Saturday, May 26, 2012

Unfair

This morning I woke up and my heart instantly felt sad and not complete. I got up and ate breakfast and cautiously turned on the TV. I only have a few channels that I like to watch and up until this week I never had a problem with any of the regularly scheduled programming. Now I'm afraid to turn on MTV - I don't watch MTV that often but on mother's day weekend there was a marathon of 16 and Pregnant which I gladly watched.

Now I'm scared to even turn on the TV and not be able to control what I see, like what commercials come on... will there be a diaper commercial? Or some kid's toy commercial? Will I flip through the channels and see some 16 year old girl who is like 8 months pregnant with a douche bag boyfriend and unsupportive family about ready to give birth to her first child which she knows she's not ready for but plans to keep anyways?

I know I shouldn't judge other people or even let circumstances of the lives of other people effect me so much, but I have to say it hurts incredibly to see some girls who are on a TV show that is made for the purposes of showing off a pregnancy that was unintended and perhaps unwelcome.

In my circumstances, getting pregnant was planned and was very welcome. Although I have to admit after seeing the first positive test result I was in such shock that it happened for us so quickly that I quickly felt so unprepared. My husband and I went out and bought a house within weeks of getting the positive pregnancy test because I didn't think our apartment was an appropriate place to bring our child home for the first time.

Now that we're not having this baby but still moving into a big house which will have 3 empty bedrooms... one of which I was excited about turning into a nursery... well it's just not as exciting anymore. While I'm definitely excited that we're buying a house and excited that one day we will fill it up with our kids it just hurts because now we're going to have guest rooms instead of baby rooms.

I went to work yesterday for the first time all week. I also planned on only staying for a half day to sort of ease my way into the work world again. It wasn't too bad. I actually woke up and thought "I'm excited to go into work today." Who thinks that? Well anyways, I kind of did my hair and did most of my makeup (minus any eyeliner or mascara for obvious reasons) and went to work. I felt strong for the most part, I got work done that needed to be done and send out some newsletter articles to be reviewed by the department chair and even the person I was writing about. Maybe not my best work but I was focused on work rather than my self pity.

About 11:40, 10 minutes before I was scheduled to leave for the day... I hear cooing in the office. Nothing distict could be made out but you could tell from the tone of the voices that it was something like "oh so cute" or "awwwwwww". I quickly messaged a coworker and asked her why people were cooing, praying inside that someone just brought their puppy into the office... but no it was a baby. She told me to shut my door and before the door even slammed shut tears started forming in my eyes. I had to hear a baby at work... today of all days. I heard the baby and whoever was carrying the baby walk past my office and the baby let out some sort of cry. I cried harder. Any other day I would be out there cooing with the rest of my coworkers but that just wasn't what I needed my first day back. Some unidentified baby in the office just being cute and making me envious for her mother who was able to have a baby and able to hold him/her in her arms and show him/her off in the office.

I can only imagine what she thought of me. I slammed the door shut, didn't even look at the kid. I wonder if she thought, "well I didn't mean to be a distraction to the workers here" and quickly ran off... she certainly couldn't have known my pain that day or from earlier in the week. She probably just judged me as some sort of baby hater and went on with her day. At least that's my point of view since I'm of course the center of everyone's universe. Of course what really probably happened was I closed the door and she didn't even notice or care to judge me at all.

So it's Saturday, approximately 3 days after my surgery and 5 days after I heard the worst news in my life. I ate cereal for breakfast and a bowl full of raspberries with whipped cream. I watch Jersey Shore on netflix because those people have real problems *sarcasm*. But at least they don't talk about their unwanted pregnancy... not yet anyways.

In about 3 months I'm told that I will have recovered enough to begin to think about trying again. Well there's no risk of TMI on my blog anymore, if you've gotten this far you kind of know what's on my mind and I assume you know where babies come from so yeah I'm looking forward to trying again. But I'm also terrified.

Part of the fear of my pregnancy before there was anything to be afraid of... was having a miscarriage but not knowing about it. That's exactly what happened to me. A Missed Miscarriage - or a "Missed Abortion" the actual term of my condition. The fetus dies but the mother shows no symptoms of miscarriage for at least 2 weeks since the death. Yup. My worst fear. I kind of assumed if I were to miscarry that I'd have the cramping and bleeding everyone talked about. But no, I went along with my daily life no differently than any other day. The only symptoms to speak of were my sudden lack of morning sickness and my boobs weren't hurting anymore. Just like that. I kind of thought that was normal for me, I've never been one to get crampy at that time of the month or anything so in my head I always assumed pregnancy would be easy for me.

What am I going to do the next time I see a positive pregnancy test? How am I possibly going to know the baby is growing normally and healthy inside of me without going and seeing a doctor every day... or twice a day! I never thought I'd be the person that needed to do that, I'm no hypocondriac or however you spell that word... but I am going to need reassurance. There are "dopplers" you can buy for at home to hear your baby's heartbeat. They're not expensive - like 50 bucks or more I guess if you want a higher quality one. But yeah I'm definitely going to have to buy one of those. And the first morning I wake up without the morning sickness, I'm probably going to set up an emergency visit with my midwife... Ugh. It's going to be 9 months of hell until I actually hold my baby in my arms.

I've discussed what happened to me on some message boards. Not really a whole lot. It's hard to write what you're feeling when no one really responds on those boards. I'm sure no one really knows what to say to each other. What do you say to a complete stranger who is going through the worst experience of their lives?

One thing I have gained from the message boards is a term... "Rainbow Baby." I don't know the exact origin of this term but I can only assume it comes from the rainbow at the end of the storm. The bright and colorful future with sun and warmth. I can't wait to meet my little rainbow baby. But I'm still mourning my loss.

1 comment:

  1. I think I've actually found it easiest to talk with strangers on the board... I tried to talk out loud for the first time about my "mmc" with a bff, and broke into tears... for some reason, saying it outloud was worse than typing it... It's comforting to know there's others out there that, unfortunately, are experiencing the same thing - otherwise, I'd look and see I was the only of my friends that this happened to (or I know about) and think I did something wrong and feel worse... long comment, sorry - I just meant to say thanks for following my blog =) and (HUGS) and for one stranger to another, let me know if you ever want to chat!

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