babylust

monday, monday...can't trust that day

Get ready for a whiny post ahead.

For me, Mondays are never fun. So, the first Monday of being back at work for an entire day after nearly two weeks of being out on medical leave was, well...I'm sure you can imagine. Torture was the first word that came to mind, but that seems entirely inappropriate considering the state of our world these days. So, I'll settle for saying that my day sucked (yes, my language skills are flourishing). I did have a zillion things to keep me busy, so I wasn't left to sit at my desk, staring at the wall, thinking about how crappy the world is, and how crappy my world has been for the past two weeks...really for nearly the past year. But what I had to do were things that I absolutely hate, like preparing for a meeting that I'm absolutely dreading, revising the highly edited 30 pages of funding guidelines for the grant program I coordinate, and...gasp...returning a dozen or so phone calls. Really, it's the phone calls that get me. These days, I prefer to communicate via email, at least for business purposes. It's just easier that way. In emails, I don't have to try to disguise the sorrow in my voice or choke back my tears when the person on the other end of the line asks why I don't sound like myself. It's because I just had my fourth miscarriage, silly. It's because I actually let myself believe that this time it might work. It's because, for the past two weeks,  I've been crying and bleeding and cramping and wondering what shape my insides were twisting themselves into (yes, my grammar skills are improving too). So, top off that first day back with a minor auto mishap on the way home, and you have an emotional miscarrying woman in tears by the time she reached her driveway.

So, there you have it. Don't say I didn't warn you.

pardon me, please

Today I’m feeling downright ornery. So far, I haven’t had a whole lot of outright anger or general pissiness while living the life of a miscarrying woman. Until today. I even considered running over a stubborn pigeon in the parking deck this morning. I didn’t actually do it. But the thought did cross my mind. Poor pigeon. Apparently my grief is not only making me cheerless and angry; it’s also making me a bit irrational.

Last week, I wrote about the general feeling of sadness that settled around me, just when I felt like I was getting back into the swing of things. Again, there’s nothing in particular that happened to trigger my foul mood, it just seemed to sweep down out of nowhere and grab hold of me. Whatever the reason, I now feel stuck.

I’ll take this opportunity to apologize to anyone who may cross my path today. I’m really a nice person. Really.

Here are some of the thoughts that have been racing through my brain:

I feel consumed with my grief and with figuring out where we go from here. I feel angry that I have to go to work, when I feel compelled to spend all of my time processing my grief, reading, researching, commiserating. I feel frustrated that virtually all I think about is pregnancy--getting pregnant, staying pregnant, miscarrying.

I feel paralyzed. I want to make some big changes in my life, and I feel like where I go from here depends on what may happen (or not) with getting and staying pregnant in the near future. I’m trying to make decisions based on something that has proven to be completely unpredictable and uncontrollable. What is one to do?

I feel guilty for not returning phone calls, for not wanting to participate in social engagements, for feeling so darn tired. I mean after all, life is hard. Not just mine—everyone goes through really hard times. But most people keep going. Why can’t I be one of those people who always have the energy for others, no matter what space they are in? I want to give back to everyone around me who has been loving, supportive, and compassionate. I think I’m starting to wonder why I can’t just get over it already.