Changes

Pregnancy must have made me go temporarily insane, because that's the only explanation for why I thought I could handle moving into a new house, having a baby and taking a vacation all at the same time. But it was cool. This is my second kid, I got this....right? And then the universe was like "Hey, a global pandemic sounds like fun!"

Maybe the universe sensed my growing anxiety as a result of overbooking myself, because we ended up deciding to cancel the vacation due to COVID-19. It's unfortunate timing because I was really looking forward to a vacation and a change of scenery, but it's not like we didn't have enough to do here at home with the new house. However, now we're facing down a whole other set of challenges with the pandemic: the work we wanted to have done at the house prior to moving in may not happen due to the governor shutting down nonessential businesses; the proximity of giving birth to a possible spike in numbers of infected people in the state causing all kinds of fresh anxiety for me; a delay in being able to move and not being in the new house by the time the baby is born. Fucking hell.

All of these things weren't even a blip on the radar a few months ago. Just goes to show you what a rapid-fire novel virus can do to your plans, I guess.

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UPDATE: since I'm a procrastinator and didn't finish the above post in a timely fashion, I have some happy news to share. Turns out painters, carpet cleaners and movers are "essential workers," so we were able to proceed with getting into the new house a little earlier than planned due to canceling our vacation. So...gutters and strikes. Overall, though, I'm so glad to be in the new house in time for this baby to arrive. During our last two weeks in the old house, the universe reinforced our need to get the fuck out of there by way of the yearly ant invasion that happens in the spring, as well as the unwelcome visit of a mouse in the living room late one night. Hint taken. So we got the fuck out, and I couldn't be happier about that.

However, COVID-19 has still made life a little more cumbersome. My work closed down, forcing me to work from home, which is completely not conducive to the type of job I have; I'm a social worker and used to seeing my clients face to face in a vocational skills program setting. My son's daycare closed down as well, so in addition to navigating a whole new way of doing my job, I now had childcare responsibilities to juggle along with that. My husband also started working exclusively from home, which sounds like an ideal situation when you have a toddler to take care of all day, and we did have some effective tag-teaming going on when necessary, but overall I took on most of the kid care, thus resulting in getting a lot less work done and eventually getting written up for not meeting my productivity standard. That pissed me off for a minute, but what was even more upsetting to me was the dejection in my kid's face at times when he wanted me to play with him and I had to tell him that I couldn't because I had work to do. So, I decided to go on maternity leave a few days earlier than planned, because right now spending time with my son before he has to share mommy and daddy with a sibling is more important to me than trying to keep up with a bullshit productivity standard for work.

Speaking of the new baby, tonight is the last night my kid will go to bed here at home an only child. He will stay overnight with his grandma tomorrow night since I have to be at the hospital first thing Monday morning for my c-section, and then he will be a big brother with a new sibling and a new normal. Obviously I'm anxious about how he will do with the new baby and how he will feel about having to share his mom and dad with someone else. He is my rainbow baby, my whole world (for better or for worse) and I know I have carved him out to be the center of everything just about every day since he was born. I mean, don't get me wrong, when he's being rude or obstinate I will demand he straighten up or face the consequences; he's not utterly spoiled to the point of obnoxious. But he is my firstborn and I willingly admit I am probably more accommodating to him than I ought to be sometimes. So I worry that a sibling will completely mess up his world for awhile amidst all the other new changes that have happened all at once (new house, daycare closing, pandemic life, etc). I know, I know, we will all be ok and things will sort themselves out. In the meantime, worrying about my kid is actually keeping my mind off the anxiety about *my* new normal and how *I'm* going to handle the big changes coming. Ready or not, here comes baby! I'm just crossing my fingers that the second time around, the sleep deprivation isn't quite so shocking and profound.

 

Working mom and adult time

Last night, the hubs and I went out to a comedy show, a gift I had gotten him months ago for his birthday. We had the day all planned out: drop the kid off at grandma's, go to some open houses nearby, head to a quick dinner and then off to see the show. An almost full day of just the two of us doing adult stuff and spending time together. It was going to be awesome.

