Tuesday, December 03, 2002

I have absolutely no idea where to start on the past week. I guess the most important thing to say after that last post is that I'm fine, healthy and as sane as I ever get, all that rot. Well, I've still got an occasional stabbing pain in my left temple, and interesting mood swings taking me from hyper-silly to hyper-depressive inside about 10 minutes. That's not entirely unusual though, migraines and PMS are all par for the course here.

I took a sick day yesterday, originally because the brightness of the kitchen light made me feel sick, while my head was still under the blanket, so Matt fed me Excedrin and I went back to sleep for a few hours. Then it kind of turned into the cliched mental health day. Even more so because the only thing I left my apartment for was to go to a counseling session.

Yesterday was the first time I'd been alone with my own thoughts long enough to figure out what I really felt, and why I felt that way. It's pretty rare for me to find it difficult being around Matt, but sometimes you just need to be alone. Completely alone. Alone and free to pull faces and cry if you need to, or stare at a wall for hours without someone asking if you're ok, to sit and think until there is a solid conclusion formed. The conclusion is that I had one of those significant life occurrences, and it was significant, but it hasn't really changed anything. That's kind of new for me, I'm used to these Life Moments being pretty tumultuous, not minor hiccups.

Only one thing still bothers me: why am I so reluctant to spit it out? Why am I still talking around it? So here we go.

I had a miscarriage last Tuesday. I didn't know, or suspect, I was pregnant, nor would I have kept it had I found out before starting on the Depo- Provera shots. It had gone four weeks at the absolute longest. It both shook me greatly and meant almost nothing to me, I suspect the largest part of the emotional response was due to my hormone levels imitating whirling dervishes. That, and my usual guilt-ridden wondering: if it's ok to not be devastated, then wondering if it's ok to be upset at all when it was really a lucky escape…then feeling guilty for thinking of it as a lucky escape, then realizing how silly thatis…

I suppose I'd always assumed that any unplanned pregnancy stuff would involve being pregnant and aware of it, not an " oh, by the way, you were pregnant for a couple weeks, but its' all over now…"

This happens all the time, every day hundreds of women miscarry, some know they're pregnant, some don't, and some never even realize it happens. It's only a tragedy for those women who desperately want a child. There are so many things that we all go through, and yet they seem utterly monumental at the time it happens to each of us. All the love/death/sex/birth stuff.

I was going somewhere with that I swear. It doesn't really matter though, because everyone knows what I'm talking about, and of the very few who read this I'm sure some are shocked, lots are concerned, and a couple are probably disgusted. Every one of them for their own reasons.

It's unusual for me to have something in my life that I worry about the potential reactions of my good friends, worry that they'll think less of me for it. I suppose it's the hint of irresponsibility, of reckless behavior. Especially on something I like to consider myself super-clued-in about. So maybe this has served as a reminder to me that you don't have to be stupid and irresponsible to get knocked up, you just have to be fertile. It's not having a game plan worked out that's stupid, not accepting that there is a possibility of it happening.

Wow, I've managed to boil this incident down to another trite little life-lesson. Go me!

It's not what happens to you , it's the way you deal with it that makes you who you are.

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