I've become that person
I've become the kind of person who is angry at pregnant people.
We went today to get a blanket for Paris, to bury with him. Everyone else walking those aisles looked blissfully happy. Some were pregnant, clearly glowing. I don't know if anyone else saw I was crying. We probably didn't stand out from any of the other parents wandering the store picking out things for babies.
There was a pregnant woman holding a Tim Hortons cup wearing a white shirt and for a moment I wished she would just spill her drink on her white shirt and that it would leave a stain.
I didn't want anything bad to happen to her baby. I just wanted something to happen and wipe that smile off her face. because I've become that person who is angry with pregnant people beyond reason. they represent everything I never got the chance to have.
and don't get me started on parents who share pictures of their kid on instagram or facebook. Yes your baby is cute and all but I don't think I ever understood how much it would feel like being kicked in the gut. I almost had that, what you have. I could have had it, maybe. But somehow I had the misfortune of falling into the .07% of getting pregnant with an IUD and then the 2% where implantation occurred in just the right spot so then there was the less than 25% chance that I would survive the pregnancy and the 99% chance that my baby wouldn't.
Recovering from surgery has me on bed rest for 23 hours a day (or at least it feels like that) and its lonely. I don't think its lonely just because I'm alone. People come but somehow that makes me feel worse. Because they don't know what to say, or they tell me things like this was all part of God's plan.
And even if none of that happens, even if they say and do all the right things, its still lonely. Because I feel like I've been living on a different planet and I don't know how to interact with people. My hair is wild and untamed and my eyes are usually red and I feel like my patience is gone and my willingness to be nice and kind was left in that hospital room. They can't understand because their baby didn't die. or maybe their baby did die. But their baby wasn't Paris and they didn't go through the whole pregnancy knowing he couldn't stay but hoping that maybe..., and then I almost died and then the surgery happened and then he was gone, just as quickly as he'd lived. And people can't know that unless they were there and the circle of people who were there is very, very small. Some part of my brain alerts me to the fact that I'm being too judgmental. I realize this but I don't have the energy to do anything about it. mostly I've just been keeping my mouth shut.
This type of loss has a nomenclature all its own. It has qualifiers. Not just simple death. Miscarriage. Stillbirth. Neonatal death. a different brand of death. I still can't decide if these terms are dismissive, diminishing. acting as a kind of death lite, or if they indicate that a death so very terrible has occurred that it needs to be somehow singled out. death ultra - ultra heavy - handle with caution and step away as quickly as you can, thankful that this one isn't yours to deal with.
I'm not writing this to get a response. Mostly I'm writing it so my voice can echo somewhere other than inside my body. So maybe some day someone else will read this and feel less alone, the same way that I fill my long and lonely days scouring the internet for the writings of other people who have experienced losses similar to this one.
they're not the same - its never the same - but there is a sort of comfort and solidarity in talking about this thing which happens to so many women and yet no one ever talks about it.
No one talks about breaking down in the grocery store. Or the inability to relate to life in the way you did before. Or this sudden rage at everybody else who looks on the outside that they get their happy ending. Or the lack of patience and tolerance that somehow now exists because I don't have time for your bullshit.
We went today to get a blanket for Paris, to bury with him. Everyone else walking those aisles looked blissfully happy. Some were pregnant, clearly glowing. I don't know if anyone else saw I was crying. We probably didn't stand out from any of the other parents wandering the store picking out things for babies.
There was a pregnant woman holding a Tim Hortons cup wearing a white shirt and for a moment I wished she would just spill her drink on her white shirt and that it would leave a stain.
I didn't want anything bad to happen to her baby. I just wanted something to happen and wipe that smile off her face. because I've become that person who is angry with pregnant people beyond reason. they represent everything I never got the chance to have.
and don't get me started on parents who share pictures of their kid on instagram or facebook. Yes your baby is cute and all but I don't think I ever understood how much it would feel like being kicked in the gut. I almost had that, what you have. I could have had it, maybe. But somehow I had the misfortune of falling into the .07% of getting pregnant with an IUD and then the 2% where implantation occurred in just the right spot so then there was the less than 25% chance that I would survive the pregnancy and the 99% chance that my baby wouldn't.
Recovering from surgery has me on bed rest for 23 hours a day (or at least it feels like that) and its lonely. I don't think its lonely just because I'm alone. People come but somehow that makes me feel worse. Because they don't know what to say, or they tell me things like this was all part of God's plan.
And even if none of that happens, even if they say and do all the right things, its still lonely. Because I feel like I've been living on a different planet and I don't know how to interact with people. My hair is wild and untamed and my eyes are usually red and I feel like my patience is gone and my willingness to be nice and kind was left in that hospital room. They can't understand because their baby didn't die. or maybe their baby did die. But their baby wasn't Paris and they didn't go through the whole pregnancy knowing he couldn't stay but hoping that maybe..., and then I almost died and then the surgery happened and then he was gone, just as quickly as he'd lived. And people can't know that unless they were there and the circle of people who were there is very, very small. Some part of my brain alerts me to the fact that I'm being too judgmental. I realize this but I don't have the energy to do anything about it. mostly I've just been keeping my mouth shut.
This type of loss has a nomenclature all its own. It has qualifiers. Not just simple death. Miscarriage. Stillbirth. Neonatal death. a different brand of death. I still can't decide if these terms are dismissive, diminishing. acting as a kind of death lite, or if they indicate that a death so very terrible has occurred that it needs to be somehow singled out. death ultra - ultra heavy - handle with caution and step away as quickly as you can, thankful that this one isn't yours to deal with.
I'm not writing this to get a response. Mostly I'm writing it so my voice can echo somewhere other than inside my body. So maybe some day someone else will read this and feel less alone, the same way that I fill my long and lonely days scouring the internet for the writings of other people who have experienced losses similar to this one.
they're not the same - its never the same - but there is a sort of comfort and solidarity in talking about this thing which happens to so many women and yet no one ever talks about it.
No one talks about breaking down in the grocery store. Or the inability to relate to life in the way you did before. Or this sudden rage at everybody else who looks on the outside that they get their happy ending. Or the lack of patience and tolerance that somehow now exists because I don't have time for your bullshit.
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