday was really rough, just raw emotions seeping out and non-stop grief-crying. I managed to get a decent and much needed amount of sleep and woke up Tuesday feeling still raw but a bit better. I wanted to so badly hide under the covers but I couldn’t so I went a little manic and felt like I could do all the things. Got breakfast and a shower, put on real clothes and got my little boys dressed and went tondonall the shopping for my oldest’s 18th birthday celebration the next day. Overspent on all the groceries but decided life is too short. Realized that when I slowed down that is when the tears would start so I kept moving. Talked to my sister and avoided talking about it and kept steering the conversation to how they are all dealing with the flooding (still) from Hurricane Florence. Spent an inordinate amount of time on the requested birthday Apple pie. Baby boy was likely coming down with something so he was extra difficult to get down to sleep and I just wanted to lay there and cry with him. Stayed up late but never felt tired.

Wednesday was 18th birthday, so I spent all day prepping and making all the requested foods plus a ton of extras. Decided we were just throwing a mid-week after school cookout. Put on real clothes again and plastered on a fake smile and took another child to the orthodontist and acted like everything was just fine, all while feeling like a liar inside. Even looked at pictures of my favorite receptionist’ toddler grandson and her DIL’s very pregnant belly and heard all about the impending birth. Fell apart crying later while writing a special note in a birthday card to my oldest. Internally chastised myself that I needed to get it together. Emotionally ate everything and anything and all the things out of celebration and grief. Booked a hotel room for a weekend beach getaway for the family that we had to postpone a couple weeks ago due to the weather. Also booked train tickets to NYC in December for my girls and I for our mother-daughter trip we decided a while ago we wanted to take. Hotel room has been booked, but  it wasn’t set in stone until the train tickets were booked. Had been thinking we might not go, but now there is no reason we shouldn’t.

Thursday and Friday were mostly spent holding a sick little boy and finding indoor things to keep us all occupied in the rain. Exchanged a few messages with the couple people who knew I was pregnant and had to be told the sad news. I think I still have 2 people to tell but I just haven’t had the will to do that. I cuddled my baby boy a lot and relished his little chubby, healing arms around my neck. I tried to get to bed Friday early but Murphy’s Law and the night went terribly wrong. Stressed out because we were having our first GO LIVE day at work with the new system and I had to get there early and deal with a million extra people around.

Encountered car issues trying to leave and after 10 minutes of trying had to quickly switch to another vehicle. Was super annoyed driving in to work and walked in to a ton of people and the supervisor I really don’t get along with. She was supposed to be “hovering” but instead decided to micromanage and otherwise cause a ton of confusion while meddling in our work and trying to “teach” us a system she clearly didn’t understand how to use. And she came in sick with a nasty cough and kept coughing in my ear while yelling commands over my shoulder and I lost it on her. Once she was out of the way I figured out everything fine. But not before (in front of no fewer than 6 of my coworkers and BOSS) does she procede to say that isn’t it about time “I had another baby” and that she thought I “should have an even number of kids” and then tried to call me out for my non-answer as agreement or confirmation. Now, normally I probably would have told everyone what I was going through currently, and it did cross my mind to say, but I do not like this person at all and just feel like it’s none of her damn business what is happening with me, and I realllly wasn’t interested in all the sympathy looks and phrases ainwould get from them if I had told them so I said nothing.

And can I just say how freaking mad it makes me that people just assume because I have five children that I am able to get and stay pregnant easily??? Because it does. And also, I have worked here for nearly 12 years, and spent 8 of them trying to get and stay pregnant, so it is not as if I have had a kid every other year since working here. AND this person herself had experienced recurrent pregnancy losses and ended up with a hysterectomy and no living children of her own, so she should freaking no better. And yes, she is also aware I have lost pregnancies before.

That wouldn’t be the end of my day, though. Not at all. A couple hours later I found myself having to go C-ray a baby is the full term nursery. Now, I go to the NICU all the time and it doesn’t bother me, but something about the FTN just got me. And for a brief moment when I first walked in I was alone with the baby, and I could just feel like I was not going to be able to hold it all together, when bybthe grace of God the nurse walks over and talks to me and so I wasn’t going to have to pick up the squishy newborn or be alone in that moment so I flipped my brain and got the job done but MY GOD my heart.

So now it has been a week, and I am still waiting. Going back and forth between complete sadness and utter mania. Trying to keep things moving, trying to stay busy. Throwing myself in to all sorts of ridiculous projects and things. And in the quiet cracks of life feeling so utterly sad and coming to terms with the ending of this, the ending of this chapter of my life. Because it is all tangled together in this messy web of a surprise pregnancy, acceptance of one kind, and now of a loss that sometimes feels greater than the sum of its parts. Wishing all at once that I would just bleed and get it over with, and also so afraid of that, of closing this last sad chapter, because while I was here, I was still so full of hope that things could somehow turn out differently, for all of us.