Shhhh

I am still going to write on here, but I am telling no one about it. I realized this morning that I need an outlet for my pain desperately and this was that, and nothing else would help. This blog is about me now and I dont WANT anyone reading it. If I say something offensive here, I apologize. I may change the name of this just to ensure that I don't offend anyone, but for now I cant even brush my teeth.

I hope all of you who were reading stop. This is not going to be the light, Carrie Bradshaw meets Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy anymore. This is real, people, and it is going to get very, very ugly. I would rather you remember me as the funny, light girl with fertilty problems who conquered it all to get pregnant than the bitter, sad person I am right now.

Well, I can now honestly say, for the first time in my life, that I stayed up all night crying. To be fair, I slept from 12-3, but the rest of the time was pretty much me, in front of this computer, sobbing. Sometimes sobbing because of a kind email I got from someone and sometimes because I am heartbroken and sometimes because of the miscarriage web sites I was looking at. The amount of pain out there is overwhelming. And comforting.

I feel irrationally furious at people. Anyone who doesn't understand this (which is everyone besides me, and J, who tho is definitely handling this better than me is still absolutely wrecked) can go straight to hell. Goddamn everyone who is up this morning, getting ready for work, having tea, or whatever. My baby is dead inside of me and I can't get rid of it, and I will never, ever be the same.

I told you. Look away.

At 4:15 am I put together a list of 12 questions for J to ask Dr S today. They included everything from how soon can I get a D & C so that I can stop feeling pregnant to what types of anti-depressants can I get on ASAP so I don't take the fistful of Ambien in my bathroom with a nice big bottle of Reisling that I haven't been able to drink for months. I also emailed an infertility therapist in NY at 5:45 am to see if she takes AETNA and would see me. I am sure that is not the first middle of the night cry for help she has gotten. I also want the name of some support groups and want every goddamn pregnancy loss test in the book so that I can rest at night knowing that this was, truly, "one of those things" and that there is not something deeper and darker wrong with me or my eggs.

I am not afraid to ask for help. Here is what I am afraid of:

1. Never feeling better. The grief is overwhelming and complete
2. People pitying me. This sucks. But it could happen to you and you and you and you wouldn't want the world saying "Oh, poor you". It is not poor me. This shit happens. Wake up. your pity makes me feel like shit and what I really need is your support. In my darkest hour, which I believe was 5:59 am when I woke Jeff up and cried in his arms for an hour, I pity myself and that is something I will not stand for. It is useless and ridiculous and just leaves me feeling helpless.
3. Never being a mom. For the brief, 7 weeks and 5 days that I thought I was pregnant (we will never know when Stewie died, but I personally think it was a week ago- he had no heart to beat so he stopped growing during the fetal pole stage) I felt like I had the best little secret in the world. To people at work i was just the VP, but to me I was the VP that was also going to be a mom. To my nieces and nephews I was Aunt Rachel but to Jeff I was the mother of his child. To never experience that again, would be, in my mind, the largest tragedy I could imagine.
4. People being afraid to talk to me or mention this to me. What if your father died and I never said a damn thing about it? Lots of articles i read say that people treat miscarriage as if it is not a loss - figuring that what you had inside of you was not even a "baby yet" - i don't care. Feels like a loss. Tastes like a loss. My eyes are swollen shut and my sinuses are aching and that is a loss.
5. What to do now. For the first time in my life, I cannot comfort myself. J cannot comfort me, and he has really tried. I have no interest in eating, sleeping, seeing friends, etc. My friends who are pregnant are a painful reminder, and I to them. My friends who have kids feel like they don't understand. My friends without kids or who never want them will never understand me. This leaves me friendless. I want people to reach out to me, but it may be a few weeks or even months before i can reach back. Bear with me, though, I will reach back.

I see the next few weeks streched out in front of me like this big long road. I have to talk J and Dr S into a D & C, experience someone scraping out what was going to be the second love of my life after J, hope to hell there are no complications or infections, someday go back to work, if I still have a job, and every morning somehow find the strength to get dressed and put on a happy face to the clueless and thus totally innocent people at work who all need me to help them. Its like I want a tshirt that says "be nice to me - I had a miscarriage" so that the world will be a bit more kind, just for awhile.

If I sound pathetic, or whiny, or selfish, so be it.

For those of you who have suffered a loss like this, your emails and phone calls about it are truly the most helpful thing you can imagine. An old friend sent me an email about the two losses she suffered and her resulting despair and despondency, and I reread it 100 times as it was truly, truly helpful. She has kids now and seeing that makes me feel hope.

So here it is. The ugly side of me. I dont' like it, but for the first time I am really seeing it.