My husband said it best: "The best laid plans..." *eye roll, shrug* That's because right when we were getting dressed and getting his bag packed up to leave, the kiddo decided to pukeface all over the couch and floor. This followed an epic diarrhea diaper earlier that morning. And he had been fighting something for the last couple of days, as this was the fourth or fifth pukeface since Thursday of last week. But in our defense, we had been lulled into a false sense of security that everything was ok, because the previous day came and went with no alarming bodily fluid ejections.

Obviously we didn't feel right taking a pukeface, mud butt toddler over to grandma's house and making it her problem, so we cancelled plans to go to the open houses, and the hubs went to Costco to grab something for dinner. My saint of a mother-in-law agreed to just come to our house and watch the kiddo while we went to the show later in the evening. Oh, and he puked all over himself and the couch while we were gone, so she ended up having to deal with that, and she washed the soiled clothes, blanket, couch cover, etc. A saint, I tell you.

As we left the show that night, my husband thanked me for getting the tickets, and I made a comment along the lines of "well we never really celebrate each other's birthdays or anniversary with any significance anymore, so I wanted to actually make an effort this year." And we chatted for a minute about how having a kid has changed the way we prioritize each other and has basically pushed most things to the back burner, including our own birthdays and what not. (Case in point: we still haven't made it to the fancy restaurant I wanted to go to for Mother's Day this past year) I mused "maybe with this next baby we will be more relaxed and laid back, since it's coming in the spring and we will have more opportunity to get out and about earlier." (We had our son in the dead of winter, so obviously I didn't leave the house for three months) And then I remembered how neurotic and anxious I am about everything and I laughed at myself for thinking I could ever be relaxed with a newborn.

At lunch this past weekend, an ADULT lunch with my husband, brother and SIL (we threw our kids at my parents and ran for it), my SIL and I joked about how much we crave adults only time or alone time, but when we're actually away from our babies we miss them and just want to get back to them. Of course, my husband had a different opinion:

SIL: "But don't you ever miss him when you do actually get time away from him and want to get back and see him?"
Husband: "No! You have to take full advantage of the time away and enjoy yourself!"

I made the point that one of the reasons why I miss my kid when I'm away from him, even just for a couple of hours, is because I work full time, I'm not a stay-at-home mom, and when I do spend time with him during the week, it's morning and evening routines in order to stay on schedule, which can feel regimented and restricted rather than actual quality time. So I really try to maximize our time together on the weekend. For better or worse, I like to have lazy mornings on the weekend, snuggling, watching cartoons and eating cereal in bed and not getting dressed for the day until at least the ten o'clock hour. I know toddlers need to stay on a schedule, even on the weekends, but I figure we have five days a week we are rushed and hurried in the mornings and evenings; two days a week of getting off course isn't going to kill us.

Recently, I had a particularly challenging morning where everyone was running late, I was stressed and trying to get the kid fed and his teeth brushed as quickly as possible so that we could try to get to school/work on time, and then my kid decided mid-way through breakfast that he had to poop and wanted to sit on the potty. As a mom who has been trying to encourage using the potty as much as possible, who was I to deny my kid when he requested to use the potty?? Obviously, I already knew as we dilly-dallied up the stairs that I was going to be late for work, so I texted my boss who should've fired me a long time ago for tardiness that I was going to be late to work because of my "goddamn kid." He didn't end up pooping on the potty (go figure), but he did poop in his diaper about five minutes after getting off the potty.

I've never really wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, but that morning, I wanted nothing more than to shed the stress and frantic morning pace of trying to be on time and have the serenity of knowing that if my kid wanted to spend thirty minutes trying to shit on the potty, that he could and being late to work wouldn't be a consequence. On the other hand, work gives me the opportunity to be among adults and have the adult time that I know I want and need. I have a sneaking suspicion that if I decide to stay home and not work after baby #2 is born, I will be much more willing and enthusiastic to prioritize adult time into my routine as a way to stay sane and connected to other grown-ups. However, these days with kids and jobs and families, the opportunity to spend time with friends isn't always a sure thing. At least with a job, you're guaranteed a daily dose of time with other adults.

