Tuesday, May 06, 2008

a little one in the middle of the night

When Dave and Finn and I were driving in the car yesterday, I said something and then followed it up with, "But that's when I thought I was pregnant."

Good lord. I didn't think I was pregnant. I was pregnant. The fact that I miscarried so soon is making me feel like it was a dream. It wasn't a dream. The fact that I miscarried so soon is making me feel like I should be over it. The fact that it happened so soon is making it seem sometimes like I am over it. But I'm not. I look good on top but I'm crumbly, shatterable. I'm good if nothing goes wrong but the definition of wrong has been expanded to include just about everything.

Those of you who don't enjoy Too Much Information can check out now. But really, those of you who are on that bandwagon probably abandoned this blog long, long ago.

I can always tell when I'm ovulating, and that's happening now. (Are you gone? I'll just tell myself.) I find it shocking that my body is proceeding. The ob/gyn I visited told me that we should wait through one normal cycle before we start trying again. I see what she fucking means. The whole cycle feels suspect to me, wild and unruly. I didn't give permission for the miscarriage to happen and I didn't give the go-ahead for my body to go ahead and release more eggs, either. Stop doing everything without me for a minute, body. Let me call the shots for a bit.

I mean, I've been pregnant before so I'm very familiar with my body going ahead and doing crazy shit without consulting me. (I'm clear that ovulation does not fall under the banner of "crazy shit".) But I gave my body permission to make a baby, and in doing that it got carte blanche to do whatever it needed to do to make that happen. In the wake of this miscarriage, I don't want even a metaphorical pencil put away in my body without me greenlighting it. Control.
Damn it, damn it, damn it, I'm having that feeling where I'm feeling like I ought to put a sock in it. Tina, c'mon. You just had a little miscarriage! You were only five weeks along! Which is more like, what, two or three weeks! What about people who had miscarriages at 6, 10, 12, 14 weeks? What about people who lost their babies after six months? Or after they were born? Shut up on their behalf, at least, right? But I hate feeling that ghost sock getting shoved in my ghost mouth by my ghost neurosis. It makes me want to fight. You want a piece of me, sock? People bitch about smaller things. I'm trying to work this stuff out and this is where I go to do it.

But seriously. I can't handle my body releasing a tiny little egg? Get it together, sister. Pull it together, mama.

I don't know how to treat myself here. But that last thing there, I would never say that to a friend of mine in this situation. If I were my friend, I'd tell me to treat myself how I'd treat a friend. There's a little guideline for me.

Okay. Egg, stop moving. Body, don't do anything without asking me. Everyone stop. Everything stop and let me get some trust back.

A couple of dear friends recommended that we take a trip to Cape Disappointment, down in the southwestern corner of Washington state. Take a day and go and throw some pain in the ocean. Whether we go or not, I want to go. If we don't go, I'm going to find a little place on the water nearby to call Cape Disappointment, and I'm going to go there, and I'm going to do something. I'm going to honor something. I mean it.

It's 3:15 a.m. I shouldn't be here. I should be sleeping. Sleeping is kind to bodies. I've heard this. Never tried it, apparently. People whose nerves are fried should sleep for a godforsaken second, shouldn't they?

Yes. Goodnight.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

A good guideline, to treat yourself to kindness as if you were your best friend. Hard to follow, if you're used to being hard on yourself like I am, but a really great thing to shoot for.

And yeah! I'm all for this go throw something in the water or somewhere idea. Have yourself a ritual, mama! Burn something, dance an angry sorrowful dance, blow smoke to high heaven.

Still sending you love and light, everyday, even when I don't comment - I'm still here, watching with you. Thanks for sharing your realness with us all.

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean re: the sock. There's always someone worse off than you are, but still, you feel what you feel and it's the worst you ever have. (and then later on when something even worse happens and you're like, man, i thought i had it bad then, but it was way better than this.)

(the general you, not you-tina)

you (tina) are going through a horrible thing. it's your business to go through it however you choose. we are on your side. i'm glad you're putting it all out there.

you will feel better eventually, on your own timetable. and then you'll probably feel guilty for feeling a bit better! you can't win! but yes, you can, because you're awesome.

when i had my miscarriage, my mom told me that she'd had one before she had me. and that the way she got over it was by having me. that makes me feel better when i think about the future. that someday i'll be able to say to my baby, we worked really really hard to get you here. we weren't kidding about wanting you.

hang in there.

love,
b

Tina Rowley said...

Thank you, sweetos. I'm willing some of the biscuits I made to cram their way out of your computer screens to you.

Mmmmrrrrggggh. Mmph.

I'm a lucky bloggo. Such honeyheads all up in here.

Anonymous said...

I love the idea of having a ritual. Rituals. Good.

Be gentle with yourself, and more importantly, don't be hard on yourself.

I love the Muppets clips from today's post. They take me back, and I just had to drag my daughter away from SpongeBob to show them to her. They made her grin too.

Oh, munch on some yummy biscuits for me... Mmmmm....

Scott Chicken said...

Hey, on the off chance that you're looking for any justification for the whole "blog as therapy" thing (and I'm sure you're not, but I'm going to foist this upon you anyway), CNN agrees. Or at least tells the story of other people who agree, which is basically the same thing...

girlysmack said...

I missed this post somehow -- been avoiding the blogworld for my own selfish reasons -- but I just have to add that yeah people experience worse than this, sure, blah blah blah, I mean look at Myanmar for God's sake (which will be my new motto, maybe?)

but also you need to be so kind to yourself because your hormones are Out Of Control right now as your body gets itself back into whack (which is also a good motto).

So give yourself a great big fucking hug and then go eat some biscuits with blackberry whatever on them.

I love the advice about Cape Disappointment, by the way. I really need to visit there one day. Speaking literally and most definitely not metaphorically. I mean, why on earth was it named that?!

Heather said...

This is good. I mean, what you wrote, not what happened. I just want to say "You're right", even if I'm not exactly sure about what. I just know you're right.