On April 4, I found out I was pregnant.
On April 15, I miscarried.
It’s a strange thing, to have your heart full and broken in the span of 2 weeks.
The thing of it is, I was never supposed to be able to get pregnant again on my own. With this pregnancy, we defied the odds!
And then we became a statistic.
Members of a club we never wanted to join.
Miscarriage grief is unlike any other. Because, unlike most other deaths, and it is a death, there’s not necessarily a cause. There isn’t anyone or anything to blame, and there’s no identifiable cause. It’s just something that happens. And without something or someone to blame, it becomes that much harder to comprehend. You want to understand why or how. And you simply can’t.
And then it becomes your dirty little secret. You don’t want to tell anyone because you fear how they’ll look at you or what they’ll say or that they’ll start treating you differently. Because you’ve now somehow become broken or faulty. Now there’s something wrong with you. You’ve become less than.
Less than what, I don’t know. But you feel less than.
And that’s not even the hardest part. The hardest part is having to continue to live your life. Having to continue to live your normal, regular life paying bills and washing dishes and going to work and folding laundry and taking care of those around you who are still alive. To say it’s painful to go about your normal life when a literal part of you is gone is an understatement. You have to go on, though, because life has to go on.
Even if you don’t want it to. And you won’t feel like you want it to. You don’t feel like life will be normal ever again. But every day it does get a little easier. You’ll cry a little less. You’ll be able to eat. You’ll be able to laugh. You’ll have moments where you forget it happened. Then you’ll feel guilty that you forgot or you laughed or didn’t cry. That’s all okay.
Own your guilt.
But then let it go.
Because feeling guilty won’t help you heal. And that’s what needs to happen. You need to heal. It’ll probably take a long time. No one expects you to move on in a few days. Take as long as you need to heal.
But allow yourself to heal.
As for me, everything is still fresh and every day brings a new trigger. I’m still perpetually sad. I’m still working on granting myself permission to heal. I’m still working on looking in the mirror and not seeing swollen, red eyes. I’m still working on forgiving myself and God and whoever else I lashed out at when it happened. I’m still working on letting my husband help me, and I’m working on helping him and our daughter through their grief. I’ve got a long way to go, we all do, but I know eventually, we’ll be okay.
