Coming Clean

A bunch of you wonderful, caring readers contacted me after my most recent post and told me how sorry you were that I was still suffering so. And I thought: this isn't quite fair, I haven't let them know the whole story.

So I talked it over with Bruno, and we decided it was OK to come clean. There is a little bit of fear that people will start to feel that we are pathetic, or jinxed (we frequently have to fight those feelings in ourselves). Or that they will simply feel we are too much, and back slowly away.

I'm just going to trust that those are our own private manias, and keep telling our story.

So, here is Chapter Two: The Miscarriages.

Yup, that is plural, folks. If you can believe it, we have had the beautiful good fortune to have been pregnant twice in the short six months since losing the boys, and I have miscarried both pregnancies.

It's funny how those pronouns go, isn't it? We've been pregnant. I've miscarried. My internal voice is quite clear who's to blame here.

And there's a ton of blame flying around. Mostly Bruno and I blaming ourselves. It is nearly impossible not to, and the creativity involved is quite extraordinary. Bruno thinks he must have done something awful at some point and is now being punished (wouldn't we all love to know what acts sweet, dependable Bruno considers the finalists in the "punishment inducers" competition). Me, I'm going for my own jugular: during this latest pregnancy, I had an audition/callback for a show in Berkeley and I'm convinced I lost the baby because the Universe sensed that I would like to do the show, and decided that since I still haven't settled into wanting motherhood to the exclusion of all other wants, I don't deserve it.

Lately, I've set my sites on external causes. Yesterday, I fired off an e-mail to my landlords entitled: "Two miscarriages/MOLD!!!" Oh yes I did. I quoted them all sorts of internet sources citing mold as a cause of miscarriage, and I insisted they get someone out here to test our house. I also googled "California drinking water, miscarriage" and found all sorts of horrible things about chlorine and its by-products, things the Britta filter doesn't remove. And I found out that you absorb even more of this stuff through your morning shower than through the five or six glasses of water you drink each day.

At that point I had to stop reading. Folks, I am in the Rabbit Hole. I see the sky above me, and I see the long drop with no bottom below me. And I don't understand how we are supposed to live with this world where taking a shower can hurt our unborn children. How much do you do and where do you draw the line and say I can only control what I can control? (Or in the case of organic, hormone-free, free-range, grass-fed beef: what I can afford?)

On the reality plane, we have talked to our doctors and they say: no, it is not anything we did, thought, ate, drank or breathed, and no, we did not try too soon: my body is perfectly ready to accept another pregnancy. Their best guess is that, given my age, I just had bad luck and had two genetically bum eggs in a row and my body took care of itself and shed what would have been an unhealthy pregnancy. They are perfectly optimistic that we will have the family we seek, and they have lots of ideas for how to proceed next to optimize our chances.

Doesn't really help with the 4am voices, but it is good to hold in the back pocket and trot out in the saner daylight hours.

Meanwhile, you will find a whole slew of new posts scattered through this blog: while all this was unfolding, I wrote posts but kept them in draft form. I am now publishing them to keep the blog journey complete. They are:

WAHHHHHH!! 11/28/08
How Quickly They Forget 12/2/08
Over Before It's Begun 12/14/08
The Beat Goes On 12/15/08
Bye 12/17/08
Miserable 12/18/08
That Said, 1/26/09
This Will Not Be Pretty 1/28/09

As always, thanks for the loads of support, and thanks for continuing to believe for us as we keep muscling through this journey. -LJKM