Conversations with a 10 Year Old and One Rough Day!

So, my daughter turned 10 last weekend, and we had this conversation on her birthday.

She is very concerned that other kids think she is weird.  She doesn't want to draw any attention to herself because she's afraid people will think she's not normal.  I don't believe there is any such thing as normal.  We are all unique.  As we grow up, we come to appreciate others for their unique personality traits.  I used the example of a good friend of mine, Jo, who my daughter has known her whole life.  I said "Do I like Jo for all the ways that she is like everyone else?  Do I like her because she's so normal?"  When I put it this way, she could see how it is those unique personality traits that we come to love in our friends, these are what draw us to people.  All the kids her age are trying their best to try to be like everybody else, going around trying desperately to be normal, and sooner or later they're going to realize that there is no normal, and it is much cooler to just be yourself, which looks different for all of us.  It seemed like I was getting through to her.  I told her that once one person decided to stop believing in normal and just be themselves, then maybe that awareness would spread to the other kids, and they would start feeling free to be themselves as well.  This concept, I'm not sure she understood, but we both walked away feeling better.

Then today came.  I had to take my daughter to an appointment on the far side of the city.  It would take all day.  Today is day three after my miscarriage, and I am still passing blood clots and some tissue.  But such is life.  I'm not feeling too bad.  So I went into Staples first, and suddenly I felt a gush of blood.  Sure enough, there was blood everywhere, my pants were soaked, and I hadn't even brought my purse into the store.  This was the first disaster.  Feeling a bit nauseous and lightheaded, I got in my car and drove (probably not a good idea when you are loosing so much blood) to my sister's house.  No one was home.  I sat in my car outside her house, and since it was cold, I let the car run with the heat on.  Then my car started to sputter, and it dawned on me that I had meant to fuel up before leaving the NW.  Not only that, but when I looked for my wallet with my gas money in it, I discovered that I had forgotten it in Staples.  I was out of gas, and now my car wouldn't start.  Great, so now I am sitting in my car, bleeding, out of gas, with my baby sleeping in the back, and soon it will be cold.  And for those of you who don't know, I don't have a cell phone.  I pleaded to the universe to send me some help, which was all I could think of to do at the time. 

I saw a car driving towards me and thought it might be my sister coming home.  No, that car had a headlight out.  My sister would never drive around with only one headlight.  In fact, she would never find herself in this predicament at all.  No, my sister does the right thing.  She's not a space-brained mom who drives around in precarious old beaters with no cell phone, running out of gas on cold days, with her kids in the car, showing up at her sister's house unannounced with bloody pants.  In fact, it seems she hardly has any problems at all.  This, I find very frustrating.  Not that she has no problems, but that I seem to have all of them.  As I watched the one headlight car drive past me, I wondered what the hell is wrong with me, and why can't I seem to get my shit together like everybody else.

Then I remembered the conversation I had a few days ago, with a 10 year old girl concerned with being normal.  I guess that feeling affects us all to some extent.  Eventually, my sister and brother in law came and helped out my sorry ass, and I was back on the road in enough time to get my wallet back and pick up my daughter. In the end, what I hope my daughter realizes, is that her real friends and family love and accept her for who she is, including all her faults and idiosyncrasies.  Admitedly, there are some ways that I am downright weird.  :)  The biggest challenge is learning to love and accept ourselves.

It feels like labor.  A miscarriage.  That's where I'm at right now.  Dull cramps in my legs have become periodic tightenings of my uterus.  It's not super intense, but I breath through them.  I expand my belly with each inhale.  It's a labor trick, relaxes the surrounding muscles and makes it hurt less.  And, like labor, the more relaxed I can stay, and the less upset or stressed, the faster it will all be over.  Not getting upset is hard when you're miscarrying.  The tightenings come in waves and I breath.  "I am neutral. I am the earth."  I imagine my body lying flat in the soil, arms spread.  I am woman, and this is the cross we bear.  This happens more than we think.
I am sad, but not totally surprised.  My cervix was low and a bit flat, with a line instead of a dot, whereas typically in pregnancy, the cervix will be high and shaped like a nose, moving forward and thinning out towards the end.  But this past week when I checked, it seemed to have moved back and changed shape, so I started to suspect that the danger had passed.  But then last night, I started spotting.  I went to bed, and woke up at 2:20.  Now, two hours later, I feel my body bearing down.  I'm glad it's going fast.
I was only 8 weeks pregnant.  It is much worse for women who miscarry further along in their pregnancies, or for those who have very tramatic experiences during their miscarriage.  It was certainly worse for me the first time around (this is my second miscarriage).  I had a sneaking suspicion this pregnancy might not work out, and I promised myself I wouldn't be heartbroken if it didn't.  The timing is not ideal.  My daughter's 10th birthday is this afternoon.  I just hope I'm well enough to go.  Life doesn't stop because I'm miscarrying, which is another cross that women bear.  We still have mouths to feed, and duties to attend to.
But I suddenly had a gush of blood, and now I am lying in a rather large pool of it.  So I suppose that is all I can write for now. 

