At that point where one of two things seriously needs to happen: hormone therapy or pending baby.
I think I have been having a more difficult time than I will let on, or even recognize in a conscious way. Lucky for me that's the way it works, you can be ok but still be sad and hurt for the loss. I think as a defense mechanism I've adopted the being ok thing and clung to it like a life raft. Every pregnant mother and newborn face I've seen in the past two months has kicked up my mantra of I'm ok.
And I am, really, but I've had more times of less ok than I'd like to admit to. I don't know why that is, why it's so hard to be ok with feeling sad and, in some ways, resentful, I think those are natural feelings. I guess I just want to be tough and logical, knowing that set backs happen and it's not the end of the world. Once I started learning to act more with thought than feeling my logical brain has a hard time letting my emotional one out of the cage for fear of it running rampant into the sunset.
A couple of weeks after we learned I miscarried I geared up for an exciting opening day at Ren Faire, my home away from home and a welcome distraction. I barely made it half of a day before I went home with a rock of emotion the size of a basketball rolling in my stomach. Two words: Baby Explosion. I don't know what happened last year but folks have been busy. Between the plethora of mothers-to-be due at any moment and the gathering of the newborns I felt like I was in the Matrix, that part where Neo faces off to an entire city of Smiths. The difficulty was magnified as I watched two friends bond over a beautiful new little one, to me the physical embodiment of loss that extended past our own child and to a level of friendship I'd been dreaming to have and felt completely locked out of. A physical moment of standing on the sidelines watching a scene I'd been dreaming of for myself for years. I know that is cryptic but I try to walk a line between sharing my feelings and... well, not getting too detailed.
It almost felt like the gun at the starting line, after that all I could see were other people's blessings and joy. Friends on Facebook posting pictures and announcements left and right, like everyone had been waiting until right then to share the same excitement that I would have been a part of but wasn't. I realize that is a ridiculous thing to think, but I couldn't help it. Of course I was, and am, happy for everyone I know who gets to share their news, it's just not without a touch of bitter sadness.
The autumn is already a challenging time for me; I love it and it hates me right back. My nesting syndrome kicks into overdrive and my mood swings violently into the realm of sustenance by PJs and the glow of the tv. I like to be home, I'm less social and get my energy by just existing, trying to do much more than that stresses me out. This year all of that has been magnified 10-fold. A Sense of Impending Doom has settled over my head and I'm struggling to find my way out. The other night I was so distraught, sad, angry and ill-feeling I took a pregnancy test for no other reason than a desperate hope I might have a valid reason, or any reason at all, for being so crazy. I knew that wasn't the reason for my mood swings but I was grasping for anything that could make sense in the midst of suffocating depression with no solid root to remove.
I'm feeling a little bit better today and am gearing up for another day at faire on Saturday. Faire or elsewhere I'm going to continue running into reminders of our setback, it's keeping a level head and remembering that setbacks are part of the process, in the midst of my pre-established seasonal moodiness, that will be a challenge. Hopefully better today means I'm climbing up the other side of this little hole, and hopefully there won't be another one so big on the other side.
