I lost the baby. It was painful and brutal and cruel. The pain was physical because of all the medical procedures I had to go through and all the blood loss but that paled in comparison to the way it ravaged my heart and broke my spirit. The cruelty showed up in so many ways that I struggled to understand the depth of it all. Mostly because it spoke so loudly to some of the most broken parts of my heart and ripped open tombs, deep within, that had long ago been sealed.
I wasn’t even supposed to be pregnant. It was not planned. I had given up hope that it was even possible considering my endometriosis and polycystic ovarian syndrome. I was told to have kids early in life if I wanted them and I barely managed to hang onto my last pregnancy 10 years prior with my youngest son. While I had always dreamed of having four or five kids this was one of those tombs mournfully buried in my heart. I was in my early forties and with my oldest graduating it was overwhelming to think about a baby. It was one of those unexpected surprises in life that entices emotions of fear, excitement, anxiety, confusion, joy, and a general thought of ‘what in the world am I going to do’. While I had all those emotions going on, there was and still is, no part of me that ever questioned if I wanted that little one.
Within days, I was excitedly trying to figure out when and how I was going to tell our boys about our new adventure. I was also taking mental note of the long list of things I was needing to change in life to fit a baby. Then about a week later I lost the pregnancy. I thought I knew what was going to happen and how to handle everything since I had a miscarriage before, but this one was so very different. This one ripped open that tomb and then left it in a crumbled heap, never to be used again. Mourning something that is a part of your hopes and dreams is one thing, mourning someone that is a part of your body and soul is completely another.
Another type of trauma happened directly after losing the baby that I am not able to speak about and I do not know if I ever will, but it completely broke my spirit. I was still healing from the surgery and all the blood loss. I was mourning my baby, my body, my hopes of the family I always wanted, and my last chance at motherhood. But even bigger than all that was what the trauma meant to me, all the tombs it ripped open from childhood, how it spoke to all the wounds and traumas of my soul, the important relationship it destroyed, and the part of my spirit that I have still been reviving ever since.
Even though it has been two and a half years since this happened, I have been digging through it all since then. Digging, mourning, screaming, angry, resentful, frustrated, anxious, confused, repairing, healing, and rebuilding. Rebuilding not the same life and not the same me. You can never be the same person after trauma and once the hard work of healing is done (if you choose to do it), I’m sure any survivor will tell you they are grateful that you can never be that same person. That version of me had to learn that lesson so that I could grow and change and never go through anything like that again because I learned. I learned more about who I am, what I want and what I am worth. I learned that while I loved so many things about my life I had so many areas of life that did not serve me well, bring joy, or help me to move towards a healthier self.
Due to everything happening at once and all the pain of the past crashing into the pain of that moment in life, I could not get a handle on any of it. So, I am not ashamed to say that I started counseling in this season of pain. Through this counseling I began to sift through everything with a wonderful woman but in a unique turn of events ended up changing counselors. I was frustrated and angry at the change but landed with an individual that did a unique version of trauma counseling. I was unsure of everything and was not exactly excited about the new counselor, but it was nothing but a blessing that I could not see at the time.
While it was and still is a blessing, there was nothing easy about what we waded through week after week, month after month. It was difficult to keep showing up for myself every week when that was not a pattern I had ever established before. It was difficult to keep showing up when the bill started piling up from all the sessions and I was not comfortable creating bills when I had children to care for. It was difficult to keep showing up when during sessions I could get so distressed that I would be in a full sweat and ugly sobbing sitting across from another person. It had been hard-wired into me that the only crying I could do safely was alone by myself. It was difficult to keep showing up when there were times it was so intense to move through the emotions that I was sobbing the rest of the night or felt like a zombie for days following. It was difficult to keep showing up when at times I felt like I was not getting anywhere or when I began to see some change but nothing that I was wanting at the time. It was difficult to keep showing up when the anger began to emerge from all the past trauma and I felt like it was unquenchable, and I was afraid that one wrong move from an innocent soul might get them beheaded. Finally, it was difficult to show up when I began to change so much that the me who was emerging no longer fit the life that I created.
So, this is me taking a tiny scary step towards creating a new life because I am still showing up week after week to do the work and nothing fits anymore. I look at my life and know I want so much more because I finally know I deserve so much more. And I’m not talking about wealth or stuff to buy or the places I want to travel but about the relationships I want to have and the fullness of a life that brings me joy. This step is scary because I have always kept a lot of my thoughts inside and have struggled to share the broken parts of me with more than a few close friends. It is scary because I have no idea if my words will mean anything to anyone other than me or if I could even hope to make writing a career. But today I’m showing up and I hope that you will show up with me.
Blessings friends