There's no doubt that miscarriage is hard. Second and third trimester miscarriages are considered even harder because of how close you came to having a baby. It's also because you have to deliver. You may or may not hear your baby cry. It's sort of unfair to get so close to seeing that new life - only to see it extinguished. I'll pick up my story from the previous post - where I pretty much got over my 2 week crying fit over my loss.
Note : Part 2 of this story is here : http://pcosflowerchica.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-second-trimester-pregnancy-loss-at_25.html
Part 1 is Here : http://pcosflowerchica.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-second-trimester-pregnancy-loss-at.html
Now I'm a very determined person. I can pretty much handle setbacks well - but I was ill-prepared for the emotional turmoil that would come with losing our baby. I pretty much let myself weep for 2 weeks and then I decided enough is enough. The first thing I did was make sure that my life would have a manageable stress load. I was working and in college at the same time.
My immediate actions to get my mind right:
I should say - before I started figuring out what I had to do to normalize my life... I took a non traditional approach to the miscarriage when it happened. I refused any hospital counseling and really didn't want to go down that road.
First - at the hospital - I refused to hold my baby that had passed away. The nurses put the baby in the incubator for me - and I walked over once and looked at her for 2 seconds and that was enough. I know they keep them in an incubator so they can still feel alive - but that just seemed wrong to me.
Secondly - I refused to name her. I did not want to humanize my baby and create a relationship in my head that never really existed. I didn't want to let my thoughts flow towards the times we would have had together. I wanted to accept that she was the baby that would never have been.
Third - I didn't name her.
Fourth - I didn't have a funeral or attend any services for her. I said my goodbye in the hospital and that was that.
Fifth - I don't celebrate the date that she passed and I refuse to make an anniversary of it. I don't believe in intentionally dragging up a painful memory over and over. I'll never forget her and what we went through but I don't need the anxiety leading up to the anniversary and then the emotional ride afterwards.
Sixth - I packed away everything related to her - ultrasounds etc. There would be no reason for me to keep having reminders of the painful memories.
That's pretty much what I did to make sure I had a proper solid goodbye in my mind. It hurt - but I knew it would be for the better.
The next thing would be to make sure my life functioned in some normal way:
Step 1 - I decided to withdraw from all of my classes that semester. I would pick up where I left off in the next semester. I didn't want to go through the rest of the semester battling my emotions while trying to struggle through my courses.
Step 2 - My job was on campus so it wasn't hard. So I decided to keep that. That would give me a routine and force me to get up and be productive on a daily basis.
Step 3 - I also decided to get back into my workout routine. Funny enough, my obsessive exercise regiment was the reason that I managed to get pregnant in the first place. I guess I had so much exercise that my ovaries were jolted into giving me a few good eggs! So I re-engaged my running partner - and we went back to hitting the trails! The running was awesome. There's a sort of escape from your emotions when you run. Especially with us running out in the woods, I could simply get lost in the good feelings of my legs pumping away, my heart beating strongly, breathing deeply and slowly and just smelling the earth. The second plus is that the endorphins are an awesome legal high that you don't have to feel guilty about. So I ran maybe 3 days a week. I also got back into the gym.
Step 4 - Re-entering my social circle. Now it's very easy to want to withdraw from social settings when you have a loss like this. Of course everyone I met wanted to say something nice to acknowledge what I was going through. Some would dismiss the loss to say - it will work next time. Some wanted to ask what it was like. Some just wanted to acknowledge the pink elephant in the room without being tactless. It was difficult for all of us - so I decided not to make it a taboo topic. It wasn't off-limits topic with me and I did indulge anyone who wanted to know what happened. Honestly - talking about it sort of made it more bearable. It because this thing I went through but not some deep dark secret that I bore alone. It also allowed me to talk about it and to embrace it as just a part of my life. Several months of that and I began to realize that it wasn't having as much of a hold over me.
Step 5 - I went home . I traveled back to stay with my parents and family for a period of time to get a bit of an escape from everything that reminded me about the miscarriage. That helped a lot to give me a "break" from everything.
Now I still had moments of melancholy. There were still the sporadic bouts of tears when I was alone or with my husband. But I got to a point where I could go to baby showers without feeling bitter. I could watch TV shows about babies without lamenting. And I got over that hollow feeling in my womb. I don't believe that I was mentally ready to go back to work, re-enter my social circle, and start living my life again - but I decided to do it anyway. My attitude is that sometimes the body must go on while the mind takes its time to catch up. What I didn't want was to come out of my mini-depression and find that I've lost my job, I've gained a ton of weight, I've flunked my classes oh and yea ... still don't have a baby! I didn't want to allow the emotional component to become a destructive factor in our marriage. It wasn't easy - but it was for the better because this way - the stressors from the pregnancy loss didn't spill over into the rest of my life and I was able to return to some resemblance of a normal life - even though we were dealing with this tragedy.
It took probably a year before I "came right". And even now - there are still the memories and fears from that miscarriage that ride with me through this pregnancy. It's the reason I'll never really fully relax until I hold this baby in my arms for the first time. I'm ok with that - and have accepted that - but I refuse to be crippled by the memories of our first lost baby. I refuse to let it destroy the joyful opportunities in future pregnancies.
No comments:
Post a Comment