I don’t know why I am thinking about this now. Maybe it’s because if I had not miscarried in March of 1986, I would have been celebrating a birthday about now. Yes it was 25 years ago, but I’ve never forgotten about it.
I have blogged before about how I always knew I wanted to be a mother and couldn’t wait for my time to come. My husband and I enjoyed the first couple of years together before we decided we were ready to be parents. We were already in our early thirties and it seemed like the right time. I found out I was pregnant in the beginning of march, 1986. I was overwhelmed with unbelievable joy. We told everyone. But, our joy was very short lived. One week later I started spotting and lost the baby. I was devastated and felt a tremendous loss. And then we had to tell everyone too. So there were lots of words of to try to comfort me, none of which worked for me.
Telling me that there was probably something wrong with the baby and it was nature’s way of taking care of it, didn’t work. Telling me I could try again soon, didn’t work. What if this was going to happen every time we tried? That’s what haunted me. And the loss, it felt like nothing I had ever felt before. I was surprised myself because I had only known I had been pregnant a week. But in a week’s time I went from my highest high, to my lowest low. Sometimes life is a roller coaster ride of emotions. I took a few days off from work while my body healed and my emotions weren’t so raw.
When I got back out in the real world, and for the next few months, it seemed like everyone was pregnant. Every pregnant woman stood out like a sore thumb. I couldn’t help, but be envious, it should have been me. One of our closest friends became pregnant soon after I miscarried. It was so hard to be happy for her and not feel bad for myself at the same time. I guess those emotions are normal, but they didn’t feel good. The doctor said we could start trying again after three months and we did.
I was scared the same thing would happen again, but I soon found out I was pregnant again in August, 1986 and the baby was due in April. I thought to myself, maybe I lost the other baby so that this baby could be born? It was crazy thinking, like I was trying to rationalize the loss somehow and make it okay. I was so afraid the first three months of my pregnancy that a lot of the joy I felt the first time I didn’t allow myself to have for fear something would happen. But, the one thing I noticed immediately was, all food tasted delicious. My sense of taste was so different. I went from a person who didn’t care about eating, to caring about it all the time and loving it. I gained 4 to 5 pounds a month and I was never full. But the oddest thing about this second pregnancy was, that instead of getting morning sickness I got happy. My sense of humor, like my sense of taste, was out of control. I found everything funny. So when I allowed myself to stop worrying, I was laughing all the time. It felt so good. And in April, 1987, I gave birth to a tiny baby girl, weighing in at 7 pounds, and kept the remaining 25 pounds as a souvenir. My appetite went back to normal and I was able to shed those extra pounds in a few months.
Ever since that day in April, I think I would not have my baby girl had it not been for that miscarriage the year before, and I would not give her up for anything in the world. It’s funny how life works, sometimes something precious is taken away and other times something precious is given. And, as much as I would have appreciated and loved the baby I lost, my love and appreciation for the baby girl I had was so much greater because of the experience. And to that little soul in heaven, Happy 25th Birthday to you, you have been thought about and loved every day.
They say when one door closes another opens. Those people are the optimists, but maybe, just maybe, they know what they are talking about sometimes.
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