It's been three weeks to the day since I had a miscarriage. Not that I was counting--until one of the teachers at my daughter's daycare center stopped me in the hall to give me a hug and some kind words.
"I had two," she said, knowing I'd know she meant miscarriages. "One after my son was born, and one after my daughter. And I just told myself, 'I am lucky to have my beautiful son.' I would have been OK with one child."
Then one of my colleagues asked me on the phone, "How are you, woman? I mean, how ARE you?"
I knew what she was really asking about.
Then I got an e-mail message from a friend of a friend, telling me she was thinking of me.
"I hope you're feeling well enough to try again soon because you guys are such great parents and you have so much love to give," she wrote.
All very sweet. All very much appreciated. But did they all have to be on the same day?
What's so magical about the three-week mark? I'm not due for my period. I'm not coming out of an extended mourning period. (One doesn't really have time to dedicate to mourning, what with a job and a husband with a job and a 2-year-old and two big dogs and a 20-year-old cat.) Nothing on the calendar jumps out at me. Maybe it's just time to be reminded about what I've lost. Or, a much less sinister thought, three women happened to be thinking about one of their sisters all at the same time.
Of course there's a part of me--just a teeny, tiny, pea-sized part--that wonders what I am expected to say to people about what happened. How do I respond to their concern when it's about something so deeply personal to me?
"Thank you so much for your kind words."
"I'm great. Really. Doing a lot better."
"We're just thankful to have Z."
It's that last one--the response to the question of whether we'll try again--that really makes my shoulders scrunch. The assumption that, once the OB gives us the all-clear, we're tossing the condoms and jumping into bed. (Like K. and I have the time or energy for that in the first place.) The assumption that if I say, "Yes, we want to try" today, it means I'll still want to try tomorrow. The assumption that we were even trying in the first place. (We were, but still...)
Maybe I'm just being crabby.
1 comments:
Hello my friend. I'm so glad to find this, more than a year after you wrote it. And I know much has changed since that three-week mark. But here's my 2 cents: You are allowed to be crabby. You are allowed to take comfort in others' words, or not. You are allowed to come to terms with the goings on in your life in any way that is best for you. And look. You did! So, now that you really have no time for it, I hope you'll write more here. I know I'll subscribe!
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