First Blood

Yesterday I started my first real period since my miscarriage.
Sadness, more grief.
I didn't want to be bleeding right now...
And I'm irritable and my skin is greasy.
Threw a tantrum last night to Dave, about something that shouldn't have mattered.
It's a little early to be bleeding, not even sure I ovulated in the last 3.5 weeks.
But my body is regaining its natural rhythm.
I am patient.
The baby spirit is quiet, not saying anything now.
I have a feeling it won't be time again until the fall.
This one probably doesn't want to be grown or born in Israel.
I'm okay with that, because I trust that there's a reason for all of it, and I'll know more when it's time.
Still sad to be bleeding, and glad at the same time.
More to release, clear, sadness to let go of.

Paying Attention to the Signs

I feel like I've been receiving a lot of signs lately about what I am supposed to do professionally. When an idea lands in my mind and spirit and sticks and only gets stronger with time, I pay attention.

When my husband asks me how I got from a place of distrusting the medical system to wanting to be a nurse, and wouldn't it be hard to have to do what doctors say all the time, I listen and let the question sit inside me until an answer comes. The answer that came was: I need to be a nurse who works in crisis situations - like the ER or the ICU or surgery - where to me there is no doubt that conventional medicine is needed and works, really helps. Plus I think that I could handle it, and would be good at it. And I could give of myself in that complete way that is truly me.

Then I received another sign the other day when I watched an incredibly inspiring and heartwrenching video online. I think everybody should watch this video, because it will make you feel deeply grateful for your life, and humble at the reality of just how fragile it all is. It's about a woman who delivered triplets at home, and about the physical struggles of one of the triplets, Lily, who was in the PICU for over three weeks around 4 months old. The video was filled with photos of this beautiful family, including many of a very small girl with lots of tubes and machines attached to her. It cracked another crack in my heart (I like being cracked open, that's when amazing things come out). And it inspired me. Then I saw the photo of Lily and her mom and one of the PICU nurses, just before they returned home. PLOP! Another idea: I could be a PICU nurse.

About a week ago I did a search online for "registered nurse Cincinnati," and stumbled onto a website (I love the Internet because it lets me stumble a lot) for Cincinnati Children's Hospital's RN residency program in pediatric nursing. Hmm, now that would be an interesting way to bring it all together. Nursing, mothering, working, feeling fulfilled in my work.

I can't really tell you right now where exactly I will end up. But I can tell you that it's exciting and inspiring just to dream about it. I wonder if one day someone will ask me, "How did you get into nursing?" And I will respond, "I had a miscarriage, and something just clicked in me that I had to explore it."

Check-up

I went to Kaiser yesterday for my OB-GYN post-miscarriage appointment.
I love my OB, she has the best bedside manner or any doctor I've ever known.
She spent time with me, ample time, to really make sure I was doing alright.
And at the end of the appointment, she wanted a hug, because of all I'd been through.
So sweet.
She's probably my age, maybe even younger. A good doctor who explains everything well and doesn't feel threatened or annoyed by my oodles of questions. That's comforting.

My ultrasound was all clear. My endometrium (the lining in my uterus that forms to prepare for the next egg) is thin, and will thicken up with each period I have, which is why they encourage you wait 2 full periods before trying to conceive again.
Something I learned: When a folicle in the ovaries releases an egg, it forms a little benign cyst to do so, which hangs out for a while and eventually bursts. There's one in my right ovary that's about 4 cm wide, which is normal. It's probably from the egg that dropped to create the pregnancy. We need to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't get to 10 or more cm. And I'll probably feel a twinge when it bursts. Perhaps that's why I always feel my ovulation on my right side, but not on the left.
It's all fascinating.

She also told me there's a big shortage in labor and delivery nurses...
Dave asked me if I could handle being an L&D nurse with doctors who will want to intervene in births more than I feel comfortable with.
I put it a different way: What if, as the nurse on duty when a woman is in labor, as the one who's in the room with her the most consistently, I can help her feel like she can do it, so that there's less need for unnecessary intervention? I remember the nurse on duty when we transported to the hospital after 32 hours of labor with Dahlia, how she had good suggestions for how I could help get her unwedged so she could come out naturally. She was so there, the whole time, and knew a lot. That's a neat thought.

