How Things Are

Week #2 has started. I feel like I just lived through losing the baby. J and I were talking last night and he feels like it's been ages ago. It's just different, the long-term effect. I knew it would be and that is ok with me. He is over his grief for the most part while I still am experiencing it in a real way.

Have you every had two delicately chained necklaces somehow get thrown too quickly back into your jewelry box, only to pay for it later when you tried to retrieve them? They're a tangled mess, compounded if they look alike. I used to be the go-to girl in my family for tangled necklaces. I'd diligently labor over those things with my fingernails (well, as a violinist, my left hand had none), untangling it piece by piece. In under an hour, I'd have the necklaces separated and a very happy sister. Even in marriage, I've translated that into helping my husband with fishing wire and a very tangled net... No cutting, just long hard work.

Well, I've discovered my feelings over this miscarriage are much like two tangled necklaces. I discovered I am actually grieving TWO things. The immediate grief, sorrow, and hurt was over losing over baby, our baby's death, never knowing what our baby looked like, never getting to hold it, the hopes of this pregnancy destroyed, losing our firstborn.... This is expected, understood.

But after living through my first week of realizing our baby's death, my feelings the second week turned different. The cutting grief wasn't the same. I was... depressed. I was able to cook and do laundry and work again. But the house brought a deep-seated gloom over me. Quiet thoughts turned dark. I wasn't crying as much, but it was so hard to keep from a creeping saddness over me. I wondered why I should be depressed, when I know our baby has now never known sin, never been separated from Christ, and is being cared for by the one who loved it so much He gave His life for it.... And then I saw the second chain... I began to untangle the different emotions...

I was depressed because of what it took to get pregnant. Twenty-six months to get that baby... 7 medicated cycles, three of them IUIs, one of them IVF. 17 retrieved eggs, 8 embryos with only 3 (for now) surviving (the two we transferred, the one that froze). A few thousand dollars. 31 PIO shots... and now the knowledge that we have a few months to try ourselves, but J's deployment will take 2-3 months from TTC and we miss out on WH's Jan IVF cycle, so we wait until May. So there is my secondary grief. Actually, I don't grieve over that, I'm just depressed looking at all it may take to even get pregnant agian. But weren't we lucky? IVF #1 worked. That doesn't mean IVF #2 will. I keep forgetting not to assume that. Sheesh, so much to think about.

So, last night I called a dear friend who I've emailed for a while, but not talked to on the phone/person since her sister's wedding in June 05. Since she married and moved away, we just haven't been phone people. And it's been fine. But she went through secondary IF and 2 miscarriages before she got her 2nd child. She knows the pain of IF plus miscarriage (an inner circle of Dante's hell, I'm sure). I knew from emails that even with baby #2 she still grieves those two lost babies and misses them. So I talked to her about the new depression. And she listened and validated what I'll feel. She talked about how normal these stages are. She let me talk about our baby (which I want to so much!). She talked about hers. It just helped give me a feeling that I'm not so alone or so crazy or so obsessed. It's ok to think and talk about our child and how afraid I am of what it'll take to get another one to stick around.

I got off and talked to J, that's when he told me he doesn't grieve anymore. And I didn't feel sorry for myself, we are opposite and complimentary, and one's weakness is the other's strength. I know his new emotions don't mean he doesn't care. Not in the least. I'm glad we can talk. He doesn't thinking I'm prolonging my pain. He doesn't think I'm dwelling on it for my purposes. I talked about having only two people (IRL) understand my tangled necklaces of miscarriage with IF. At first he thought I was getting into an me vs them, but as we talked he said he recognized the difference in people's reactions and how they couldn't get it.

So, I don't feel depressed today. I do feel like someone's asked me to hike the Grand Canyon down and up again with no assurance of food or rest at the end of it (I've actually hiked the canyon, so I know what I'm talking about!). Am I weary? Yes. Do I want to go hiking? No way. But I'm promised nothing if I just stay here. So I will climb. I may slip and scream and cry, but I will accomplish the purposes this has been put into my life for. Let's Climb.