When I was 6 years old I heard the term "lost the baby" for the first time. The Grown-Ups were talking in hushed tones that the Strodabacks-our neighbors, she of the big smile-had been pregnant, and then she lost the baby.

My first thought was: How careless of her.

My second was: Maybe it's just in her shoulder. She only thinks she lost it, she just hasn't looked hard enough for it. She'll realize where it went in a few months, when her shoulder gets enormous. Then it'll be ok.

The Strodabacks went on to have two children, one of them a Down's baby.

I don't think anyone corrected me about my theories of losing a baby, it's just something I cottoned on to what losing a baby really meant. 26 years later, I know what losing a baby really means.

I really do.

It's not in my shoulder. It's not because I've been careless. Chances are there was something genetically wrong with the child, and my body took care of the housekeeping itself. Surprisingly, even though I lost Egg and Bacon years ago, this has been harder.

In fact, it has been the single hardest thing I have ever gone through in my life so far, ever.

I haven't been able to sleep without the aid of little blue pills. I have been drinking. A lot. I haven't been eating. The idea of going outside makes me tired, yet I've had to do it.

Yesterday I went to my therapist. It was a rainy Saturday, and Fall has come-sycamore leaves fell to the ground and I pulled my sweater against the chill. There in his Autumn-darkened office I cried like a child. Remarkably, he cried too. I let it all out to the only person besides Angus that I can talk about it with. We went through every detail-from the blood clot the size of my palm that fell out of me, to the afternoon when I curled up on Angus' lap crying that I am simply not strong enough to handle this.

I'm not strong enough to handle this, this is just life, and there is no choice but to keep going.

In my own ways, I am making my way forward. We will try again but unlike the average couple that can try again as soon as the last of the blood dries up, our attempts involve months of planning, endless injections, and surgery. Our babies come to us via IVF, something that makes it all so much more expensive, financially, physically, and time-wise. As a couple, this failure is that much more acute-we had beaten the odds and gotten pregnant on what is called an FET, or frozen embryo transfer. The odds of pregnancy on an FET in England are 16%. We beat those 16% odds, only to trip and fall on another statistic-there was an 80% chance this pregnancy wouldn't miscarry, and that's the hurdle we failed to leap.

It is also what makes it feel one million times more unfair, but the single most important thing I have learnt is that babies don't grace your life on the basis of fair.

To know more of what it feels like to be someone going through IVF, and the best way to know how to handle someone going through infertility, please watch this.

Be careful-it makes me cry every time.

I am handling things in my own way. I have good moments and bad moments. The day of the loss it was so important to me to do something in remembrance, and I really can't explain why it was so urgent, it just was. I have ordered a bracelet that I will never take off once it arrives-it's a silver bracelet with a tiny angel, an angel whose heart is a little diamond. The diamond is the birthstone of April.

April-my birthday. Angus' birthday. The would-be birthday of the little one we lost.

I also appeal to my Asian background and plan on honoring Jizo. Jizo is a Buddhist god who serves as a guardian to limit your time in hell. Jizo is also a protector of the unborn, a protector of expectant mothers but, more than that, he cares for the miscarried and aborted, ferreting them into his voluminous sleeves when the demons creep up the sides of the riverbank. He looks like a happy God, and I entrust the twinkling soul of our child to him.

It's as I told my therapist-I don't need something to remind me of my loss, I will have that for the rest of my life.

I need our embryo-who we saw on an ultrasound monitor a little over a week ago looking healthy and fine-to know that I honor and remember it.

After my session I meet Angus in Foyle's, the greatest bookstore in the world. I find a copy of this book and I read it from cover to cover. Somehow it helped, a salve to an open wound.

I wish I could be back where I was a week and a half ago, a healthy pregnancy and a brilliant outlook.

Instead, I still cry a lot. It still hasn't sunk in and maybe never will. I can't visit the websites of people I know and love. I can't watch anything involving babies or children. We were invited to a barbecue today with a couple we know. It would've been with their little girl, who was conceived via IVF and born when Egg and Bacon would've been, and so we gave our regrets.

I just couldn't do it.

But I am getting there. Believe it or not I am surprisingly optimistic about our next cycles. I may have a hole in the middle of my heart but I do see that there's a future.

I can't talk about what happened but my therapist says I need to let others know. Angus is going to tell our friends what happened, and I told my father and my good friend Jim about it, too. Jim will be here this coming weekend and he's promised that I don't have to talk about it, but how about a drink? My father, I hope, respects my wishes that I don't want to talk about it, as my dad? He's also going to be here in a week, and I haven't seen him since I lost my job at the end of 2003.

You might be tired about me talking about this subject, but it's something I am trying to work through. My blog is the training ground for my thoughts. I need this space, and soon I will need to stop talking about this topic out loud.

I have passed through the grief stages of disbelief (maybe it didn't really miscarry) and anger (I fucking hate everything and everyone). I've done the bargaining with god part. I'm currently still in the sorrow part. My therapist says I'll be up and down for a while, but something that will help me is when my next period finally comes, which after miscarrying can be some time away. I agreed with him, and I have something else to look forward to.

I'm trying.

God knows, I'm trying.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 04:47 PM | Comments (37) | Add Comment
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