"For whatever it's worth, I see you. I hear your guttural sobs. I feel your ache deep inside my bones. I notice the grit and guts it takes to pry yourself out of bed every single day and force your bloodied feet to stand up and keep walking".
-Angela Miller
I can still remember the day like it was yesterday. I believe it was 3 weeks to the day Kayla was born and I had to get up early because my husband was running a 5K that morning. I tried, but I could not sleep the night before. As the hours ticked by, it became more and more clear I was not getting any sleep that night. I think I finally did doze off for about 45 minutes on the couch before my alarm went off.
I was dreading this day. It was the first 5K we'd be going to since Kayla was born. The last time I went to a race to support him was about a month and a half ago. Before. Before. I think just about anyone who has gone through a major loss in their life knows the phenomenon of before and after. Suddenly all time is irrelevant. There is no "last year", or "next month". Everything is split into one of two categories. Before it, or after it. The last time I went to a race of his, I was happy, I was content. I was pregnant. Now I was not, and I hated this. My grief on this day would have been bad anyway, but my lack, or complete absence of sleep just made it even worse. I think getting that 45 minutes actually did more harm than good. I somehow got through the race, and even breakfast afterward.
My family was going out for dinner that evening to celebrate my brother's birthday, and I was asked if I wanted to go or not. Everyone said they would love for me to come, but they totally understood if I was not up to it. As the day went on, I couldn't make a decision. I wanted to go so badly, I wanted to be surrounded by my family whom I needed so much right then. I want to go more than anything.....AND I wanted to stay home and going was the last thing on earth I wanted to do. I can't describe that feeling anymore than I just did, but I remember feeling it. I wanted two completely opposite things at the very same time. My dad called to ask if I was going and as soon as I said no, he asked....."rough day"?
I couldn't hold it in any longer. My dad's voice was the representation of all that was right in the world, and it was such a comfort at that moment and I just let it out. We talked for a good 30 minutes and while he did make me feel much better, I decided not to go to dinner with everyone. I didn't want to risk bursting into tears at the Olive Garden. But the point of this story is that, that day was when I hit rock bottom. Nothing majorly significant happened. You'd think it would have been the day of her funeral, or the day I had to return to the hospital where I had her, and go to my follow up appointment at my OB's office that was filled with pregnant woman and the sound of a healthy baby's heartbeat coming from one of the ultrasound rooms.
But no, it was just a day. Yes, going to the race was hard...going to do something that was a happy, fun event the last time I did it was hard. But for the most part it was just a regular day. But being 3 weeks out, I think the pain was still so raw, but it had been long enough for the shock to have warn off. I think it was the first day my body and soul was really feeling the pain, and it was hell. I had been through difficult losses before. Losing my mom was probably the biggest life-altering loss I had experienced, and losing both of my beloved grandparents 3 weeks apart was no walk in the park. I was no stranger to grief. I knew the steps, I knew the unpleasantness that was to come. But in that moment, my world felt like it was pitch black, and I could not see a thing. I couldn't see my way out. I couldn't see how I would ever not be in the enormous amount of pain that I was in that very moment. It felt like something that was flat out impossible and the pressure of not feeling like I could ever climb my way out of this hole felt like I was being slowly crushed to death, one well placed stone at a time.
Another day I remember having a very hard time was the few days before Ryan went back to worth, I had 6 weeks off work, and he had 2 or 3. I have always been an independent person and I like my space and alone time. My husband and I always enjoyed our time together, but I at least, always enjoyed my time alone as well. But for the last several weeks since Kayla was born, we had spent nearly every waking hour together. He went to the gym one day for a couple of hours without me, and one night out to the bar. That was it. Roughly 6 hours on my own, out of several weeks. Those weeks we had off work together, we had a schedule. We tried to go somewhere every other day. Some days it was a quick trip to Target...others it was a couple hour shopping trip and out to lunch. I just knew we had to make a conscious effort to get out of the house, otherwise we might shut ourselves in forever. As that final weekend together approached, I felt the dread wash over me.
If one could see into my heart to know what I was feeling, you'd think I was preparing to say goodbye to my husband for several months or a year. Not just a work day. But thinking about him going back to work made me short of breathe, it made the weight on my chest heavier, and I felt scared, panicked and sad. The idea of him not being with me 24/7 anymore brought on a feeling of being homesick. Me, the once super independent girl that craved my alone time, was now terrified to be home without him, even for 8 hours. The actual day turned out to be not so bad, and I of course got through it, but that final weekend together felt like we were on the precipice of eternal doom.
