Today was pretty tough. Despite my physician's request that I take two weeks off of work to "regain my bearings", I went back to the regularly scheduled programming known as my pre-pregnancy life starting yesterday. While I'd certainly love nothing more than to stay in my bed and continue my hermity way of grieving, fiscal responsibility simply won't allow it. I've been fully paying for all of my medical expenses out of pocket and as everyone knows...that piles up. Quickly. And inconveniently. However, doing so allowed me to find a great doctor with an equally great staff and that took some of the sting out of swiping my card at their office countless times over the past month.
But like I've said before and now consider my personal motto, just because things happen that are out of my power, I do not have to like it.
The level of physical exhaustion is still pretty high. The mental fatigue is far worse though. I think one of the most irritating things about this is being completely aware of "Oh sure, one day I'll be a relatively normal human being again", yet feeling as though that is light-years away. I 100% know now what it means to take things one day at a time.
Continuing on...
I'm going to give you an abridged low-down on this situation and the things leading up to it.
* I've never even had so much as a pregnancy scare in my entire life. I'm not pooh-poohing away any incidents of "Oh Shit, where is my period??!". I literally and honestly never had anything like that happen to me. Until this time. And that was somewhat misleading too since my monthly cycle is as fickle as reality TV frenemies.
* I conceived despite using a diaphragm AND the Plan B pill (in no way am I disputing these methods, they simply didn't work for me). A couple of other things factored into the failure of these methods for me, and I'll elaborate on that later (along with why I wasn't on the birth control pill at this time despite my best efforts to be). A lot of conception has to do with certain things being in "the right place at the right time", so to speak. Regardless of preparedness.
* I had what is commonly referred to as a "Missed/Silent Miscarriage". This means that your little one has departed from life but your body has not received the memo and continues pregnancy business as usual. At this point, I still feel incredibly betrayed by my body and nature in general for allowing something like this to happen to me or anyone else. In my case, the fetus died at 4 weeks exactly but my pregnancy did not end for another 3 1/2 weeks. For some reason typing that felt like a punch in the face.
* I'd been pursuing my dream career of becoming an OB/GYN Nurse since graduating high school. I felt that it was my destiny, despite being on the fence on having a family of my own one day. Expectant mothers and infants and birth are things I relished and I basked in the glow of all things maternal. Immersed myself in it. Could practically detect a pregnant woman from a mile away and it'd just make me elated. However, despite seeing every possible symptom countless times in countless women, I somehow failed to recognize it in myself. Suspend your disbelief. I wrote off everything I felt with an excuse of being something, ANYthing else. It wasn't even "I better not be knocked up"; the thought never crossed my mind as a possibility. And as such, that's why I've decided to stop pursuing my previous dream career aside from the painful bitchslap my heart gets from being around anything like that right now.
* Despite using contraception and not planning, let alone trying, to conceive (obviously), that does not make this whole ordeal suck any less. Not by a single iota. I was not immune to the draws of the heart. I've only fallen in love twice in my life; once with my incredible boyfriend, and again with this tiny little life I was lucky enough to carry around in my body, albeit briefly. Two different kinds of love. Both all-consuming. Both rewarding. Both life changing. I didn't plan for either, but that is what makes them both so grand.
That is how I manage to somehow feel lucky despite all that has transpired. 2014 has been a pivotal year for me. I've been introduced to the two greatest loves of my life after 26 years of merely existing beforehand. I've learned more since March than I did from every AP and Honors class, textbook, cram sesh, research, you name it...up to that point. When someone finally came and flipped the switch inside me and I finally understood why all my friends had gotten married, and Ryan Adams' songs made a whole new level of sense to me. I thought everyone was just more sensitive to it than I was. My boyfriend didn't even have to go out of his way to woo me, everything just crashed together.
Another switch was flipped in August.
I know now, fully, what its like to be alive and not just exist. Ryan Adams' sad songs make me cry in a new way now.
Loving and losing is shitty. And painful. Boy, do I get it. If I was more articulate (hell, even a musician in any sense) I'd churn out an average of an album a year for a span of my career, too.
For now, I think I'll stick to this whole getting through it one day at a time thing. Because everything else is still currently far too overwhelming to even consider.
xoxo
Angela
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