I know there are pros and cons to being a stay at home mom, as well as being a working mom. I'm doing the working mom thing now, and while I'm hesitant to let that go (bye-bye, financial independence...yikes) I do think it might be worth it to give staying at home a try. I know I can always get a job later if I really need/want to. But any major transitions or changes give me anxiety, so I haven't yet completely made up my mind. Maybe I'll wait and see how late I'm running tomorrow morning and revisit the issue.

Being a mom is messed up

Picture this, as I'm sure many moms can easily do: it's my kiddo's first day at daycare. He's one year old. Drop-off was full of tears and him frantically grasping for me as I tried to limit my hugs goodbye to a mere fifteen. When I finally managed to get my sorry ass out the door and to my car, I sat in the car and cried for about ten minutes. I had taken the day off work because I knew I would be worthless there that day, and I spent the rest of my day leaning on my mom and sisters for support as I intermittently weeped over my baby's first day away from me. If I'm correct, I believe I picked him up by 4pm that day, unable to spend another minute with him possibly thinking I abandoned him to a bunch of strangers.

Fast forward to today: my kiddo is 2 1/2 years old and has just changed classrooms this week. He has a new teacher but familiar friends in his class. When I drop him off at school, my routine now is to fill out his daily sheet, give it to him to take to his teacher and ask for "one more hug, one more kiss" before sending him into his day, which he has gotten pretty good at doing without any fuss. Today was pretty normal; he took his sheet from me and started to walk away, and I quickly pulled him back for "one more hug, one more kiss." He endured this affection from me and as I stood up to leave, he walked over to his teacher, gave her his sheet and took his place on the floor where the other kids were sitting for story time. He didn't even give me a backward glance, which is not necessarily a bad thing, as we've had our share of difficult goodbyes because I've lingered too long and/or he just doesn't want to let go of me. I exited the building, got into my car, gave myself a high five in my mind for a quick, easy drop off...and then I started to tear up.

I'm happy my kid feels confident enough now that he doesn't need to cling to me or cry because I'm leaving him. He knows well enough now that "mommies and daddies come back." And this is a great thing; it means he feels good about his teachers and his friends and his school, which makes me feel good about those things, and also I'll probably get to work on time. But because the emotions of a mom are so fucked up and nuanced, at the same time I felt a little sad, too. It was a "happy" sad, which I can't really explain, but for the moms reading this, you already know what I'm talking about, and I don't have to put it into words. You understand exactly how I was feeling this morning after drop-off and why I was feeling that way, because more than likely you've been right there with me yourself. Being a mom is totally messed up sometimes.

Terrible twos?

I'm not sure if we're into the throes of the "terrible twos" yet, but it has sure felt like it a handful of days recently. It seems like my kid's new favorite pastime is challenging rules and pushing boundaries. I realize this is a completely normal thing for toddlers to do as they explore and learn about the world around them, but does it have to be all the goddamn time?? *eyeroll*

Sometimes I find myself desperately wishing for my kiddo to stay little forever, as many moms do in those feverish moments of not wanting to get any closer to the day when that little jerk won't need his mother as much as he does right now. Having said that, I do long for the days when I don't have to change diapers anymore and when my kid doesn't need naps. That's important enough to say again: I can't wait for my kid to outgrow naps. Because then I can stop feeling like a failure when I don't plan right and he misses his nap or he only gets an abbreviated nap and melts down later. Maybe it's just me, but I find it very difficult at times to balance activities and nap time. It really reinforces just how critical it is for toddlers to stick to a schedule, especially mine. This is rarely a fun thing to try and achieve, especially on the weekends, but when we get off schedule, we basically fuck ourselves over in one way or another and end up paying dearly for that shiz. Now I truly understand why it was so important for my friends to cut social events short in order to take their kids home to nap while I rolled my eyes at their stringent schedule-keeping. I get it now, and I'm so sorry for ever questioning why it was so important for your kid to stick to a napping schedule. Please forgive my past, child-less ignorant foolishness.

