30 + 2

I keep thinking I'm 30, but today I turn 32. So far the thirties just feel like this one general decade of age. The thirties have been pretty good to me, so far. Every now and then my birthday overlaps (or almost overlaps) with Father's Day, which is always a little sad for me. It's been nearly 14 years since my father passed away, even though it doesn't always feel that long ago. Almost half my life has gone by, and along with it, so many milestones I wish I could have shared with him: college graduation, law school graduation, becoming a lawyer, getting married, having a first child... but even so, I'm so thankful that I had a father who loved me and believed in me. I attribute most of the values I hold dear today to his good work as a parent.

Random list of things I've learned on my 31st year:

• Being a parent is harder than you can ever imagine, though it's totally worth it. 
• Having a child changes a lot of relationships (mostly for the better!): the meaning of family first is very different. 
• All moms are champions but moms who nurse are special champions- it is such a commitment and such hard work!
• It's still hard for me to ask for help and to ask for grace. I need lots of grace and have been blessed with lots of it despite having discovered some of my worst this past year.
• I'm in a pretty good place for being my age. :)
• I was way late on the Modern Family bandwagon but it is an awesome show!
• I will not being able to do everything just the way I want it, and that's okay.

End of January Brain Dump

It's official, baby J, per her grandmother's wishes, will be born in the Year of the Horse. She's also held out for her dad to argue his big hearing this week, so I'm thinking, let's get this show on the road! The doctor seemed to think baby J was going to make her appearance this week, but who could blame her for wanting to stay in with this week's subzero temperatures? Anyway, we're on countdown, which is surprisingly exhausting. We have managed to watch a lot of movies/shows:

• Marvel's The Avengers- Wow. I was just looking for some mindless entertainment, but I couldn't even muster any enthusiasm for this movie. Loose and silly plot, all around bland.
• Sunshine- A team of futuristic scientist/astronauts are sent on a mission to throw a nuke on the dying Sun to recharge it and save the Earth from extinction. Sounds like an interesting plot, right? Well, Danny Boyle took an interesting idea that could have explored some major character evolution and acceptance of death and sacrifice for the greater good... but without ruining it for you, let's suffice it to say after one too many calamities, the plot twist devolved the movie into a total joke.
• American Hustle- great cast, very entertaining, but almost too formulaic con-artist movie. 
• Five Days- HBO miniseries from 2007 that explores 5 24-hour periods in the case of a missing woman. For the genre, really well done. No ridiculous twist but a straightforward examination of people during this type of crisis, including a pretty good handling of some race issues on the side. 
• True Detective- new HBO series. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson are throughly entertaining and again, for the genre, which I generally am pretty skeptical about, I am really enjoying this show! 
• Girls- (HBO) All I can say is, losing its charm. Rapidly. 
• The Age of Innocence- Well done, true to the book, but only bearable if you are in the mood for rich people problems (in the 1870's). Also, random amusement from the excess of hideous tulle wrapped around fancy dresses? I was skeptical about the casting of Michelle Pfieffer as Countess Olenska, but in the end, she did it pretty well. Still not who I had envisioned.

Out of abundance of caution, we've been carpooling to work all week, so I've had a lot of time to observe the drive into Cincinnati and across the river from the passenger side seat. It's amazing how you can see things you never notice if you just shift your perspective a little (and also when you don't have to focus on the road). It was gloomy and gray this morning, but as we crossed the Roebling Bridge, I still was struck by how pretty our city is. Since we've been back, Cincinnati has continued to garner recognition nationally: one of 2014's most affordable cities to live in, subject of a photographer's admiration and surprise (check out these gorgeous photos), and the top starter of Twitter trends. Not that we don't have our issues, but what city doesn't?

In other news, it's been a season of loss for our extended family and other friends. One of the toughest (though all losses are tough), was baby Connor. Connor had CHARGE syndrome, but spent 15 months of his amazing life defying the odds, making people happy, and living so well. His passing came suddenly, and his wonderful parents have been an inspiration. There are no words to express the many emotions that come knowing that this incredible couple has gone through so much, but I hope to honor them and Connor by remembering to live and not just survive, and to love and practice gratitude. Read more about Connor here and on his Facebook page.

This will probably be the last post of this pregnancy- wish me luck!