Miscarriage of Justice

Over the last week, my mind has been thrown into a mass of confusion and uncertainty.  I would like to say that I am at peace, but I am not.  If you ask me how I'm doing, and I say "Fine," please understand that I am lying.  I haven't only lost a child, but my hopes and dreams for the future, my sense that my life will someday be better than it is, my idea that I can mold my life into what I want it to be.  I have lost all control.

I'm trying not to feel too sorry for myself, though I'm well practiced at the art of being depressed.  But I am not the only woman to go through this, and we still have children to take care of, and households to run.  So I get up, have a bath, wash the dishes, make dinner.  I was surprised to discover how common miscarriages actually are.  In the past week, so many women shared stories with me of their own miscarriage experiences.  This is something that most people usually don't talk about.  It is amazing really, women are such strong people.  They continue to work and take care of their families, even when their bodies are in pain and their hearts are breaking.

I've been reading some miscarriage stories and support websites, and the biggest thing that struck me was  how differently I was dealing with things than the women in the stories.  Most women's experiences seemed to include ultrasounds, Dopplers, pills, injections or d&c's.  It never occurred to me that these things would help, only that they would make the whole experience far more unpleasant.  In the medical community, I don't feel that women's bodies are given the respect that they deserve.  Our bodies are perfectly capable of doing what they need to do without medication or technology.  The womb cleans itself out every month, and a miscarriage is no different.  I left my body alone to do what it needed to do.  I stayed at home, where it was quiet and comfortable.  The cramps I felt for several days were the womb contracting just like it does in labor.  This opened up my cervix enough to allow me to pass the tissue from the womb.  I passed it in the bathtub, and I felt that, in our own way, my baby and I had the water birth that I believe is the most gentle way to birth a baby.

I used some herbs in the process to help my body heal.  Raspberry leaf is full of vitamins and minerals, and has an astringent effect on the uterus.  Nettle is another nourishing herb, especially high in iron, which helps to avoid anemia.  Ginger can improve digestion, as well as relieve cramps and nausea.  Cinnamon helps improve circulation, and makes tea taste yummy.  Medicinal strength tea can be made in a one liter jar.  Put about 3 tablespoons of each herb in the jar, add a small slice of fresh ginger, and about and inch of a cinnamon stick, crushed into pieces.  Fill the jar with boiling water, stir, and put the lid on.  Leave the jar to sit at room temperature several hours or overnight.  When I was still experiencing cramping, I wrapped the jar in a pillowcase and took it to bed with me.  This is much like sleeping with a hot water bottle, and I found it incredibly soothing.  This tea is safe for women any time, but is especially helpful during pregnancy, miscarriage or menstruation.

I had cramping and nausea for about 5 days.  So far, I have been bleeding for 8 days.  Like pregnancy and birth, there is a wide range of what is considered normal, but general consensus seems to be that we usually bleed for one to three weeks.  We can rest in the knowledge that our bodies are doing what they need to do.  There are a few complications that can occur, such as infection or hemorrhage, but these are rare.  A normal miscarriage is much like a normal birth: it is not dangerous, it can be handled at home, and the more you can relax and let the process happen, the easier it will be.

I have learned an important lesson through all of this about the nature of grieving and support.  There have been times when I knew a friend had suffered the loss of someone important to them.  I was uncomfortable with death and didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything.  In retrospect, I wish I could have been more aware of what they needed to hear, and less concerned with my own self-conscious feelings.  I hope I never make this mistake again.

This is a picture I drew.  I wish I could say it was entirely my own work, but the idea came from a painting called "Miscarriage of Justice" by Lina Scarfi.

Dragon - a poem

I found him in the water
A small Dragon with a billowy tail
And wings like paper
Suspended in the tide

How could you float so free
While inside I was drowning
And why would you leave me

What did your soul need that I couldn't give
When I would do anything for you

He tried to float away
But I would not let him go
I couldn't
So I buried him inside of me
I closed my eyes and I swallowed

