STAGE THREE: ANGER
They say there are seven stages of grief. And, let us be perfectly clear right here: I am absolutely grieving. Just because I miscarried what was only a nine week old fetus, it doesn't mean there isn't a deep sense of mourning and loss within me.
The pain and hurt and heartache is about the loss of what could have been; what might have been. And though I promised myself that I would not get excited about this pregnancy until I hit the second trimester, I have also become wise enough to know that excitement is unavoidable. Especially when you are feeling the exhaustion, the growing pains, the nausea, the growing belly. It is impossible to not get excited about the "potential" future. Which, conversely, means it is impossible not to be devastated by the sudden end of it all.
I have spent the majority of this weekend in stage one: shock and denial. I have tried to smile and pretend that all is well. That I am already over it. That I can just pick up my life where I left it off back in April and, without hardly skipping a beat, everything can go right back to normal. I have tried REALLY hard to make this work, but ultimately, it cannot. Things cannot go back to normal, no matter how much I want them too.
But I tried. As soon as I could drive again, I ran a zillion errands and, in one of them, purchased the Wii gaming system I have been promising myself for months. I spent the afternoon playing Wii with my family, laughing and joking and having a great time. Because everything is fine, everything is normal. Nothing has happened. Has it?
This morning, I was hit with a bad case of the "dizzies." So bad, in fact, that I was reaching for Amanda this morning in the kitchen and completely fell to the floor. Major dizzy spell. This is most likely my body's way of telling me to slow down, to take it easy...to recognize that, hey, it has been through a LOT in the past week.
So Denial and Shock begins to give way to stage two: Pain and Guilt. And, just as quickly as I enter this stage, I push it away again immediately, because I am not able to feel this pain yet. I cannot do it. I won't do it.
Which brings me to stage three: Anger and Bargaining.
In an attempt to forget about the fact that I have to resume my "normal" life tomorrow, I decided to give my bedroom a full, thorough cleaning.
Big mistake.
I found some junk mail in a pile of magazines that I have not had a chance to flip through yet. One of the pieces of mail appeared to be from my health insurance provider. I opened it and, upon reading the first sentence of the form letter, felt my face get red hot. "Congratulations on your new miracle, pregnancy is a magical time for a woman" etc etc etc. How is it that the MINUTE you become pregnant, before you have even had opportunity to tell friends and family, the baby / pregnancy junk mail starts to fill the mailbox? Because the very last thing I need to be looking at right now are form letters congratulating me on my pregnancy, catalogs of baby furniture, coupons for Babies R Us. It is at this moment that I tear the letter to shreds and vow to ignore my mailbox for (at least) the next week.
Then, I am cleaning up a pile of books next to my bed and two things catch my eye: a book I had been reading last Monday night, and the bookmark holding my page. And I feel my face get hot again, this time with the tears filling my eyes.
I pick up "What To Expect When You Are Expecting" and fling it across the room, smashing it against the wall as hard as I possibly can. The bookmark, my ultrasound photos from May 19th, float slowly back and forth to the ground. I grab the first one and try to tear it up, but that darn photo paper won't budge. So I gather both of the photos together and crumple them up into a wad and throw them into the trash bag I brought upstairs. I chuck the book in there, too. I know, with absolute certainty, that I will NEVER need that book again.
I still haven't had that one big cry. It is easier to be mad right now than it is to be sad. I am afraid that if I let the tears loose, I will spend the next month curled up in a ball on my bed, sobbing. And honestly, is that going to help anything? Change ANYTHING?
So for now I will remain pissed off. I am still not sure how I am going to get up tomorrow and resume my life. Amanda is going to school; I need to go to work. I am not quite prepared to answer anyone's well meaning questions of "hey...how are you?" But I will plaster on a pretend smile and get through the day. And I will continue that fake smile in the evening when cable comes (yet again) to replace our cable box for the third time in as many months.
I am quite aware that at some point, I am going to need to address Stage Two. And I feel that I am knocking on the door of Stage Four: Depression, Reflection, and Lonliness. Hell, I think I may already be there. No one said you experience these stages one step at a time, or in the correct order.
What I do know, the only thing I absolutely know for a fact right now, is that the entire world goes on, and I am expected to hop right back into that world and pick up where I left off, and IT HASN'T EVEN BEEN A WEEK. I learned of the miscarriage on Tuesday afternoon. Two days later, the D&C was completed. I am told to give my physical body about a week to recover.