I recently found myself marveling at (and also staring adoringly at, probably making the moms uncomfortable) some little boys in public spaces who were behaving like fucking saints. Standing still, quiet, well-behaved and not at all constrained (i.e. not strapped into a stroller or cart). I don't know if this is ok to admit or if I should feel bad, but my first thought was aw, what a cute kid and then my immediate second thought was I bet my kid wouldn't be as well-behaved as he is. I'm a cynic, ok? I often sell my kiddo short in the behavior department because I just assume he's gonna be an asshole most of the time since he's all of two years old. I don't give him enough credit sometimes, I know that. But I also know how I am as a parent, and I realize that I haven't yet reached a point where I've ceased to coddle my child. I haven't become so disenchanted with his shenanigans that I don't baby him anymore. I still baby him all the time, because he's my baby and because I'm a bleeding heart. So therefore, my kid will sometimes act like an asshole when he's on one or in a mood, and then I have to deal with the fallout which I basically deserve anyway.

On the other hand, I feel like I'm starting to see results of my efforts to be a decent parent and teach my kid the concept of gratitude and appreciation. More and more often, when I give my kid his cup or bring him a basketball or hand him something he wants, he will say thank you without prompts. I still have to remind him to say "please" most of the time, but baby steps. However, sometimes when he does something unkind and I instruct him to apologize to someone for what he did, he will hesitate and not respond. If I'm especially stern in my demand for him to apologize, it's even more difficult to get him to say he's sorry, which kind of makes sense to me and kind of doesn't at the same time. Maybe he's starting to learn how to process feelings of guilt, I'm not sure. But he's two years old, so I'm trying not to read into it too much.

I've been told by numerous moms that the phrase "terrible twos" is pretty much antiquated; the new reality is "terrible threes" or "threenager." Fuck. If this isn't the worst of what's to come, I'm gonna need more wine.

Mom and the terrible, horrible no-good, bad day (weekend)

This past weekend was really difficult. My kid seriously tested my patience, without really even intending to do so. FYI, patience is a virtue that's almost impossible to maintain when you're dealing with a toddler who has no concept of time. Really, though, in the end the battle was more with myself than my kiddo.

Basically, there were a couple events this weekend where we needed to be relatively on time. I struggle with keeping a stricter napping schedule on the weekends, because it's the freakin' weekend, and we all want to sleep in a little. But if that happens, then everything gets pushed back, including nap time. Normally this isn't a big deal if we have nothing on our calendar for the evening, but this weekend we had places to be around the five o'clock hour. Incidentally, that's usually the time the kiddo gets up from his nap. And all you parents out there already know that it takes at least six hours to get a toddler up, ready and out the door. You do the math.

I won't go into painstaking detail about the incidents, because we all know what frustration feels like. But what I struggled with the most, and ended up sobbing about in the car was containing that frustration and impatience and not taking it out on a two year old who has no idea what time management is yet. I am ashamed to say that I was quicker to anger than I normally am, and I ended up yelling; yelling at my kid, yelling at the dog, yelling at myself, yelling at the slow driver in front of me. Even as I was shouting, I was also telling myself that yelling wasn't making the situation better, and all it was doing was showing my kid that it's ok to have a volatile reaction to something. But I couldn't pull it back and snap out of it. I was at the end of my rope and tired of every little thing being a battle with my kid: diaper changes, washing hands, putting a jacket on, throwing food and toys, picking up thrown toys. I. Was. Done.

And so I yelled. I yelled at my kid that we didn't have time to walk up and down the steps ten times. I yelled that if we didn't get our diaper changed, we couldn't go to grandma and grandpa's house. I yelled at my kid to pick up the magnets he started taking off the fridge and throwing. In anger, I grabbed the markers out of his hands that he had decided to start drawing with while in the midst of avoiding the diaper change. I yelled while he threw a tantrum and tried to escape my arms when I picked him up to put him in his car seat. I yelled into the void just to try and release some of the frustration and helplessness I was feeling.