Now Dragon, you must stay
For I have clipped your wings
And you can't fly away

The Experience of Loss

Saturday
I started spotting on Saturday.  At first I told myself that it was normal, and spotting can happen in pregnancy (again with my power of positive thinking campaign).  But, the truth is I had lost my cool.  My husband and I had been arguing, and it turned into a screaming match.  Unfortunately, this is not unusual for us, but this was a bad one.  We disagree on some key elements of where our life is heading.  In the end, he drove off in his truck, and I threw myself on the bed, crying and feeling very stressed out.  Within an hour, I started spotting.
It was time for me to go to work.  Before I left, I told my husband (who was back and had calmed down and apologized) that I was spotting.  He asked if this was an emergency, and if I should stay home from work.  I said that it could be normal, but if I was miscarrying there was nothing I could do to stop it.  My job is not strenuous at all, instead it takes a still, calm concentration.  At work I went to the bathroom every hour to check on what was happening.  No change.  Just the slightest bit of pink discharge. 
When I got home I looked up spotting in early pregnancy.  I learned that 20% of pregnancies experience spotting early on, and that it's not necessarily a bad thing.  There are a few reasons why this could happen.  First, the uterine wall (endometrium) builds up a think layer of red blood cells, and as the blastocyst implants, some blood is released.  (The blastocyst is what the growing collection of cells is called at this stage.  It is comprised of a bunch of cells which become the fetus inside a layer of cells which become the placenta.  It is about the size of a lentil)  So, apparently this can come with some crampy pain in the abdomen or lower back.  But, I read that spotting is also how miscarriage starts.  If the show is pink or brown, that is a good thing, but if it turns bright red or gets very heavy or you pass clots, that is cause for concern.
Sunday
Nothing had changed by morning, still the same light pink show.  By Sunday afternoon it had started to turn a bright red, so I called my friend Natalie, a traditional birth attendant who at been present at my younger daughter's home birth.  I told her about the spotting, and about how it was starting to turn bright red.  I asked her if there was anything I could do to stop it, if I was miscarrying.  She said "You shouldn't."  She said trust your body, your body knows what to do.  I asked her if bed rest would help. She said not unless I had been doing something particularly strenuous (I hadn't).  She said if it turns out to be a miscarriage, then I should drink some strong red raspberry leaf tea, to help my uterus flush out what it needs to and return to it's pre-pregnancy state.  After our chat, I felt fairly at peace, but by that evening, my calm, centered, positive thinking self had flown out the window.  The bleeding was increasing , and I started passing small clots.  I called my good friend Jo, and told her everything.  I cried on the phone about how unfair it all was.  We talked for a long time, about miscarriages, and how many women we knew that had had one, about pregnancy and giving birth and what we want for our lives.  A few days earlier, I could sense the presence of another soul within me, the air was charged with a kind of energy, there was an excitement about the baby, and everything felt very magical.  Now, I could no longer sense that presence.  I wasn't sure if my mind was playing tricks on me, if fear was taking over, but I could feel that my baby was gone.  I fell asleep in a deep state of despair.
Monday
When I woke up, my stomach felt squishy, where before it was hard.  I stayed in bed all day. There was plenty more bleeding, and I passed a fairly large bit of tissue.  All day I had intermittent cramping and pain.  I spent a lot of time crying.  My husband, Brian, spent some time with me, we just laid there in silence for a good long time. Sometimes I would cry, and other times he just rubbed my back, and sometimes I would get that pain coming again, and I was glad to have someone there with me. My mom came to visit. We thoroughly disagree on how a miscarriage should be dealt with, because she kept saying that I should "go in", or call the doctor or something. I just told her there's nothing they can do, and told her what my midwife had said. "Your body knows what to do. Just trust your body and let it happen."  Brian told the kids I lost the baby.  Ocean, my four year old daughter, was asking me questions about it last night.  Ocean asked "You lost the baby at work, mom?"  I said no, that the baby wasn't growing right, and my body flushed it out. "So, was the baby's head small and the body big?" I said no, the baby didn't attach properly to the womb. "So it got flushed out when you peed?" No, I said. The blood came and the baby got washed out in the blood. "The blood?" (She looked horrified) I said it's the same blood women get when they have their period. She said she didn't know what a period was (even though I know I've told her).  So, I said the blood comes every month and washes out the uterus if there's no baby growing there. I had to explain (again) that the blood comes out the vagina, and not the belly button. Ocean was very grown up about the whole thing. She said she was sorry that happened, and that she could tell I was sad. She said she had wanted to see the baby. I said "Me too." She gave me plenty of hugs.


One of the things I really wanted to experience in this pregnancy is a connection to women, past and present, a bonding through shared experience.  Throughout history, women get pregnant, women give birth, women breast feed.  This is our ancient connection to the earth.  The experience of loss is something we share as well.  We hurt.  Physically.  Emotionally.  Spiritually.  And through that we can be connected as well.


I am left with a feeling of not knowing what happens now.  Will my body go back to the way it was before?  Will my cycles align themselves with the full moon, as they were before I got pregnant?  How long will I hurt?  How long will I mourn?  Will the same soul come to me again, should we decide to try again?  Or has that soul moved on from me forever?  I have so many unanswered questions.  I guess this, too, is the experience of motherhood.  I knew that motherhood would burn an imprint deep into my heart, but I never thought it would feel like this.