Sharpredpencil’s Weblog

Sleeplessness

Well, here I am again, not 24 hours later, writing about It.

I couldn’t sleep this morning. Normally, I have a hard time getting out of bed, but this morning, I wanted to get up and get far away from lying there with my thoughts. I laid wide awake with my thoughts of the last few weeks, then those thoughts and details of events surrounding the miscarriage appeared  in my fitful dreams.

***

It was just two weeks ago that I had a dream about the baby. My baby. I had never really dreamt much about being pregnant or what my children would look like before I actually was pregnant, and if I did, it was all very vague. But this dream was so different. We were at the doctor’s office getting our first ultrasound. We saw the baby’s profile and the features. The facial features were so clear. So clear. It was as if we were holding the baby in our arms. Almost. We also knew in the dream that the baby was a boy, even though it was too early for the ultrasound to prove that. The memory of the day would go in the baby’s book.

***

The day after I had that dream, we had our first ultrasound in real life. We were so excited. I couldn’t believe I’d had that dream. I started to think of the baby in terms of being a boy. I couldn’t wait to see whatever we could see. I couldn’t wait to share the experience with my husband. It was going to be an amazing day.

***

I can’t sleep lately without seeing the ultrasound screen and the empty sac. Why did I have that dream about the baby? Why was it so clear? People just don’t have dreams like that when things aren’t real, at least not in my experience. But there was nothing there. No baby, and certainly no baby boy with the beautiful eyes, nose, and mouth I saw in my dream.

I can’t imagine I’ll readily forget the details of that ultrasound. I remember the room, the ultrasound machine, the rainy day, the doctor’s face. My husband standing to my left, both of us feeling completely numb and unbelieving. The bloodwork; the nurse’s face when she read the chart after seeing me just minutes before and chatting excitedly with me. The ride home; the cold rain and the wicked lightning across the sky. Silence, and then my awful, sobbing, uncontrollable crying.

***

Over time, I’m sure the details will become less sharp and raw, but everything hurts so bad right now. It’s too hard to think about anything else right now.

Fairy Godmother and Combat Boots

So. I had a miscarriage. Some of you know this, some of you don’t. I wasn’t sure if I was going to blog about this, and I’m still not sure if I’ll do so more than this one time, but I feel it deserves a mention.

I had a D&C yesterday, and while I don’t feel awful physically, I feel crummy enough to feel sorry for myself. Plus, it’s a rainy day and I have *not* seen the sunshine that others report today. Plus, I have a cold with terrible sneezes that make my dog come running to see what’s the matter. And Big Things in Life that need to be taken care of and Forms To Be Completed and such. None of these things are huge, but put them together with our recent physical and emotional challenges and I’m overwhelmed. And sad. It’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day–The grown-up version.

Just when I wanted to crawl into bed and sleep until next year, I trudged out to the mailbox. I’m so glad I did, because in it I found a wonderful card from a dear friend. I find that these types of condolence cards are difficult to find and send; you never know how they’ll be received. But this one is perfect.  It talks about finding a fairy godmother with a magical wand and combat boots so she can kick the crap out of bad things. You know what? I like it. I’m still sad, and probably will be for a long time, but having the image of a fairy godmother with ass-kicking combat boots in my corner makes me feel just a little bit better.

Wow, so what I just wrote made me realize that I always have just that: God. Except I never imagine God as a fairy godmother with combat boots, but maybe I’ll start now.