And then I cried like a baby. I cried because I lost my cool in front of my kid over the fact that he was just being a kid. I cried because I was tired of trying to reason with a toddler. I cried because I'm tired all the time. I cried because I felt like a failure. I cried because I felt guilty for not keeping my composure. I cried because even though he could've started screaming at me a few times in the midst of *my* temper tantrum, he had tried to talk to me and even make me laugh.

As luck would have it, today was a pretty good day. It didn't start out great; he refused a diaper change and since I was still entertaining a low threshold for patience from the weekend, I left him with my husband and went downstairs to fix breakfast and heard him screaming in protest as I walked down the stairs. But, when I dropped him off at school, even though he didn't want me to leave, there were minimal tears and no screaming from him. He ate well at all his meals and didn't put up too much of a fight when it was time to wash hands. Diaper changes were easy after he got home (ok, the tablet gets credit for that). Pajama time was easy (again, thanks to the tablet) and when it was time to put the tablet down and head into the bedroom for story time, he did so on his own without putting up a fight. And bedtime was easy as well.

So, just like that, we had a couple of bad days followed by a really good one. Thus is life with a toddler, I suppose. But the real question I have now is this: what do I need to do, as the adult, to try and improve my attitude and expectations for these difficult moments that I know are always going to pop up? What should my homework assignment be so that I can work on not being so quick to anger next time my kid tests my patience? How do I do better next time? It's helpful to remind myself of the mantra that my OBGYN instructed me to say to myself in times of stress: everything is a phase.

So today, I again found myself in a time crunch, needing to get on the road to get the kid dropped off at school and my ass to work, and my kid wanted to play with his basketball in the yard. Knowing that picking him up in a hurried rush would backfire and probably cause him to start screaming and flailing, I chose to merely communicate that we needed to leave and that we had to get in the car. I then offered him to opportunity to climb up in his seat by himself, which he always wants to do now, and much to my surprise he took the bait and got into the car. No running away, no tears, no screaming. It was awesome. I patted myself on the back for the feat of not getting frustrated and losing my cool with the kiddo, knowing full well that tomorrow will most likely be a shit show. But every mom knows that you gotta take the small victories when you can, and so I did.

Working on my fitness

If you know me, you know that working out and physical fitness and all that shiz has never been my top priority. Do I want to be skinny? Yes. Do I want to look good naked? Sure do. But if it's at the expense of giving anything up anything that I love (booze, saturated fat, etc) then count me out. My history with working out has been spotty at best. I will work out consistently for a few months, and then I will let it go and not do a single exercise (other than walking to the bar) for months, until something motivates me to drag myself back to the gym or to the park to run with the dog. The sad part is that when I was working out consistently in college or in my twenties, I actually saw real results, which was awesome. But again, working out has never meant as much to me as it does to some.

Fast forward to two years post-baby and my late thirties, and I'm learning quickly that working out has become more of a crucial necessity than a laissez-faire attitude. Now that my kiddo is 20+ lbs, and with the specter of a second baby lurking in the back of my mind, I've realized that I absolutely have to make my physical fitness and strength more of a priority now than I ever have. And with that realization, I'm happy to report that I have actually managed to integrate this into my life rather successfully. And it's all due to an article I read on NPR's website about a little 22-minute workout.

I used to assume that in order to get an effective workout in, you had to be able to devote at least an hour or two at the gym. Because that's what I used to do when I was working out consistently. Whether it was in college or my twenties when I had both the time and inclination to spend it at the gym, I would usually spend a minimum of an hour on my workout. Since becoming a mom, I'm lucky if I have half that amount of time in the daylight to do jack shit for myself.

