This Sucky Thing That Happened

Firstly, I want to offer heartfelt thanks from both Husband and myself to everyone who offered prayers, warm wishes, sympathy and support. Every bit of it has meant so much, and has helped to make this awful week slightly easier to bear.

In case you missed it, I spent last Wednesday in the ER following a miscarriage. I’ve spent the last several days since then resting and recovering. Physically, I’m still sore, but that’s getting better. Emotionally, I’m still prone to random bouts of weepiness. We’re both dealing with feelings of anger, of feeling ripped off and singled out. The last part is totally irrational. Since this happened, I’ve discovered that I know more women who’ve had miscarriages than who haven’t. It just happens, and it happens often, and there are so many things that can go wrong in the first trimester that it’s really a miracle that any baby ever makes it past that point. Statistically, it’s no surprise that it happened to me. But that doesn’t make it suck any less, or feel any less personal.

I feel tired and worn out on both plains, as does Matt. We’re both ready for this to be over with, to put it behind us and move on. Yesterday my mom came over and helped us put up our Christmas decorations. We didn’t really feel like bothering, but thought it was important to go through the motions, to remind us that life goes on. I think it helped. I also wrote this, which also helped.

Today (Monday, that is — it’s 2:00 AM on Tuesday as I write this) was less helpful. I had my follow-up appointment at the clinic, where the midwife thought she saw something during her exam that she wasn’t equipped to deal with, so she sent us back to the ER. After four hours sitting around the waiting room, we spent another four hours hanging out in an exam room, where I was violated by all manner of unpleasant instruments, only to be told the same thing they told us after the first ER visit/violation: that my body’s taking care of it on its own and I don’t need a D&C. So that was time and money well spent.

Now I’m exhausted, but too keyed up from being stuck in an ER bed all evening to sleep. I’m also still up partly out of guilt – we confined the cats before we left so they’d stay out of trouble, thinking we’d only be gone a couple of hours at most, and I don’t have the heart to lock them up again for the night so soon after they regained their freedom.

I’ll probably spend tomorrow catching up on sleep, then on housework, if I feel up to it. After a few days of enforced bed rest, followed by several more days of sleeping and being too sore and sad to bother, there’s a lot of it. Matt’s been a big help, but there’s only so much he’s able to do on one leg. By Wednesday I’ll get back to work, whether I feel like it or not–because life must go on, whether I feel like it or not.