The last day that I wanted to write about was my first day, or I suppose, my first week back to work. Before I went, I was slightly looking forward to it, to get back into a routine, to get back into something that would make me feel normal. But despite being nervous about going and even throwing up in anticipation the day before, nothing could have prepared me for how bad it was going to be. The stares I felt as I walked in to my desk. The sympathetic smiles and feeling of dread that someone was going to ask me about it, and the anger and hurt when people didn't. My co-worker and friend, was loudly asking her cube mate how his baby is and what he has been up to. My hands curled up into a tight bawl, almost insane with anger that they could be so heartless as to talk about this happy, healthy, living baby within inescapable earshot of the girl who just returned to work after losing her baby.
I went home at noon that day. It was just too hard; way harder than I expected. The moment I walked out those doors, I could breathe again. I was beyond giddy to be going home, to be outside in the sunshine, in my car alone, away from the sympathetic yet pitiful people who meant well but just couldn't seem to do or say the right thing. Going home, and picking up some sort of yummy comforting food, and thinking about putting on my pj's, laying on the couch and snuggling with my cat sounded like the best damn thing in the world. For a while, I felt amazing. I was sad and in pain, but I was home, and I was happy....until about 8 that night, when reality set back in, knowing I had to go back to work tomorrow, and that I had to stay all day....and the next day, and the day after that.
By the time I got home that second day, I was in a full on panic. I've never had a panic attack before, and I don't know if what I was experiencing was one,. Bit all I can remember is feeling dread, and panic, and desperation. I was wracking my brain, trying to think of something, anything that could keep me from having to go back to work. Anything to allow me to stay home all day, in my pjs and not deal with anything or anyone. In that very moment I could briefly understand, or at least relate to the crazy, and often illegal things people do when they are desperate. I felt deep down that there just had to be a way that I could quit my job and not become homeless because we could not get by on just my husband's salary at the time. I think had the devil himself showed up to offer me a work-free existence, at the bargain price of just my soul, I was desperate enough at that moment to have taken the deal. Every time I arrived back at the only result there was, which was not quit my job, I became angry and desperate and panicked all over again. Work slowly, very slowly got better. But it took a long time. It took months. I would say a solid 3-4 months of being back to work went by before I felt even a shred of being "ok" with being there.
The reason I shared these particular 3 difficult days, was because at the time, I couldn't see it. I couldn't see that I was in a hole. A temporary hole that I would eventually climb out of. Despite knowing for a fact that I would climb out, I didn't believe it because it sounded so implausible. Miscarriage, infant and pregnancy loss can be so horribly isolating. Often times people do not share these hard times with just anyone, so most people in their lives do not know it ever happened. That is why raising awareness and reaching out to say "I am one in four"and "I am a loss mom" is so important, to help bring comfort in numbers to all of the silent sufferers out there.
It's important to know you are not alone, and that you are fortunately/unfortunately surrounded by people who know exactly what you're going through. But coming out of the "loss mom closet" is important in another way too. It shows people that others foughtt through it, others felt the panic and despair that you are feeling, and they got through it. It shows people that there is "the other side" and that we are living, breathing proof that you can and you will get through it, no matter how dark your world is today, there is sunshine coming. It may not be today, or tomorrow, or next week. But it's out there, and it will be yours. Someday. And that knowledge of someday gives hope.
Today, 4.5 years after I was in one of the darkest places in my life, I now stand in the sunshine. I once again love my alone time and some days even look forward to my husband going to work. The decision to go out to dinner or not is not a major conundrum, and talking to my dad on the phone does not make me burst into tears. I once again go to work (well sort of) every day like everyone else, and I actually enjoy my job and feel happy about doing it. I no longer have any desire to find some way to quit my job.
If you're reading this, and you recently lost one of the most precious things to you in the world, please know that it can and will get better. The grief will never go away. Nor would I want it to because grief is just what is in place of the love I have for my daughter and the love will never go away. If you feel hopeless, panicked, desperate and cannot for the life of you see how there is any way things will ever be good again, know that the above 3 days were 3 of the worst days of my life, where the emotional pain was so intense I think I would have chosen physical pain in its place. But I got through it, and I am still standing, and so are you. I see you, I hear you and I feel your pain.
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