I have been blogging about my life - particularly my life as a parent - for about six years now, and I've blogged through marriage, divorce,work, life as a single mama, remarriage, pregnancy, childbirth... There are some topics I've been pretty open about and others about which I've been more circumspect.
This morning, at my son's football game, I got into a conversation with a woman I'd never met before. She's very pregnant, and as we talked about epidurals, and which OB she's using, and all sorts of typical topics like that, she mentioned that before becoming pregnant with this baby, due any day now, she had endured multiple miscarriages.
Me too, I found myself blurting out to a total stranger. I've had a bunch of miscarriages, too.
And then suddenly, for the first time ever, I started crying about all those miscarriages I've suffered over the past several years.
She patted me, and I felt embarrassed, and then I clumsily offered my congratulations to her, and went and sat in my car and proceeded to bawl my eyes out for 30 minutes.
This was literally the first time ever that I allowed myself to feel that bad about a fact that only a few very close friends and family members know, but that I've decided to say out loud for the first time: In the past several years, I've miscarried multiple times, most recently about seven weeks ago. I've had miscarriages at 5 weeks and one at ten weeks and a few in the middle. I've had miscarriages that seemed more like a late period - even though I knew I was pregnant - and one that put me in bed for several days after the minor surgeries it required. Mostly, they've just left me tired and quiet for a period of time.
And you know what? I'm getting kind of sick of miscarrying.
My first three babies were born before I was 30 years old. It all went easily, and I completely took it for granted. Life went on. I then divorced, and later met the man I'll be with the rest of my life. We decided to try for a baby right away, with the hope that we would be able to have two children in the following three or four years,
As it turns out, getting pregnant is no problem for me at this point. Staying pregnant? Well, not so much.
Now see, here's where it gets tricky talking about this stuff. Because, we DO have a baby. She's gorgeous and healthy and beautiful. My gratitude for her knows no bounds. And along with the other three children I am lucky enough to have, that means I have given birth to FOUR healthy children. What 41 year old woman with FOUR children has a right to even dare hope for another? And certainly, a woman with FOUR children has no right to complain about multiple miscarriages when there are so many women who have no children at all. Which is one reason why I've kind of kept my mouth shut about this. It sounds really sort of tacky, someone who has four kids complaining that she isn't able to have a fifth. It's sort of like if John McCain complained that he doesn't have enough houses, or if Tiger Woods whined that his golf swing just isn't what it used to be.
But with every miscarriage, it's getting harder to pretend it hasn't happened, harder to remain silent and stoic. The last one was really, really disappointing and difficult. And it coincided with my birthday month, meaning I am extremely conscious of time passing.
We've decided we'll give it another year or so, and see what happens. If it isn't meant to be, we'll graciously accept defeat and close up babymaking shop. It appears that the genetic thrombophilia condition that was identified after the miscarriage I had in October of 2006 may require me to inject myself with blood thinners every day during pregnancy, if I am lucky enough to conceive again. So far, I've just been taking baby aspirin and high doses of folic acid each time the pregnancy test turns up positive, but clearly, more aggressive tactics are in order. And while that doesn't sound like much fun, the repeat miscarrying thing is definitely not much fun either.
So there, I've said it out loud: I've miscarried repeatedly in recent years.
And even though I know I'm really, really blessed to have four healthy children, it hasn't made this experience any less difficult.
