Loss and Grief

I have been dreading these two days for weeks. Yesterday and today mark the days when, two years ago, I discovered I had lost the baby I thought I was carrying. I knew these days would be difficult. I didn't want them to be difficult. I want to be completely over this. To have the pain and the grief and the emptiness gone. But I know that's never going to happen. They will always be a part of me. I just hope that it won't always be this raw. I'm surprised at how jagged the edges of my grief still are. I don't think of it terribly often through the rest of the year. Every now and then. But not often. But on the anniversary of this loss I can think of little else.

I stood at my bedroom window yesterday watching the rain. And I thought, "This is what it should have been like that day. The rain, the gray, the gloom and cold and wet." But it was beautiful then. Crystal clear blue skies, clean air, white snow. Nearly the perfect winter weather. Perhaps some day I'll find comfort in the fact that it was still beautiful even with that horror going on. But not now. Now the pain is still so strong I wonder that the whole world didn't grieve along with me.

There is a lot about the past few years that is a blur in my memory. I've been so tired and so busy (and sometimes so sick) that is was all I could do to survive. Committing things to memory was far too much effort. But those 2 days two years ago are burned into me. I couldn't forget a moment of them if I tried. I keep reliving the ultrasound. We had gone to the appointment so happy, so calm, so arrogant. Certainly grateful and blessed to be doing it again, but not worried or anxious about anything. I didn't even worry when the little microphone didn't pick up a heartbeat. Those are temperamental on the best of days. Even when I'm nearly to term it can be a struggle to find just the right spot to hear that rhythm. When the portable ultrasound didn't find anything but the amniotic sac, I was a little confused, but not terribly nervous. The midwife seemed confident that there was nothing wrong. The machine is unreliable, she said. I try never to use it, she said. We'll just go check in the ultrasound room with the good equipment. Everything will be fine.

Then, when the ultrasound technician carefully kept her face blank, I knew. I knew even before she looked at the midwife and shook her head.

I don't like to think about the next few hours, and days, and weeks. But today, I can't help it. I'm not ready yet to talk about all that came next. Not even with those closest to me. Perhaps I may never be, and that's a new sensation for me. I do know that I wish there weren't so many women who could understand how I feel. I also know that everyone's story, everyone's pain, is different and unique. Mine is becoming part of who I am. Someday I hope the grief and loss won't burn quite so fierce and deep. Someday I hope to be able to tell the rest of this story. For now, I'll survive and hold on until it passes. It's the best any of us can do some days.