I'm not thinking right now about when I will get pregnant again. I'll check in with my body in a few months and see if it feels ready. Check in with the baby spirit and see if s/he is ready. If not, maybe in the fall. I hope I can remain trusting that we will know and be in sync when the time is right and we are ready.

I cracked open when I miscarried, and I am feeling a lot of loss and grieving about leaving California in about 2 months. I wonder if I would have felt it this much had I not had the loss of the pregnancy? Maybe it all is for good, as strange as that idea is. I know I am supposed to feel this process - deeply.

Mother's Serenity Prayer (by me)

God grant me the serenity to remain calm amid the storm that motherhood can be.
Help keep me from getting impatient when my child won’t cooperate because she has to do it her way.
Help me keep my irritation in check when she bursts into tears because she wants me to take off her shoes NOW while I’m driving on the freeway.
Help me to remember that there are still huge gaps in her understanding of how life works.
Allow me to see her as truly angelic, not only when she is peacefully asleep, but also when she is awake, overtired and yelling at me.

God help me to trust that I can simultaneously want to make another child on days when I wish I could send my first one back.
Help me to shut up and give my husband less advice about how to care for our daughter.
Help me to remain excited about spending time with my daughter even when she is whiny, bossy and totally unpleasant.
Help me to not get angry when she hits, pushes or throws sand at another kid.
Allow me to put down my walls - the ones I put up when she yells at me - so that I can hold her and rock her as if she were still a baby.

God be there to remind me that each day ends, and a new day always begins.
Help me to accept my child on days when she wakes up smiling and days when she wakes up whining and crying.
Help me to turn off my brain when it's cranking away to try and figure out what causes such fluctuations in her mood.
Help me find creativity to make new and exciting things for her to eat at dinner, in her lunch for school, and for snacks.
Allow me to access my best self - the one that is much easier to connect to when I am quiet and alone - with my child and husband.

God help me not to yell, no matter how at my whit's end I might be.
Help me not to blame myself for my child's temperament.
Help me to appreciate how energetic, creative, friendly and special she is - even when she's not showing it.
Help me to remember that all phases end and new ones begin, and that I always get through them.
Allow me to reach out to friends and family for support, especially those who have been there.

God give me guidance to get through some of the harder things.
Help me wean my daughter off of too many videos in the mornings and evenings.
Help me gather the energy to stimulate her in other ways during those times when I need some calm and space.
Help me persevere long enough in introducing new foods that she actually tries them and grows to like them.
Allow me to be less than perfect.

God grant me peace, groundedness, trust and the ability to completely surrender as a mother.
Help me to keep my voice soft, my words gentle, my energy kind.
Help me to teach her through my actions, words and love.
Help me to encourage gentleness, patience and trust in her.
Allow me to always believe in myself, my husband and our child.
Amen

Grieving

On Friday I told my therapist I was afraid to sink into a major depression. Because I still cry suddenly, still feel discombobulated, thrown off. Because I am tired a lot and crave sugar. Because I get anxious thinking about when the timing will be right to get pregnant again, how it will fit in with everything we have ahead of us.

She reminded me that it had barely been two week since I'd miscarried, and that this is still a very present and very big loss. Something to continue grieving as long as I need. And I recognized that this loss cracked me open to feeling all the losses I have ahead of me as we leave in just over two months to head to Israel. I am leaving my home of almost 30 years; no small thing.

So I am letting myself grieve.

I bled yesterday, kind of like a mini period but I think it's just extra blood that needs to come out. Or my body thinking it should have a period because of some hormonal thing going on inside. I'm definitely more easily irritated the past few days. Sensitive to Dahlia's screaming and whining - which I would guess is no worse than any other kid her age, but boy is it grating when I'm not feeling fit to deal with it. She freaks out about nothing so suddenly, so completely, all I can say is MELLOW OUT KID! She is intense and fiery, my darling daughter.

I am slowly getting back into my body, into my uterus, into that part of my body that reproduces, and that will reproduce again, hopefully soon. But not quite yet, I'm definitely not ready yet.

I am still thinking about becoming a nurse...