Reasons

I'm starting to hate the phrase "Everything happens for a reason." I know I've been guilty of using it. It's not that I don't believe that many things happen for a reason, or that things often will work out in the end. It's just that people seem to employ it as some sort of comfort when terrible things happen. I've been hearing it a bit, recently, in response to my miscarriage. It's really not that comforting. At all. In the context of my recent struggle, these are my thoughts: I understand there is a scientific reason for my miscarriage. But there's no other great "reason" for why it happened, or why it happens to anyone. I think that most crappy things happen because of the human condition- our frailties, our mistakes, our choices- not on an individual level, necessarily, but on a macro scale. Everything we do affects everyone else around us. The things others do affects us. And I'm going to take a few seconds to talk about my beliefs, with the disclaimer that this is just what I think, and you can think whatever it is you think!

I don't personally believe that God puts misery in your life for some divine reason that you will figure out later. I do believe that my faith helps me get through those difficult times and helps me put a context to my life. But the proposition that, for instance, I had a miscarriage, and some day all this sadness will "make sense" seems silly to me. Has it helped me be more empathetic to women trying to conceive? Sure. Will I be able to talk to others about it who go through it in the future? Sure. But how does that make me feel any better about having the loss? It's no less sucky. And please, tell me some more compelling possible reasons as to why it happened (other than the science). I'm dying to know what is in store for me.

Is it horribly cynical to believe that sometimes bad things just happen and we learn to survive them? That not all terrible things have some big picture meaning? I'm not saying there's no hope of healing and feeling better, because we will heal and feel better in time. Just don't tell me that one day I will have an ah-ha moment that will help me somehow be glad it happened, or some nonsense. Seriously.

The Worst Version

Today I've been struck with a fear that I have become that crazy woman that I don't want to be!  It's a slippery slope. After the miscarriage, I read some books on fertility. Really liked Taking Charge of Your Fertility because it was really great information in general about the woman's reproductive system. Then I decided after last month's disappointment of getting my period that I would start charting my temperature. I know, what is happening to me? Then, I spent a good two hours this morning obsessively wondering about why my temperature is spiking up and down and hasn't stayed up after I should have ovulated. Then thinking that I will start using the pee strips. This all seems so ridiculous since it only took 2-3 months to get pregnant the first time. Obviously, I can, right? Who is this person?! EW!

I can't help but wonder how many more months I will have a mini meltdown when I get my period (which also seems to coincide with being suddenly inundated with pregnant women, babies, people talking about babies, people with babies, babies, babies, babies). I hate it because suddenly I feel like the worst version of myself. I don't want people to know about this worst version: she's jealous, angry, resentful, and miserable. It doesn't last long, at least in its more extreme forms. But it's there. You try living with her.

A Strange Count

"Because the only thing worse than losing something that meant the world to you is pretending that you lost nothing."

The words from the article above are so true. To not tell friends that this has happened to me feels terrible. I'm glad I've shared it, even if I'm still throwing it out there as flippantly as I can with a cheery face, as if I could make someone feel less awkward or sad about the news.

It's been two months since the miscarriage. I had been feeling more evened-out emotionally about the whole thing. The physical trauma of it feels far away, but I'd be lying if I didn't experience small to large twinges almost every day: another friend on Facebook announcing a pregnancy, a baby catalog from the site I started a registry on, the hospital bills, seeing other people's babies, being around so many friends with new babies or are expecting. The past week has been one long twinge. Twinge is probably too light of a word. Maybe it's the March gloom, or hormones..

My best friend sent me this blog, and I couldn't describe it better myself: http://mylifeaftermiscarriage.wordpress.com/category/anger/.

I still feel as though I'm in a strange reverse world, where instead of eagerly counting the months until, I'm now counting the months since. And feeling a little resentful today, because even though I know too well that life isn't fair, and that even with my experiences I am still one of the very fortunate, I just don't want to have to endure this right now, and today I don't care it it's whiny and inconsiderate. I'm just having a day.. or a few days... I swear I'm not normally like this.

That being said, I think I'm doing pretty well with my Tiny Bucket List. The two things left are closet organizing (this weekend, maybe?) and the Happiness Project. We are technically back in TTC (trying to conceive) mode, but it doesn't feel the same anymore. No more excited anticipation. More pressure about whether it will happen or not. More fear about when it does happen. But, like with everything else, I will endure.

