Miscarriage #2, from August

8/16/15

I had the miscarriage tonight.  I took the misotropol because as much as I wanted my body to tell me I was ready, my family was already telling me I was ready.  Tonight I had the opportunity to sequester myself away from the guys, watch movies I wanted, eat a hastily-prepared but tailor-made dinner of grilled cheese, spinach salad, and strawberries with chocolate, and let it come.  I might not have had that chance if I’d waited, and worst of all, I might have tried to squeeze it in among my other responsibilities.  It was never painful enough that I would have had to stop being a mom, a wife, a farmer, and I can think of few things that would have given me less closure than to try and smile through some other activity and not give this my full attention.

I caught the tiny embryonic sac (about the size of a dime), the cord tissue, and the placenta.  This time the embryo is too small to see, although with my last miscarriage we could see tiny arm and leg stubs and a little head.  I haven’t talked to Kevin yet, but I imagine we’ll take this one to the beach and release it at the mouth of Pescadero Creek.  I love the spot because it’s where all the water that falls on our house, our farm, Kevin’s office, Kevi’s school, our church, and our town finally enters the Pacific Ocean, which being from California and Hawai’i, Kevin and I feel strongly is “our ocean”.  It’s also where we released the other baby.

This miscarriage has been different because this pregnancy was different.  In my last pregnancy, I attached so quickly to the idea of the little baby who would join our family in October.  We decided we wouldn’t find out the sex because I really wanted a girl, and I felt like I’d be better off finding out when I had an actual baby to hold than when I had 20ish weeks to stew about it.  After the first miscarriage, my preference held but I didn’t think I’d be disappointed to have another boy.  Now it’s the furthest thing from my mind.  Since I didn’t want to find out the sex, for the first pregnancy I decided I still wanted Kevi to have something to call the baby before he or she was born, and since the birth would likely be in October, I decided we would call the baby “Pumpkin”, since that seemed reasonably gender neutral for after the birth.  So when I miscarried that pregnancy, I lost so much.  I lost Pumpkin and all my brainstorms for a family Halloween, the idea of Kevi having 6 weeks to adjust to school starting before we started really watching for labor.  I lost a perfect age gap and a birth month I was thrilled about.  I lost the specific family I had begun to build in my head.

So this time, I focused on what I had in front of me—a positive pregnancy test.  My experience with the first miscarriage taught me that pregnancy does not inevitably lead to babies.  Usually, perhaps, but not inevitably.  And now, with regards to Kevin and I, I think it’s safe to say, “Not usually.”  I’m optimistic about having a baby in the future, and I know a lot of things are in our favor—our age, our health, how easily we get pregnant (all three times it was the 2^nd month trying).  But since a positive pregnancy test is no longer tied firmly to a baby in my mind, I only focused on the pregnancy itself, on the promise of something special growing and changing and being cradled and nourished by my body.  I tried HARD not to say the word B-A-B-Y, and I never built an image in my head of a child or family that would grow from this pregnancy.  So what I’m mourning now is simply the pregnancy, and the idea that aside from one road bump, having another child will be as easy as having Kevi.  That’s what I lost, and while in some ways it feels bigger and more important than last time, it’s also more abstract and feels like a problem to tackle.  I’m mourning and I have bouts of sadness (I cried in the car today when I put the pills in my mouth), but I’m also more centered and able to see beyond that sadness.

Hormonology Week:  N/A, but tomorrow I’ll consider it week 1.
Book I’m reading: Beyonders 3:  Chasing the Prophesy, Brandon Mullen, (YA Audiobook)

          Percy Jackson and the Olympians 2 , The Monuments Men