Where I'm At

I wrote this in an email to my friend Sarah tonight:

it really feels so amazing just how loved and held i am, have been through all this. we all really feel it and appreciate it. it's been quite a week, and i am still getting back on my feet after being thrown quite off kilter. having to dig deep to find my joy again, as strange as that might sound. dahlia helps with that - today we made princess hats together after spending $30 on arts and craft supplies at long's! i think what's hard for me right now is that there is so much to do as we prepare for our move, and i still really just feel like sleeping a lot. rest assured that i am not depressed in that way i have been in the past - where i couldn't get out of bed - but i sure wish i could get more rest. not surprising that i caught a cold just after i stopped bleeding last week... sigh. according to my acupuncturist, the lungs is where the body holds grief. guess that makes sense. i never thought i'd have a miscarriage - i guess no one does until they have one - so it totally threw me for a loop.

The Dust Settles

Last week was a weird one. My body and spirit got thrown off kilter. It's not surprising that I caught a cold late last week. I know colds don't happen in the uterus, but the body is all interconnected and when one part is working hard, it's a lot for the body to take. I stopped bleeding on Friday, but had a little more blood yesterday. I pay close attention to the workings of my body.

I'm still not quite sure what to make of the idea that my baby didn't really start to form much past the egg meeting the sperm and fertilizing. It's strange to think of being pregnant for 2 months while the little embryo didn't grow. Yet it's good to know that my body knows what to do, how to be pregnant, and how to recognize when something's not right.

I wonder if I am meant to be an older mom, even if my first child came at 32. Funny that 32 isn't considered old anymore. The door has opened in both my and Dave's hearts to the possibility of having two more children, not just one. Maybe it's because we know, now, that it's such a precarious miracle when it happens. There's a part of me that wonders if I will ever be done - it's such a gift to be able to make a child, nurture that child inside me, birth that child. The other day I found myself wishing for twins!

Dahlia was holding her Snow White doll the other day and she said that Snow White was her little brother and she was her big sister. I wonder if Dahlia knows when her baby brother or sister will join us.

Blighted Ovum

Isn't that pretty for a scientific term?

"A blighted ovum (also known as “anembryonic pregnancy”) happens when a fertilized egg attaches itself to the uterine wall, but the embryo does not develop. Cells develop to form the pregnancy sac, but not the embryo itself. A blighted ovum usually occurs within the first trimester before a woman knows she is pregnant. A high level of chromosome abnormalities usually causes a woman’s body to naturally miscarry. A blighted ovum is the cause of about 50% of first trimester miscarriages and is usually the result of chromosomal problems. A woman’s body recognizes abnormal chromosomes in a fetus and naturally does not try to continue the pregnancy because the fetus will not develop into a normal, healthy baby. This can be caused by abnormal cell division, or poor quality sperm or egg. A blighted ovum is often a one time occurrence, and rarely will a woman experience more than one."

According to my midwife in Israel, this is what happened. It makes sense on so many levels, not just because they didn't find an embryo in the tiny amniotic sac. But also because that baby's spirit was so quiet, almost not inside me but rather floating apprehensively outside me, around us at times, other times not. I didn't feel pregnant in quite the way I had the last time. I couldn't explain it, but now in a way I can.

Is it comforting to know that when I miscarried last Sunday, it wasn't really the exact moment the baby's spirit left my body? I'm not sure if it's comforting, it just is. And yet the universe, God, wanted me to have this information, because I only know there was no embryo found because I went to the pathology lab to retrieve my "specimen" and got the information from the guy at the lab. It wasn't in the report, he just told me. It was my information to hold, to seek to understand. Now I do. So it is information I hold, integrate, like the rest. It's possible that the fever I had when I had the stomach flu in my second week of pregnancy caused the egg not to fully form. Or it was just chromosomes. Who knows. It wasn't time this time around. I hope, I pray that next time it will be. I am not in charge, and I don't need to be.

Shared Experience

My friend Jean and I have been writing to each other about the experience of miscarriage, which is one we now share.
It feels really good to share with someone who understands in that way you can only understand if you've experienced it.
I've talked about it with another friend this week, too, who has been there.

Jean is very wise, and very clairvoyant.
She knows things, in a totally unpresumptuous way.
She told me I was going to marry Dave, months before Dave and I were even dating, even seeing each other with those eyes. She just knew.
She told me I would get pregnant right away.
She told me it was a girl, and that I would have more.
When I miscarried, I prayed that she was right, that I would have more.
Now, a week later, I know she's right - she says I'm going to have more than one more.

I want to share some wise things, some moving things Jean has shared with me:

"And Gal, I still see you with at least a couple more children running around you."