How We Put Ourselves Back Together

1. Start doing laundry that is starting to overflow from the hamper.
2. Finally put away the clean dishes so you can put all the dirty ones away.
3. Clean up part of the kitchen.
4. Tidy the living room.
5. Pay a bill.
6. Put all the piles of junk mail in recycling.
7. Make a new pile of papers and mail to go through.
8. Finally donate some of the clothes that have been sitting in a trash bag in the closet.
9. Intend to tidy the bedroom and bathroom, but then decide to put it off another week.

A Sunnier Day

It's a beautiful, cold day. The sky is clear and blue. I feel a bit more hopeful, if not a little tentative. I think for the most part, I've "let my wallow out", as a good friend put it. There will still be sad moments, but I've visited the doctor and it looks like there's only a faint amount of HCG left, so it seems that last week was the worst of it. I feel pretty lucky. The best news is that their initial suggestion of waiting 3 months was more cautionary to allow for emotional recovery, so we won't have to wait as long as I thought. Don't worry, though, I'm still going to cross off the tiny bucket list, but maybe a little quicker. 

Feeling gratitude for:

• really great friends who know just how to grieve with you
• a husband who is my best friend and such a great partner
• sunshine
• the ability to grieve, feel, and bounce back
• health
• sushi and red wine

A Tiny Bucket List

Do you like my revamped blog? I've decided that I want to commit to writing more, among other things. It didn't feel like the blog had a theme or focus, exactly, in the name, and I wanted to give it more meaning. I was reminded of a conversation I just had with my best friend about how I once thought being 30 would seem old or less exciting, but now it seems just the opposite. 30 is not to be feared! For me and many of the women I know, 30 has meant that I know myself better, am more comfortable with myself, love myself better, and am much more self aware. All in all, this decade seems much better than the last.

So along with my little makeover of this blog, I want to share my tiny bucket list. One of the hardest parts about the loss we've experienced, for me, is how I am still tracking my weeks. I think about how I would be so far along, that I would be seeing the first ultrasound, be starting to show. I still catch myself thinking about how different the next few months will now look. I catch myself thinking that the three months we have to wait to try again seems so long. In an effort to try and move away from this thought process, I've made a list of things I will do for myself in the next three months:

• Go to the gym or an exercise class at least twice a week.
• Journal, write posts, write poetry.
• Consider my own Happiness Project.
• Finally schedule a visit to the acupuncturist to deal with my shoulder pain. 
• Eat lots of sushi and drink red wine. 
• Plan at least one out of town trip.
• Organize at least one closet in the house.

This Made me Smile

I found the blog "Things People Said After My Miscarriage." Particularly loved the post about Facebook.

Chinese Cures

Some of my family came to visit today. My mother and aunt came, arms laden with a combination of Chinese comfort foods (steamed buns, ba-wan, tofu and fish) and dishes that are allegedly fertility inducing. Bitter herbed chicken soup, ginseng, sesame chicken soup, eight treasure rice... Asian mothers are funny this way. They will give you plenty of advice about conceiving that borders on superstitious and fret about you being too tired. It might be one of the few times where this doesn't irritate me at all. I don't even bother to try to tell them that most miscarriages occur because it essentially was a faulty batch of ingredients that made the fetus abort itself. I'm finding right now that I am more comfortable with receiving help from those close to me than I usually am. I think it's a healthy thing. Maybe that's the lesson to learn at times like this- just to be able to receive and be taken care of a little. Let that rod of inner strength heal a little after taking a beating so it is ready to move forward again and dare to hope. 

I'm trying not to let the little voice in my head that is calculating the months take over. It likes to obsess about how now a 2013 baby is no longer a possibility, how things simply can't go according to its plans. I'm trying, every day, to be kinder to myself, and remember to be grateful that I have all the support that I need.   