Disclaimer: I am totally the mom that spends just about all of my time with my kid or doing stuff for my kid, and yes, that makes me totally lame. I pass up opportunities all the time to go to Pacer games or concerts because it's bath night, or because my kid will die if I'm not there to put him to bed. Or maybe it's me who will die if I'm not part of every single minute of my kid's existence. Yep, that's me. Winner. Right here. But I digress.

So I read this article on NPR about how a 22-minute workout is just as effective as, say, an hour-long workout in terms of improving physical fitness, weight loss, etc. And since time for myself is at a premium these days, I thought why the fuck not. The reality is I do not have two hours to spend at the gym. We joined the YMCA back in December, and if I'm being honest with myself, the most ideal time for me to go and get a decent workout in is early in the AM before work. Talk about a daunting task. So I started to implement this 22-minute workout on the evenings that my husband put the kid to bed. I would quickly kiss my kid goodnight, rush to change into workout clothes and dash downstairs to the treadmill where I would do about 10-15 minutes of cardio, then 10 minutes of weights and then a few minutes of stretching. That routine would vary; sometimes I would spend more time on cardio if I was feeling particularly energetic or motivated. Sometimes I would get interrupted during strength training because my kid would start crying for me to come and rock him to sleep. Sometimes I would forget to stretch because I would get distracted by dishes or laundry. But the point is this: I was moving my fat ass and finally focusing on my body.

Some people can't relate to this reality: pregnancy fucks you up. Forever. Unless you're a teenager and your body bounces right back, carrying and birthing a baby will have significant effects on your body. Boobs sag and never come back up. C-section scars will magically push those mom guts out and over your waistband. Bladders will never feel quite right and you'll pee yourself when you sneeze. It's really easy to become very disheartened by this and, as a result, just not give a shit about how your body looks. If you're me, after doing the most major shit I've ever done, I just flat out didn't give a fuck about how I looked anymore. I didn't care about my gut or my saggy boobs or my ugly skin or my unkempt appearance or the spit-up stain on my shirt. I approached it with a "what? fight me" attitude. I had a baby, and these were my battle scars. This was my reality now, and I silently dared anyone to criticize my appearance. In hindsight, I'm sure I was also subconsciously (ok, consciously) making excuses for letting myself go. Though, I will defend the fact that having a C-section is a major fucking event and is not to be taken lightly.

Finally, two years after having a kid, I've decided that I'm sick and tired of still not fitting into some of my pre-pregnancy clothes or having to size up in pants because of my mom gut. I'm worried that when it comes time to have another baby, my sciatica with constantly flare up because I've failed to move my body in any meaningful way. And even after just a few months of working out whenever I possibly can find time to do so, I'm thrilled to report that I feel so much better, in every way possible. I feel empowered by the conscious decision to exercise, even if it's for a mere 45 minutes. I feel the bliss of devoting 100% of however much time I have to me and only me. I feel a sense of achievement when I push myself a little more at the gym. I feel pride when I wear workout pants to the store because I've actually just finished a workout, as opposed to when I wear them because I just don't want to wear real pants (which is most of the time). I walked around today consciously aware of the fact that even though I didn't necessarily look any thinner in the mirror, I actually felt thinner. I felt like I was walking around with better posture and an engaged core. Me. The girl who hates working out. I know, right.

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is this: It's never too late to care about your body and your wellness. It's never a waste to spend even the smallest amount of time on your body, and it may just motivate you enough to get you to a point where you actively seek out time for exercise, wellness, meditation, or whatever you feel like you need to feel your best. The other night, I felt a little guilty because rather than jump on the treadmill for fifteen minutes when I had the opportunity, I opted to lay in bed and finish reading my book instead. But I eventually reminded myself that my needs and priorities for my wellness go way beyond just a physical, aerobic expression. Contributing to my wellness may mean some quiet time reading or browsing aisles at Target or potting some indoor plants. Fitness doesn't always limit itself to gross motor activity. You absolutely have my permission to skip the gym today and spend some time reading or getting a massage or catching up on sleep. Do what you gotta do.