"I've been reading your blog and it's eloquent and poetic and so sad. I too had a miscarriage around 8 weeks when Maya was around 20 months old. I felt it was a boy and he would've come around June 21, 2006. I miss him so much like there's a hole in my heart. How is it that we can miss someone so deeply who only lived for a few weeks and who we never saw, or touched, or kissed? I think about having a third child because I want to give him another chance to come back."

"Since learning of your miscarriage I've been thinking a lot about experiencing loss as a mother and as a daughter. I realized that many of my closest women friends are those who also had physically or emotionally absent mothers. And my connection is deepest with those who've also become mothers themselves. Would losing my baby feel less painful if I had a loving relationship with my own mother? I don't know. I suppose that a woman who has a nurturing mother could turn to her when she's sad or lonely, but would that soften the pain of loss? I just know that having an absent mother can the pain so excruciatingly hollow when you are rudely aware that there's no mother to call on."

At some point in the emergency room, as I lay on the table just after miscarrying, I thought that it would be so nice to have my mom there for me right then. Not my mom who hasn't been present in my life or there for me for 20 years, but my mom who studied midwifery and was so nurturing and would've been such amazing support just then if she had remained that way. And yet it doesn't trigger me anymore. I felt the missing feeling, but not in that raw, biting way that I used to miss her. It was more about what would've been nice, what would've helped me through the experience. Maybe I just don't feel as alone as I used to feel. I am not alone. I have a partner, an amazing one. And when he came back into the room and I told him the baby had come out, he cried first about not being there with me in that moment; then about what had happened. It was a perfect situation - no one was in the room at the exact moment I miscarried, just me and my baby, its spirit floating around to see how I was doing. Just the two of us, feeling the loss, the beginning of disconnecting while staying connected in a new way. I wonder if s/he will come back.

Planted

Dahlia and Sharon and I went to Golden Gate Park to get a dahlia to plant for the spirit of my baby.
The Dahlia Society was selling dahlias in one room, and next door the Bonsai Society was selling bonzais.
In the Botanical Gardens nearby, they were selling all kinds of plants.
I wish I'd known about all those places to buy plants and flowers before now.
But today I just needed one flower to plant, and I don't really know much about planting flowers besides dahlias.
And dahlias are so bright and magnificent.

I got a yellow and orange one, a cutting, and a pot and some soil.
I went into the freezer to get what was left of what my body had made within my uterus to grow baby.
I put the soil into the pot, what my body had released into the soil, then more soil and the dahlia cutting on top.
Then I cleaned up the dahlia I had planted three years ago with Dahlia's placenta.
And I replanted some little dahlia tubers I'd gotten from Dave's mom when they moved.
The dahlias of my garden are ready to grow and it's spring; that feels good.

Frayed

Yesterday I was feeling fine. I went to a yoga class, which felt good.
At Shabbat with some friends, Dave and I spoke about our experiences this week.
I think I ate too much dessert last night, because this morning I'm feeling congested and sad.
Dahlia just yelled at me and there are times when I can handle it calmly, and other times when it just makes me want to get far away from her and cry. I had no idea that kids yelled at their parents so much, especially high energy three year olds like mine.
I got sad yesterday when Dahlia really wanted me to play with her some more and I didn't feel like it.
I thought about how much I want to give her a sibling to play with, and wondered when that's going to happen.
I started thinking about when to get pregnant again, as if I have any say in the matter.
It made my head spin to think about how to time it with our year in Israel and then our move to Cincinnati.
Then I had to just stop the board meeting in my head, tell them we were adjourned for now.
Surrender.

I think I finished bleeding yesterday.
It feels like the baby spirit has left completely. Who knows if it will return, if it's meant to.
I'm still waiting for a response from my OB-GYN about what it means that they didn't find an embryo in the amniotic sac.
I wonder when the spirit left that little body.
Now I readjust to being a regular menstruating woman again, at least for a while.
I wonder if every woman I see today will seem to be pregnant, like it has been for the last week.
Dahlia and I are going to buy dahlia tubers in Golden Gate Park today.
I want to plant one with the remains of my miscarriage, say a little prayer, say goodbye.
I guess I still have some tears to cry.
Dave said it's not about getting over this, and he's right.
It's about integrating it into our lives, into who we are, into my experience as a woman and a mother and a physical body, into my soul.

A friend shared with me that she, too, had a miscarriage in between her two girls.
She felt it was a boy, and she misses him still so much.
She thinks about having a third child to give him a chance to come back.
She understands how deeply you can miss a being you didn't even get to hold or kiss.