Needing Catharsis

It would be nice if humans could just channel all their grief or anger into one tight, glowing ball and just push it out of their systems. Perhaps some people can do this, and I wish that could. Instead, this event will just slowly leak out of me in fits and coughs. I will entertain myself by helping my best friend decorating a cake and feel next to normal, and then I will check Facebook and see that the cloth diapering class I had been considering signing up for is today. And a crop of my friends' latest baby pictures. Maybe gathering up all the sorrow sitting at the base of my chest would just be too much to expel all at once, but all the same, I wish I could be done with it. I don't pretend that this is the worst thing that has ever happened in my life, or close to the worst thing that I know of happening. I know it will ease in time. With every Eeyore post here I will perhaps feel just a little bit lighter. But I probably should stop checking Facebook for a little while.

Day 3

I don't usually get too personal on this blog, but I feel like I need to write about this, if only because I wish that I had heard more about some other woman's personal experience with this before I went through it myself. Before I tell you more, here are my two requests: 1) unless you are someone I know personally, or if I don't know you and you are going through it and want to reach out, don't send me messages about this post. I don't want advice and I don't want your pity. 2) if you are someone I know, please know that I appreciate your care and concern but I probably don't want to talk to you about this, and if I do, I will bring it up myself.

Today is Day 3 of my miscarriage. It is an early pregnancy miscarriage, which everyone says is quite common. Usually this happens because the fetus is simply not developing correctly and nature is correcting the problem. It was my first pregnancy, and at this point there's no reason that the next attempt won't be more successful. The science of this is somewhat comforting to me. Less comforting is the waiting for the process to complete itself.  The doctor refers to this as the "worst period" of my life. This means cramps, blood, clots, tissue- all the miraculous things that had been forming inside of me, have to come out. This means spending days or weeks wearing super absorbent pads, which always have felt like diapers to me. This means sleeping on a towel just in case and obsessively checking our nice sheets in the morning to make sure I haven't ruined them. I had always envisioned miscarriages as a sudden and brief event, where a woman in a nightgown suddenly doubles over in pain and there's a lot of blood and she goes to the hospital and then it's over. I had no idea that it could take weeks for "it" to "pass." And frankly, it's a gross experience. We referred to the ER room I went to as "the crime scene." Have to find humor where you can!

No matter how much I cling to my logic, and understand that things will be okay, each morning since we discovered we were losing the pregnancy, I have sat in my house and cried. It's hard to express the loss I feel. After all, it was so early, just a tiny clump of cells. I think ugly thoughts about how unfair it seems that sometimes women who don't even want to have children just fly right through and pop out beautiful babies, when others who want children so badly have so much trouble. I wonder whether it could have happened because I was still drinking a cup of coffee a day, or because I didn't eat enough and drink enough water one day, or if I jinxed myself by already starting to put together secret registries. My mother insisted I must have just been tiring myself out too much as if I were some delicate flower. (Ha!)

I'm not going to know why it happened, only that it does happen and it's not unusual. I know it's still early and I will go through my appropriate stages of grief. I also know that right now when people ask me if there's anything to do for me, I don't know what to say. There's just nothing to do about this. I'm a healthy person and while this is not the most physically comfortable experience I'm physically okay. I made a crockpot of Chinese chicken soup. I've done some laundry. I'm doing some work from home. Part of me just wants someone to come in and pick up my life and put it back in order, the way it felt just a week ago, before this happened. When I started bleeding a few days ago, I had this absurd hope that perhaps I was just having my cycle and in fact was not pregnant after all. Or I was just one of those women that would bleed throughout the pregnancy, as unpleasant as that would be. None of it was the case. The disappointment is smothering.

Grief is not a stranger to me. I know this will ebb. I know that there will probably be plenty of exciting and happy things coming up in the future. I know I am usually fairly resilient. There have been (and will be more) moments when I'm sitting in the warm sun at a favorite restaurant and feel peace and beauty. But right now, I just feel how I feel. A little flat and a little cynical. A little angry and resentful- at what or whom, I'm not quite sure. Super grateful for the wonderful support I have in my family, friends, and co-workers. I don't want to see a lot of people because I don't want to feel their sadness for me. It just feels like I would crumble if they treated me differently or too gently. We were given the news my body had already told me twice at the ER. First, a male doctor very clinically and kindly explained what my test results meant. We nodded. Then the female resident explained it again, in a very sympathetic way, but it made me feel so much sadder. I guess that pretty much sums it up.

My favorite bad day song: