#also testing a new brush to see if my art looks less shitty | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

a-january-girl · 7 years

Text

It's hard to be a woman sometimes...

Hi guys,

I’ve been meaning to talk about something for a while. Something very personal, very intimate, but also very important. Something that is unfortunately still a taboo among us women, and that makes me angry.

I hope that, in doing so, I might find some closure to my story, some sort of peace, but also because I felt awfully alone at times through it all, and I wish this was something we discussed more between us, women.

So here it goes.

In July, I got wonderful news to celebrate. A positive pregnancy test. One that I’d expected for so long after my first pregnancy, seven years ago.

I spent almost two months with this tiny human being deep inside me, planning our future being 4 instead of 3. This was bliss. Until I learned at the end of August that this baby would never come into our lives.

(the rest will be under a cut, cause I know not everyone will wanna read about miscarriage)

I started losing blood, tiny drops that immediately startled me. I went to the ER, concerned and very worried. A gynecologist that I had never met came to me and checked me up, before she gave me an ultrasound. This is when she announced, without any preamble, “You aren’t pregnant.”

My world stopped turning and I tried to understand. I answered “What? I’m not pregnant? But, I haven’t had my period in ten weeks, and I had a positive pregnancy test, my bump is starting to show, and…”

She cut me short with two words. “Blighted ovum.”

“What the fuck is a blighted ovum?” were the words screaming in my head, but I just asked “What does it mean?”

She replied “You got pregnant, but the fetus got away at some point. Your uterus kept thinking you were pregnant, but you’re not. Blighted ovum. You’re not pregnant.”

BAM! I couldn’t even cry for my head was spinning so fast. I faced the sentence alone, my husband being at home with our eldest since no one could babysit her.

She then basically ushered me out of her exam table, telling me to come back in another week for another ultrasound that would tell if my body had “dealt with it on its own” (her exact words…)

She left me there, after she sent me to the hospital lab for blood tests, and this is where I started crying, in front of a very concerned nurse that couldn’t believe I had been given that awful news in a total amount of 2.5 minutes, tops. She is the one who explained what a blighted ovum really was (click here if you wanna learn about it), and explained what I should expect during the week to come.

Anyway, to make things short, my body didn’t “deal with it on its own”, and I had to be rushed back to the ER a week later, suffering from a very dangerous hemorragia.

And this is what I wanna talk about.

I mean, I’m not stupid, we all know miscarriage is not a happy moment. I knew what I was to expect emotionally. But what I wasn’t ready for was the violence of it all, both psychologically AND physically.

I wasn’t ready for how I thought I was literally going to die. For how all this blood rushed out of me like an open faucet. For how I expelled things from my body that I still see and feel in my nightmares today. For how the contractions were ripping my heart out as much as it made my body suffer.

This was my very own battlefield. I feel like I went to war against my body.

Of course, I received an emergency surgery, and the physical suffering stopped.

It’s been a month now, and I’m still going through the grieving process.

I stayed home for two weeks after the surgery. My body was too weak to face the hordes of teenagers I usually deal with on a daily basis (I’m a middle-school teacher, for those of you who don’t know…)

I dealt with the melancholy and sadness with my pencils and brushes. I painted. It kept my mind busy while I physically recovered.

@mangokiwitropicalswirl, @whatfallsaway, @datanullyx, @foolishheadstronggirl, @greekowl87, @thethirstisoutthere, @here-forfun, @fistful-of-fandom, @sembell, I wanna thank you, from the bottom of my heart, because all this art I send you guys was my therapy. I tried to fill it with love, joy and smiles (but a few tears got lost there too, I gotta say)

I went back to work three weeks ago now.. My strengths are slowly coming back (I was super low on iron for example, after all the blood loss). Being constantly busy and surrounded with friends and pupils helps a lot. Some of my colleagues know about my miscarriage, but kept it to themselves. All the others noticed I was not at work for the first two weeks of September and sent texts and emails to make sure I was okay. After I came back, everyone told me how happy they were that I was back, and respectfully didn’t ask about why I was away.

But I wanna talk about how the people who know what I’ve been through react.

There’s two very distinct reactions, really.

There are the ones who discreetly ask how I am, and how I feel. They genuinely are concerned. But most of them don’t wanna ask too much, don’t wanna know too much either. Because it frightens them, I guess.

And there are the ones that ignore it all, and pretend nothing ever happened. And that’s shitty. I mean, I know most of them probably think I don’t wanna talk about it, or don’t wanna remind me of the painful moments I went through, and that’s very considerate. But acting like my in-laws did, deciding to barge into the house less than 48 hours after my surgery (and, of course, my general anesthesia!), without so much of a “how are you doing?” and asking if I would help unload the fire-wood they brought, that’s just downright spiteful. Or like that gynecologist lady who received me at the ER and also performed the surgery on me a week later, being so fucking cold and heartless through it all, as if this was something purely clinical that had to be “dealt with”...

Yesterday, I had an appointment at the hospital to check on everything, and to get updates on the different biopsies that were made during the surgery. Everything is fine, and I’m happy to say I can now look at the future with hopes of a new pregnancy.

But the doctor that saw me asked me a question no other doctor asked me in the past month.

“How are you feeling about all this today? Are you okay?”

I realized he was actually the first one to ask me that question in the last three weeks… Because people probably think I’m over it now, because my smile probably hide away the nostalgia. But the truth is, I can’t stop thinking about how far along I would be today if everything had been okay...

So, here are my two cent about all this. If you ever have a friend who goes through a miscarriage, please, talk to her about it. I don’t mean you should be insistent and talk about it all the fucking time… but let her know you’re here to listen, should she want to speak. Even after a month. Even after a year.

I’m the luckiest girl in the world and my best friends acted like it with me, sending texts or calling me when they felt I was down. @alldolleduppink, @hallwayperson, I couldn’t have done this without you guys, honestly. You were my rocks and I’ll love you forever for it. ❤️

Others here on Tumblr knew and were here for me as well, always having a nice word and sending thoughts my way (@therobbinsnest, @justholdinghandsok, @becksndot5, @msrafterdark, I love you guys too 😘)

Don’t pretend it’s nothing, or no big deal. Don’t pretend it will go away and be forgotten in a little while. Because we don’t forget. I know I won’t. It might be silly, but even if the pregnancy was really short and lasted a little over ten weeks, I really do feel like I lost a baby. I imagined it, thought this baby would look like its big sister, even picked up a name in secret because I could feel deep down I would have a girl… And I grieved (and still am grieving) the death of my child.

To finish, I’ll just say that if you ever have the misfortune to live a miscarriage yourself, you shouldn’t be afraid to talk about it, cry about it, vent about it. Miscarriage isn’t something we should be ashamed of or afraid to mention. It’s okay to be devastated about it and it’s okay to seek comfort and help. It’s okay to feel sad and never forget it. It’s okay to be angry too. And it’s okay to wanna talk it out.

I’m here for you should you ever need it. But I sincerely hope you won’t.

It’s hard to be a woman sometimes, but it’s easier when we’re here for each other...

Lots of love,

Marie

#miscarriage #let's talk about it #personal #non fandom #sorry about all this #but I needed to vent and talk about it

61 notes · View notes