Faraway Spirit

This morning I went to the pathology lab at Kaiser to pick up the "remains" of my miscarriage.
I want to bury them in a flowerpot with a flower.
In the same way that I planted dahlia flowers with the placenta from Dahlia's birth.
The man at the lab was so kind, so compassionate.
I sat in his office as he had me sign a release form and showed me the lab report.
He explained to me that they did not find an embryo in the little amniotic sac.
They usually aren't able to find an embryo until 8-10 weeks.
I told him I miscarried at 10 weeks, so what did that mean?
He told me I should ask my doctor, because he couldn't be sure.
My instinct is that the embryo didn't grow past a few weeks, even while the amniotic sac and the rest of my uterus did.
That quiet little baby spirit may not have embodied his physical self for very long.
And yet my body continued being pregnant.
That was new information to integrate.
I cried on the way back to my car.
Then I sat with it and in a way it calmed me.
Maybe easier in a way to lose a baby that had left before?
No, still sad. Still missing something. Wondering where baby is now, looking down at me from a more settled place.
Last night there was a boy baby in my dream, I think I was changing his diaper. I was happy in the dream, I think.
I slept badly last night, I'm tired today.
I was surrounded by pregnant women at the park this afternoon. Hard.
Dahlia was grieving the loss in her own way, feeling sad and wanting me close to her throughout the day.
I read a Slate.com article about miscarriage (link to the article under the links at right).
The author, who'd miscarried herself in between her two children, wrote about joining a sad but wise tribe.
That's what I feel - I look older, wiser, with a little more sadness in my spirit.
I don't think I will wear that sadness on my face forever, but for now it's there.
Today I noticed I've worn a lot of black since Sunday.
I looked at all the colors in Dahlia's clothes and thought that tomorrow I need to make sure I wear more colors.
A sad but wise tribe.
Laurie is right - "To know how fragile life is at this early stage and to know that not all things that we create in life come to fruition. It is a relief to me that we are not in charge of things so precious as life itself."

Dahlia

Yesterday we told Dahlia we lost the baby.
We didn't say it that way; actually, it was me who told her as she sat between me and Dave.
I told her I had something important to tell her, and that it was something sad.
I told her that the baby that was growing inside mommy's tummy left us early to be with God.
I told her that the baby wasn't growing in my tummy anymore, but that s/he was in a good place.
I told her that we would make another baby when it was time, and promised her she would be a big sister one day.
I asked her if she wanted to share how she felt, asked her what she was feeling.
She said she was sad.
Then she ran out of the room very abruptly, needing to be by herself, perhaps feeling overwhelmed.

Last night at the Passover seder at Jeffrey's, with all our friends, Dahlia told me she had to go pee.
So I got up with her and we ran to the bathroom.
As I ran, I felt something come out of me that was more than blood.
A piece of the stuff of life that had been lining my uterus and creating a home for the baby.
I didn't expect it, I thought the bulk of that had come out earlier that day at home.
After Dahlia peed, I took this piece of - what to call it? - and put it in the toilet.
Dahlia asked me what it was, and it occured to me that I probably should have waited until she'd left the bathroom.
But she must have needed to be there, and I answered with total calm and maternal comfort.

I asked her if she remembered that there had been a baby growing in my belly.
I told her that when the baby had been there, my body had started to make a house to hold the baby.
I told her that now that the baby had gone to God, my body didn't need the house anymore.
I told her that this was a piece of the house, that my body was clearing out the house so that next time there will be room for a new house when we make another baby.
I asked her if she understood. She seemed to take that in.
Then she went outside to play with her friends.

I wonder if when she's all grown up she might have a faint memory of this time.
One day she will tell someone she knows who miscarries that before her brother or sister was born, her mom miscarried.
In the same way that the other day I told Dave that before I was born, my mom had an abortion.
Our mothers' stories become part of our own, especially as women.
As Dahlia's mother, my story is woven into her own, and soon her memories will hold the experiences we share.
She is an amazing child, mature, and being called on to be mature.
Sometimes I want to protect her from that grown-up stuff, but I think if she'd asked for that, she would have chosen a different mother.

