Related to my previous post about DEPRESSION, I NEED to talk about this. Not really for anyone else, but for me.... Although I know there are people out there who will relate.
I have experienced several pregnancy losses throughout my adult life. The most recent one a mere 2.5 weeks ago. The pregnancy was the result of a date rape.
And I'm going to come right out and say, I called an abortion clinic the very next day and scheduled to get that THING out of me.
I have never felt that way before, and it wasn't that I felt the fetus was not a person. It was that I knew about the 3 people (Eli, Sophia, and myself) who need me to take care of them, and it was knowing that I'm a ridiculous mess when I'm pregnant, and knowing that I'd only barely begun to recover from a very nasty and long bout with The Miserable Lying Bastard (also see The Fight Goes On).
We needed Me to be okay and I knew I would not be okay if I was pregnant. Also, I knew that I am NOT equipped to even care for the two children I do have, and constantly employ the help of family, friends, and sperm donor to keep us afloat. Bringing another baby into that would not be very smart, now would it?!
I also felt that even if I managed to SOMEHOW survive pregnancy with my family intact, I would then be too broken-hearted from having to hand my new, beautiful newborn over to a different family to raise, to ever recover. Ever.
Despite all of this, I changed my mind a few days later and canceled the abortion. I saw the little shrimp's heartbeat on an ultrasound and I fell in love and was thinking of how blissfully happy a family would be when I gave them this beautiful gift. I had friends and family clamoring to help me and also probably to save my soul from hell for getting an abortion (hehe.. sorry). I mean, it was beautiful, actually. So many people wanted me to keep that baby. And I started to really want to, also. Very much. I found out I had a couple of friends due at the same time, and was quite gleeful about the whole thing, especially since one of them has experienced numerous losses as well and I've been pulling for her to have her baby for a long time. I found some peace with the situation....
And then I started to bleed.
of course.
The doctor said, we saw a heartbeat, I feel confident that the baby will be okay. But I know what labor feels like, and I was in it. For over a week, I was in a tearful, Percocet-numbed hazed with full-on late-stage labor pains. ALL. THE. TIME. And I knew I was miscarrying but everyone said I wasn't. And I was using every essential oil and natural remedy known to man, staying off my feet, using progesterone suppositories...
But to no avail. I went back to the doctor on April 6th and they confirmed that the baby's heart had stopped.
And then the doctor proceeded to tell me that my hope for a full term pregnancy in the future was very high, now that we knew I had a progesterone problem, and that I could "try again" right away and to make sure to take the suppositories as soon as I suspected pregnancy.
I laugh/cried my way out of his office knowing that THIS GIRL doesn't get to have a baby. Not alone, and ESPECIALLY not with someone who loves me. I'm 27, and I am essentially barren. I may as well be, because I can not have another baby.
And I'm heartbroken over it.
And as soon as I announced I was no longer pregnant, the help stopped. The messages stopped. The phone calls stopped. The visits and meals stopped. The love... stopped.
People cared about the baby. Not ME. Duh. Oh my god, I can't believe it took me THIS LONG to figure it out.
Why was I so damn happy when I was pregnant with my kids, even though my body was miserable? BECAUSE PEOPLE CARED! For the first time in my life I was IMPORTANT. I was priority. My aches and pains mattered. My worries mattered. Everything that happened for 9 months mattered intensely to everyone in my life, near and far... family, friends, acquaintances. Gifts flowed, visits were abundant... of course I was happy.
And being a new mom was blissful too, because not only did that attention carry on to my beautiful new kiddo, but MY attention was directed on that beauty too, and I basked in it.
Eventually, they stop being babies, and eventually people stop really caring that much, except for Grandma and Grandpa, and a few aunts and uncles.
And I just figured out why/when I started to feel so alone again.
Nobody's ever put me front and center (except perhaps, when I was a baby myself?). Nobody has ever made me 1st priority. Nobody has EVER put that much effort... THAT much love into ME, into keeping me breathing, happy, alive, healthy.....
they put it into the babies that I made.
And I'm so glad they did.
But sitting here now in the aftermath of my entire heart being ripped out, torn to pieces and stomped on (several times), my body being used and thrown away, losing the love of my life and all of the love IN my life... fall outs with friends and family because of their misunderstanding of my disease... losing everything... and feeling
so
inadequate.
And so
alone......
and just so
nothing.
Sitting here in that nothing....
as friends cancel their plans to visit and help...
and announce their own pregnancies
and begin to receive their own outpouring of love....
and I sit in bed and stare at my bruised arms from the ER nurses poking and prodding me to finish up the SOEC kit on Thursday.... and think about how I have more anxiety over needles than the actual assault at this point... and wondering if someone's going to come after my life or my livelihood when I report that he attacked me a SECOND TIME... and wonder how to explain to people in my life that I was stupid enough to "allow" it to happen....
I'm still so alone.
More alone than EVER.
I'm so absolutely torn apart that I'm not sure I can pick up the pieces this time. I just don't know.
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