Pregnancy loss (warning: some graphic details about miscarriage)

I've posted about my previous two miscarriages that occurred prior to having my son, and for some reason I thought after having a healthy pregnancy and birth with him, there wouldn't be any more major hurdles to jump when the time came to try for another. As usual, the universe was like "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHA, fuck you."

Late last year, I experienced a chemical pregnancy. This is a very early miscarriage where you are technically pregnant and that pregnancy is viable enough to show up on a pee test, but then something happens and the pregnancy just goes away and you have your period instead. If you're not tracking things closely enough, you probably wouldn't even know you're pregnant and just assume your period was a few days late. Because of my previous multiple miscarriages, I get early blood draws to make sure the hormones are at a good level based on how far along I am and that the HCG then doubles every 48 hours as it is supposed to do. If I recall correctly, it was maybe only an hour or so after that second blood draw that I started to spot and then bleed. I figured I was having a miscarriage, contacted my doctor and was confirmed in my assumption when the blood draw results came back and showed that my levels had already started to decrease. It was a blow to the old psyche, for sure, but I was grateful that it happened as early on as it did. Miscarriages are so much easier to deal with when you're not far along in your pregnancy (at least for me) and haven't gotten hopes up too high yet.

Skip ahead a few months, and I get another positive pregnancy test. I was a little more cautious this time and I didn't tell my husband right away, for fear that it would just be another chemical. After a few days, though, when my tests continued to show relatively strong lines, I shared the news with him with some optimism behind it. But again, I had to face the dreaded blood draws to see if hormone levels were good and doubling. First draw: good levels. Second draw: levels had risen, but not doubled. Third draw: levels had a good rise, but still not doubled. Fourth draw: levels had almost doubled, and the doctor was optimistic for a healthy pregnancy. With excitement and a positive attitude, I scheduled my first ultrasound for the next week, what would've been my 7th week of pregnancy. And then the other shoe dropped.

I woke up on a Friday morning with a moderate amount of bleeding and cramping. As soon as I saw the nature of the bleeding, I was almost positive I was miscarrying. I shared the news with my husband and decided that I was going to stay home from work and contact my doc to see what I should do. As the day progressed, so did the bleeding. It was extremely heavy and like nothing I'd ever experienced, not even after having given birth. I could literally feel the blood coursing out of me, along with medium-sized clots that would just fall out of me while I sat on the toilet. I remember thinking there's no way this is anything but a miscarriage. My doctor's office ordered a blood draw to see what my hormone levels were, and if they were good, I would most likely then have an ultrasound to see if the bleeding had any other cause. I was barely able to make it to the lab for the blood draw; I had to stop on the walk to the lab from the car to change my pad because I was bleeding so heavily. Afterwards, I went home and continued to hemorrhage blood and have heavy cramping. I just laid in bed, only getting up when necessary to change my pad, since it was pointless to move around or do anything; that only exacerbated the situation. Later that afternoon, I called my doctor for the results of the blood draw. The levels had only risen a little since the last blood draw; they hadn't even doubled. So it was clear at that point that I was definitely miscarrying. I was given instructions for monitoring the bleeding and had to schedule an ultrasound for early next week to make sure I had passed all the products of conception.

For the rest of the afternoon, I laid in bed, bleeding and wishing for those huge phone book-sized diaper pads you get in the hospital after you give birth. Up to this point, I had actually been relatively calm through it all, considering the circumstances. I was, of course, extremely sad and disappointed at this turn of events, but it wasn't my first walk down this road. My catharsis, though, came when I drifted off to sleep at one point and then later woke up to find that I had bled through my clothes and onto the bed. It so happened that the mattress protector we normally have under our fitted sheet had been taken off earlier that week to be washed, so I was pretty upset when I saw the mattress had a blood stain on it. I tried to get as much of the stain off, but it wasn't really coming up. At this point, it was time to change my pad again, and as I was walking into the restroom, I felt my body pass a large amount of something. Upon sitting down on the toilet, I observed a large piece of tissue or something like it in my underwear. I remember thinking it looked like it could've been a piece of umbilical cord but I had no idea if the umbilical cord was even formed or could be that large at 6 weeks pregnant. It was at that point that I lost my shit, and everything crashed down.