By being alive, by being my first child, she has helped me through this experience.
I can't imagine the terror and confusion I would have felt if I'd miscarried before having had a child.
Before knowing that I could conceive and grow a healthy child.
Kind of like all the little terrors I've felt in the first years as a mother, before I knew I could raise and nurture a child even though I'd never done it before.

Tentative Being

My friend Serena sent me this prayer yesterday:

"I pray for that little soul that didn't get the chance this time to become your living child. But even as I say that I feel that that little soul is already perfectly back at the source with no harm done to it. The pain is here on earth with the mama and papa and those of us who love you and who were expecting with you. Oh god. Please care for Gal at this time. Please take care of this sweet woman. Help her to mourn. And then when it's time help Gal to heal."

I always felt that the baby spirit inside me was quiet, tentative, unsure.
(Quieter than Dahlia had been - I don't remember her ever being a quiet baby spirit.)
I guess s/he wasn't sure it was time.

When I started this blog, I asked myself what I would do with it if I had a miscarriage.
I decided that I would continue writing as long as I needed.
Maybe I knew, somewhere deep down. It is now part of my journey of motherhood.

Today Dahlia asked me why my belly still looked big.
Perhaps hoping the baby was still there, that we hadn't lost it.
I told her it was because I'd had a big lunch.

She told me she misses the baby.
I miss the baby too.
I wonder if s/he will come back next time I get pregnant, ready; or if it will be a different soul.

Today I woke up unsure how to be, feel.
Needing to readjust to the experience of not being pregnant.
Feeling empty now that most of what went into growing this baby has left my body.

The nurse called me from my OB-GYN's office and wanted me to come in tomorrow.
I made the appointment then cancelled it.
I can't go to another doctor's office this week.

I looked in the mirror last night at the Passover seder and I saw that I look a bit older.
Maybe a bit wiser, more lived.
People told me I looked beautiful - maybe my soul is more revealed.

I haven't really spent time questioning what went wrong.
I see it as my body working right, knowing.
I haven't blamed it on anything I did, or on my colitis - I guess I've done some good work to get here.

It's sad to not be pregnant anymore, to feel that spirit of the baby further away.
I miss the little being that I carried for 8 weeks - I miss being connected to its spirit so closely.
I guess in a way we will always be connected, even if s/he doesn't return, feels far away now.

I realized through this that, as a mother, I am only a vehicle through which life is born and nurtured.
This child, and Dahlia, are not mine (I've realized this before).
I recognized how important that role is, how sacred.

I'm sorry, little tentative one, that it wasn't our time to know each other better.
I hope you are not scared, not alone.
I welcome you to come back if it's meant to be.

