Unbearable: Seven Months Post-Miscarriage, I’m Not Over It

Depressed womanHaving a child is usually a happy time in a woman’s life. Unfortunately, as we wait longer to have children, infertility and trouble conceiving can become a part of the family making process. Unbearable addresses these difficulties.

Ever since losing my future-child to an ectopic pregnancy on New Year’s Eve, I’ve been going about my life in what I thought to be a relatively stable fashion. I’ve reflected on the experience and opened up to friends, family and you wonderful readers. I’ve discussed a lot of the pain and emotions that the memories bring. I really thought that all this discussion had been cathartic for me, that it had helped me move on in some way. But after a day spent in the hospital where I lost my chance at another child, I realized just how much I’m not over it.

I’ve been sitting in a hospital room just a few floors up from where I went into surgery seven months ago. A close family member is going through a medical emergency and I’ve spent the past 24 hours at their side. (Your prayers and well-wishes are both welcome and appreciated.) And while I’ve spent most of my time answering doctor’s questions, fetching ice chips and squeezing hands, I’ve also had plenty of opportunity to sit and reflect. During that time, it’s impossible to keep my mind here, in this room. It keeps drifting down the elevator and into the room where I found out that I would lose my child. I keep reliving the emptiness I felt after my surgery was done, as I lay in bed, filled with so much pain that I had no idea whether it was physical or emotional.

This hospital, this place where I said goodbye to so much hope, seems to have the ability to bring all of those emotions back.

I feel almost silly, looking around the emergency room for the doctors and nurses who treated me. I wonder if they’ll even remember my face or if they see so much tragedy. One sobbing mother couldn’t possibly register this many months later. I feel ridiculous looking resentfully at the board on the wall asking what “execellent care means” for my family. My excellent care hopes didn’t really matter. There was nothing anyone could do.

More than anything, I feel guilty that I’m selfishly thinking of myself when someone that I love deeply is sick and in pain. I feel horrible that I’m not spending every ounce of effort praying for their health. Instead, I’m dwelling on my own irreversible past. It seems unfair and self-indulgent.

It’s been more than half a year since I lost a child. I’m now trying to get pregnant again. It hasn’t succeeded yet, but there’s still a chance that it will. I should have moved on by now, right? Something as simple as a location shouldn’t overwhelm me with grief.

And yet here I am, sitting on an uncomfortable hospital couch, thinking about the last time I slept in this building. I’m thinking about the picture of the child removed from my Fallopian tube. (Yes, a nurse showed it to me.) I’m crying, not just because I’m concerned for my loved one, but because I’m still not over my loss. At this point time, I’m not sure if I ever will be.

(Photo: Fnsy/Shutterstock)

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