A retreat to go forward

Today, one of my friends told me she had just miscarried. Having had two myself, I could immediately relate to her situation. And all those hidden emotions, that were deep inside of me, gushed out. I felt the loss, anxiety, inadequacy, anguish, and sadness that comes with miscarriage all over again. Clearly, I over empathize too much. But I have been reflecting on those feelings all day. Sad for my friend, and hoping like hell that she doesn't have a similar infertility situation, that stemmed from my miscarriages, or worse. You can only hope.

I was amazed at her candor and courage to speak about it so soon after. It took a year for me to even breathe a word of it to my mother. It seemed like such a private matter at the time; it was a silly response to the pain I was experiencing. And then when I let it out, I was shocked at how many came to me with the same secret pain--it digs at your divine nature as a woman, and when you are robbed of that child, if feels unbearable at times.

Aaron always tried to be level-headed and scientific about the whole thing--his best defense mechanism. He would try to help me feel better by saying, "Your body knows what it is doing, and if something wasn't right, then it needed to happen." I respect this argument. But don't tell it to a woman who wants to have children. Because you begin to do the math about how many more months and periods you would have to endure before having a child. And at what cost, or in my case, how many hormones would you have to artificially pump through you before it would be possible.

The hardest part about miscarriage is not the miscarriage itself, but the time between the miscarriage and your next pregnancy. For me, that was almost three years. Three brutal years. I hope my friend will not have to wait so long.

I never have a problem sleeping, I sleep on demand. So I don't understand taking pills and I can't comprehend staying up all night. But tonight, I can. I have no desire to sleep right now. I know I will pay for it tomorrow.