Could someone please tell me what the timeframe is for my emotional recovery? Because tomorrow is Monday, and it is coming whether I want it to or not. And I am most definitely not prepared for it.
The pain and hurt and heartache is about the loss of what could have been; what might have been. And though I promised myself that I would not get excited about this pregnancy until I hit the second trimester, I have also become wise enough to know that excitement is unavoidable. Especially when you are feeling the exhaustion, the growing pains, the nausea, the growing belly. It is impossible to not get excited about the "potential" future. Which, conversely, means it is impossible not to be devastated by the sudden end of it all.
I have spent the majority of this weekend in stage one: shock and denial. I have tried to smile and pretend that all is well. That I am already over it. That I can just pick up my life where I left it off back in April and, without hardly skipping a beat, everything can go right back to normal. I have tried REALLY hard to make this work, but ultimately, it cannot. Things cannot go back to normal, no matter how much I want them too.
But I tried. As soon as I could drive again, I ran a zillion errands and, in one of them, purchased the Wii gaming system I have been promising myself for months. I spent the afternoon playing Wii with my family, laughing and joking and having a great time. Because everything is fine, everything is normal. Nothing has happened. Has it?
This morning, I was hit with a bad case of the "dizzies." So bad, in fact, that I was reaching for Amanda this morning in the kitchen and completely fell to the floor. Major dizzy spell. This is most likely my body's way of telling me to slow down, to take it easy...to recognize that, hey, it has been through a LOT in the past week.
So Denial and Shock begins to give way to stage two: Pain and Guilt. And, just as quickly as I enter this stage, I push it away again immediately, because I am not able to feel this pain yet. I cannot do it. I won't do it.
Which brings me to stage three: Anger and Bargaining.
In an attempt to forget about the fact that I have to resume my "normal" life tomorrow, I decided to give my bedroom a full, thorough cleaning.
Big mistake.
I found some junk mail in a pile of magazines that I have not had a chance to flip through yet. One of the pieces of mail appeared to be from my health insurance provider. I opened it and, upon reading the first sentence of the form letter, felt my face get red hot. "Congratulations on your new miracle, pregnancy is a magical time for a woman" etc etc etc. How is it that the MINUTE you become pregnant, before you have even had opportunity to tell friends and family, the baby / pregnancy junk mail starts to fill the mailbox? Because the very last thing I need to be looking at right now are form letters congratulating me on my pregnancy, catalogs of baby furniture, coupons for Babies R Us. It is at this moment that I tear the letter to shreds and vow to ignore my mailbox for (at least) the next week.
Then, I am cleaning up a pile of books next to my bed and two things catch my eye: a book I had been reading last Monday night, and the bookmark holding my page. And I feel my face get hot again, this time with the tears filling my eyes.
I pick up "What To Expect When You Are Expecting" and fling it across the room, smashing it against the wall as hard as I possibly can. The bookmark, my ultrasound photos from May 19th, float slowly back and forth to the ground. I grab the first one and try to tear it up, but that darn photo paper won't budge. So I gather both of the photos together and crumple them up into a wad and throw them into the trash bag I brought upstairs. I chuck the book in there, too. I know, with absolute certainty, that I will NEVER need that book again.
I still haven't had that one big cry. It is easier to be mad right now than it is to be sad. I am afraid that if I let the tears loose, I will spend the next month curled up in a ball on my bed, sobbing. And honestly, is that going to help anything? Change ANYTHING?
So for now I will remain pissed off. I am still not sure how I am going to get up tomorrow and resume my life. Amanda is going to school; I need to go to work. I am not quite prepared to answer anyone's well meaning questions of "hey...how are you?" But I will plaster on a pretend smile and get through the day. And I will continue that fake smile in the evening when cable comes (yet again) to replace our cable box for the third time in as many months.
I am quite aware that at some point, I am going to need to address Stage Two. And I feel that I am knocking on the door of Stage Four: Depression, Reflection, and Lonliness. Hell, I think I may already be there. No one said you experience these stages one step at a time, or in the correct order.
What I do know, the only thing I absolutely know for a fact right now, is that the entire world goes on, and I am expected to hop right back into that world and pick up where I left off, and IT HASN'T EVEN BEEN A WEEK. I learned of the miscarriage on Tuesday afternoon. Two days later, the D&C was completed. I am told to give my physical body about a week to recover.
Could someone please tell me what the timeframe is for my emotional recovery? Because tomorrow is Monday, and it is coming whether I want it to or not. And I am most definitely not prepared for it.
