Thought for the Day

As Frank heads way too quickly for my liking towards his first birthday, the conception of number 2( or is it 6?)comes to play. My RPL went undiagnosed. It might have but probably wasn't a luteal phase defect. It has been referred to by numerous doctors as " bad luck." But I don't feel like my miscarriages were bad luck. Rather I feel like Frank's birth is good luck, a miracle, the extraordinary thing. After all, I'm 1 for 5 as far as live births are concerned.

Dancing in the Rain

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... It's about dancing in the rain.


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Today, while I was at work, I was thinking that our car could really use a trip to the car wash. Actually, I've been thinking this for weeks now. The car is pretty dirty. There's bird poop on it. Then I thought, "Well, today would not be a good day to do it. They are predicting rain tomorrow." The car has been waiting to get washed for weeks because "they are predicting rain tomorrow, this weekend, etc." If I keep putting it off because of the weather that might happen, is it ever going to get cleaned??

We do this in life all too often. We put things off because we don't feel our circumstances are ideal enough to go after our heart's desire. Ever hear what someone with kids, tells someone who says they are waiting to have kids when they can afford them? Usually it is something along the lines of "If you wait until you can afford them you will never have them."

I've put off alot in the last year. All because I was planning on getting pregnant, or because I might miscarry. It is easy to get caught in the storm of infertility and recurrent loss. It seems I spent so much of the last year focusing on having a baby to hold, that until now I missed the lessons of the babies I didn't. Life on this earth is short. And alot of the time it is stormy. If we keep waiting until each storm passes, to take the trip, to see the concert, to find a new job, to start working out,to start that hobby, to go back to school, we never will. Sometimes all you can do is dance in the rain until the sun comes out. And it will,but I want to be able to say I did something cool in the meantime.

As for the car, one day it won't matter what storms are looming. I will get it washed. And if its only shiny and clean for one day, it will be worth it.

Laughing and Moved at the Same Time

I was looking for books about miscarriage on Amazon. It suggested Knocked Up, Knocked Down by Monica Murphy Lemoine. She also posted a video dedicated to her stillborn son. It is very touching and funny at the same time. Don't get me wrong, after losing four pregnancies in less than a year, I feel for any woman stuck in this sorority of pregnancy and infant loss. It is a horrible place to be. However, Monica seems to cope with a snarky sense of humor. Read her blog and listen to the words in her song and you will see what I mean. It is a good representation of what parents of angels think about. I can't wait to read her book!

"And the World Spins Madly On."

Yesterday was my first day back to work after we discovered I misscarried a third time. I woke up and all I felt was dread. I was in tears at the thought of facing it all. I just I kept thinking since Tuesday was my day off, I would just call off Monday and give myself the extra two days. But the logical part of me knew, whether I went back on Monday or Wednesday, the first day back after the loss would be hard. It did not matter what day of the week it was. It did not matter how many days I was out. One day would have to be the first day back after loss. One day would have to be the day that life went on.

I think there's part of you when you suffer a loss, any loss, not just that of a child, that makes you look at the world differently. You get so engulfed in your grief that it is incomprehensible that everything hasn't just stopped. Because to you it should. Because to you it has.

There's this part of you that wants to scream at the grocery store clerk when she tells you to "Have a nice day.", "I WILL NOT HAVE A NICE DAY. SOMEONE I LOVED DIED." There are times long after the sympathy cards and the flowers come, long after whatever closure is supposed to come with the ceremony, that you will sit alone with your grief and nobody is calling to console you anymore. "Grief lasts longer than sympathy."

After my first two losses, it was months until I did not have to pause before I answered the question "How are you?" For awhile when someone who knew about my losses asked me how I was doing, I had to wonder "Are they asking me in that casual way people do to be polite or are they asking me in context of my loss?" I live in context of my losses. Would I have made it past the twelve week mark, that week that so significantly decreases the miscarriage risk? Would I be twenty weeks today and know the sex? Is today an estimated due date? Or, as it is almost a year later from when we started this journey, did I lose a baby on this day? All those things determine, how I am really doing on any given day. Every day I live with my losses. But I live.

So I got up yesterday and went to work. I waited on guests and did the rest of my daily activities. Because life goes on. The pets have to be fed, bills have to be paid, the apartment needs to be cleaned,etc.

In fourth grade, our teacher read the class a poem about a family that suffers the death of the husband/father. The mother makes items for the children from the deceased father's clothes. When the children ask her why she is destroying their dear dad's things, she responds, "Life goes on,children. I just forget why." Indeed,life goes on.