For a few minutes, all I could do was sob hysterically. A thousand things were going through my mind, and I felt so many emotions all at once. Grief and sadness for my loss, regret and anger at myself for letting myself think this pregnancy would work out, frantic confusion about what to do with this "thing" in my underwear...this "thing" that had been a part of the life growing inside me and was now dead and evacuated from my body. I remember closing my eyes while I sat there crying and hoping so badly that when I opened them, this piece of me would be gone and I wouldn't have to deal with it anymore. I felt scared and unsure about what to do with it--do I just flush it down the toilet where all the other clots and tissue that had been falling out of me all day went, too? A part of me felt like that was a horrible thing to do; after all, even though this wasn't the actual embryo it was still a part of the whole being. However, on the other hand, I figured the embryo had probably already been expelled during one of the numerous trips to the toilet that day, so what was the big deal to just place this in the toilet and be done with it. I wanted so desperately to have someone there with me to tell me what I should do, what the right thing was. After some time, I eventually decided to flush the tissue down the toilet since I didn't want to just put it in the trash can.  I wrapped it up, crammed my eyes shut and placed it in the toilet. A fresh wave of sobbing commenced as I flushed the tissue down the toilet, and I felt a profound sadness in my heart that I was wholly unprepared to experience.

As traumatizing as the above incident was, it was also the catalyst I needed to actually grieve my loss in a real, tangible way. Throughout my multiple miscarriages, I internalized so much of those experiences, so the act of sobbing and shaking and feeling all those things I did while I sat on the toilet for those few minutes was actually a welcome reprieve from the stoic tension I had been holding onto all day. My guess is that so many women go through their pregnancy losses feeling that tension, and hopefully they get to release it and grieve, but maybe they don't for whatever reason. I just know that for me, I needed that hysteria to work through this latest miscarriage and to allow myself to feel a multitude of emotions.

After the miscarriage, I decided that I wanted to take some time off from trying to get pregnant. At first, I wasn't entirely convinced it's really what I wanted deep down, but it seemed like the appropriate thing to do after two losses. Plus, after a miscarriage, the OBGYN will usually advise you to have one or two cycles before trying again, which mine did. So I put everything fertility-related out of my mind; I didn't chart a goddamn thing or pee on a single stick. After some time, I did chart any menstrual activity, just so I would have some idea of where I was in my cycle. Miscarriage can fuck your cycle up for a little bit or a long time, depending on how far along you were. My cycle got back to normal relatively quickly, probably within a little over a month.

The farther I get from my most recent miscarriage, the more I realize how stressful this latest saga of trying to get knocked up has been on me and how much I really just needed a break from it. It was a crushing blow, but in the aftermath, I focused more on my kiddo and my husband and I indulged the fuck out of some wine and sushi. And let me tell you, when sex isn't primarily about conceiving and more about just being with your partner, it's pretty great. As I type this, I'm ovulating. And enjoying a beer. And I have no plans to try and get my hubs to have sex with me tonight, because I'm actually in a pretty good place right now, and it has nothing to do with being pregnant or trying to get pregnant. It has everything to do with the fact that I'm taking care of me in whatever way is necessary. I went to the gym today for the first time in more months than I care to admit, and it was FUCKING AMAZING. Anyone who knows me knows I hate working out, but the forty minutes I spent at the gym today felt like I had found a golden ticket. It was the first time since my son was born that I really felt like I was reclaiming time for myself with zero guilt about anything. I recently changed my work schedule, and it allows me to leave work an hour early three days a week, which I plan to spend that extra "me time" working out or doing whatever I feel like doing. That freedom and opportunity is exactly what I need right now, and perhaps a pregnancy will eventually come back around as the priority. For now, though, it's all about me.