Bye Bye Baby

I lost my baby yesterday at 10 weeks.
At the emergency room, where Dave and I spent more than 5 hours.
After bleeding lightly all day, I felt a gush of bright red blood, then a few minutes later, when I was by myself, I felt something like a grape pass into my underwear.
Dave was outside finding his brother Mark to give him the keys to our house so Mark could pick up Dahlia from a friend's and bring her home to put her to bed.
The doctor and nurses were not in the room.
Alone, as I suppose I was meant to be in that moment, I lay down and cried, holding my belly, telling the baby I was sorry, beginning to say goodbye.
I just cried and cried and when Dave came back in the room, I told him and he cried with me.
The doctor gave me a vial to put inside it what had come out of me.
I just held the little plastic container and felt the warmth of what it held.
I looked inside at the little amniotic sac the size of a grape, which held inside it a very small fetus that was much smaller.
I can't say when the baby's spirit passed, but I had a feeling it had been a while.
I opened the vial and touched it, kissed my finger.
I just looked at it in wonder at what my body had created in ten weeks, then released.
Probably chromosomal abnormalities, they explained, and my body knew it wouldn't make it so it released it.
My friend Jean a few days ago predicted that it would be a girl, and that I would have more.
All evening yesterday I held on to that part of her prediction - that I will have another when it's time.
Now it's the middle of the night and I woke up with a haunting feeling - it took me a few minutes to register what had happened and why I was having cramps that had woken me up.
They gave me a pill to take every 6 hours for 24 hours, which will make sure all excess tissue will leave my body as it needs to.
The cramps woke me up, and I reluctantly took a vicodin because the 600 mg of ibuprofen had worn off and it's not time to take another yet. And soon I have to take another crampy pill.
I once stayed overnight with a friend who had been raped by someone she knew, and had to take the abortion pill to end the pregnancy. It was unexpected that I would be the one to stay with her, and I didn't know her very well. But I knew the experience was one I would need under my belt, even though at the time I didn't know why. I remember her dog wouldn't leave her side that whole night, and neither did I.
I thought of her and that experience yesterday.
I thought about another friend who lost her first pregnancy at 20 weeks and had to have it extracted. Her second pregnancy went to term and her beautiful daughter is now 2.
I thought about my close friend who had an abortion years ago. She now has two gorgeous children.
I thought about another friend who miscarried her first pregnancy at 6 or 8 weeks, then got pregnant again and had a beautiful girl who is almost 3.
I thought about my mother who had an abortion before she had me, and my grandmothers and great grandmothers. I thought of my mother's friend who had a still birth.
I thought of all the women who have lost pregnancies in so many forms, and now I am one of them. I will forever check that question on the prenatal form, when they ask you how many pregnancies you've had and how many have gone to term.
I thought about how maybe I should become a nurse, so that I can use all of my life experience to help people through hard times.
I thought all this and cried; I'm still crying.
I thought about how when I get pregnant again I don't care what it looks like, as long as I have a healthy baby.
I don't care if the baby is born at home or in the hospital, vaginally or by C-section. I don't care if I have every prenatal test or none, 5 ultrasounds or none. I just want a healthy baby, one that I carry to term with no problems. All the other stuff is just ego.
I haven't cried this hard in years.
We came home and Mark said that Dahlia seemed to know something was wrong.
I went into her room and just looked at her sleeping, kissing her, telling her how much I love her, how precious she is.
I thank her now for helping me through this, just by being so perfectly, completely, vibrantly alive. For entrusting me with the role of womb and mother and guide.
Dave and I said the mourner's kaddish last night before going to bed. We held each other and cried. I never thought I would say kaddish for my unborn child.
I never thought this would happen to me. But why not? It happens so often, it's all so random. Such a miracle when it goes right. Just a haphazard fluke in so many ways.
Cliches ran through my head, like "What doesn't break you makes you stronger." Like "These are the times that try men's souls." I must be incredibly strong.
Dave and I talked about 2007 being a doosie of a year - his brother getting divorced, his parents being in this in-between place of not knowing where their income is going to come from and moving back to Vegas, now this. And yet magic is happening too - we spent a glorious week in Mexico, my sister turns 30 tomorrow, Dave is finally going to start rabbinical school, my friend Lenira had a baby a few days ago, vaginally, at age 43, in a high-risk pregnancy. I can still recognize all that and feel deeply grateful for it.
God's plan is perfect, somehow. Even though it brings me to my knees time and time again.
Tomorrow (today) is the first night of Passover, and most likely we will be celebrating it alone, just the three of us, rather than in community.
I won't forget April 1st, probably not for the rest of my life.
Little tiny baby on her way to that place where little tiny babies stay with God. I trust in that, but I sure wish that little tiny spirit was still inside me, growing.
Perhaps when I get pregnant again it will be that same soul, back again. Perhaps it will be another soul.
I had a feeling that I would miscarry when I saw blood this morning.
I understand now why this baby spirit felt quieter than Dahlia did, more apprehensive.
I love you, little baby. I'm sorry. I really really wanted to give you my womb so that you could grow big and healthy and strong. So that you could manifest in body on this earth. But it wasn't meant to be. Come back if you want when you're ready. And know that I will always hold you in a place in my heart.

Prayers

I am a bit unsettled today, as I arrive at 10 weeks. I had a little spotting on my tp this morning when I peed, and the very smallest drop of blood. Apparently this can happen during the first trimester and even beyond, it's either implantation bleeding or breakthrough bleeding (bleeding when you would have had your period, as a result of strong hormones). Interestingly, today is the first day I'm not nauseous or fatigued, like I have been since Tuesday. So it all may be connected. Fortunately, there is no cramping or abdominal pain. So I am staying calm, but I never had bleeding during my first pregnancy, and it has been a weird and exhausting week. So I am surrendering to God for the wellbeing of my baby and my body's ability to care for the little one. Trusting that all is just fine. I am seeing the OB-GYN on Wednesday, and I assume she may want to do an ultrasound to confirm everything is okay. I'm not a fan of ultrasounds, but I think I will need this confirmation - I'd like to see my baby's heart beating to know s/he is doing well. I love you, Baby. I am holding you with all my energy and strength.