the key to grief

it's a very strange experience
to miscarry a baby.

i kind of hate the word miscarriage. just like how i hate looking into the toilet now. just like how i hate my heightened sense of all pregnant women in public. just like how i hate cramps and the wave of fear it brings.


at a photo shoot saturday i unexpectedly found myself telling the mother and friend, "It's so very weird to go from being yourself and having your body to yourself, then surrendering all of you to something else."  It's a sacrifice you don't even, couldn't even, fully understand until you have unconsciously found yourself served up as God's instrument.   Your body isn't yours, really, any more.  (and it finally teaches me that it was never really mine to begin with.)  Your mind and body are occupied with creating this baby's life.  It makes decisions and coordinates functions and moves and prepares all without your choice.  i never knew it would feel like this.  i knew being pregnant would be cool but i didn't know.  i didn't really know how magical it is.

it is incredible, truly.
but it is so strange.

and how crappy i have thought it is to feel my body becoming "normal" and becoming mine again.  i ache to be pregnant again.  it's like i was ushered into a new, bright room, through a gate to a better place, then in one night---pulled from it and placed back into no mom's allowed room again to sit with my empty uterus.
maybe i shouldn't...but i feel like i've been demoted.




i mostly wanted to write today so that someday i could reread this piece and remember.
i was vacuuming a couple of days after i began the miscarriage.  (i cleaned a lot as part of my coping. distractions.)
i thought about how the grief of miscarriage uprooted a lot of my feelings of past experiences.  all grief i've ever felt... kind of came back, poking at me.  i thought about my struggle with grieving my brother's situation and considered how i didn't really tell anyone, really, what i was thinking and feeling during that time.  i guess, maybe God.  i prayed a lot throughout that experience. and i think maybe only God knew. He was the only one i was real with.  i don't feel like i knew what to do with grief when i was younger.  i tried to write about it, to address it.  then i tried healthy things to distract me and move on from it and took comfort in understanding God's plan for his children on Earth.

i kept vacuuming and wondered about others i knew that experienced grief, how did they deal with it?  how am i dealing with my grief now?  what is the best way?  is there a wrong way?  what should i do?  but really, is shop therapy really that bad??  but serious, how to people get over things?

i couldn't answer all of those questions, but i did decide on one thing that was helping me the most.
my husband.
i decided that when you grieve.  whenever that is in life, over whatever it may be.  you must have one person you can be YOU with.

in a room with anyone but my husband, i unconsciously put on a smile, faked it through being put together, and made jokes.  i told myself, and other's even told me, you can be whatever you are feeling... you don't have to put on a smile.  but my body wouldn't let me.
i think it is a fear of creating an uncomfortable situation.
i don't want to wail and collapse in front of others. what are they suppose to do? imagine the adrenaline that runs through them and makes them panic when i loose it in front of them.  let's talk about THAT awkward situation.
so.
i fake it. to spare the awkward situation. and i remind myself to not fake it to myself at least.

so this is my life lesson learned : have someone (anyone) that you can be real with.  that you can still cry to even though its been weeks and you think you're suppose to be over it.  someone that you can tell how scared you are and what you're worried about and how you feel, all the real stuff.  someone that you can talk to about being sad and not feel like they want to run away from  your awkward pain.  someone that just lets you and doesn't judge you and accepts all of you.  you have got to have someone like that.

i think it's a key to life.
whether its a friend, or sibling, or spouse, or parent, or God or even a therapist.  we all need someone we can just be real with.  because who wants to travel through life hiding pieces of themselves and pretending to be happy?
hearts will heal if we will only let them.


i think its the only way i have survived this and had enough light to get out of bed each day and walk forward.  i am ever thankful for my husband for being this for me. it's invaluable to my healing and happiness.  and, oh, i wish it for everyone.