At first, it was hard to work out how to feel about it all, until I stopped trying to figure out how to feel and just let myself feel whatever emotion came. The first emotion to come was sadness and a deep sense of loss. Trying to tell myself it was impossible to miss something you never had was pointless, because the hopes and dreams we had for the little life in me were so strong it felt like they had crossed the barrier from intangible thoughts into real things, something we could see and touch… and lose. It was our first one, the first pregnancy, and it was jarring to see the ball we had started rolling toward making our own little family stop suddenly at the crest of the hill.

I ran the gambit of emotions then: guilt, despite being told that a life lost this early was a life doomed from conception by its own genetic code; apprehension, about what was to come next, medically and emotionally; surprise, at the number of women I know who have endured the same and were able to share; gratitude, toward the family & friends who offered support and advice; acceptance, that this was not avoidable and fated in the stars, or the genes or the heavens or wherever this stuff is decided, and finally, determination to not let this set back our plans for a family any longer than medically necessary which sounds clinical, but it helped to have a “goal.”

So I guess this post probably explains my blogging absence over the last few weeks, but now that things are clearer I want to share as much of my experience as I can for those enduring the same. I am the type of person who will Google something to like this to learn about other’s experiences and the stories I read did me good so I would like to post my own and offer a forum for others to comment on anything sort of related. Since all the girly details are not for the faint of heart, I’ll be posting my stories about the medical and emotional progression on a separate page, apart from the main blog and will post the link once I get it up and running. I encourage everyone who wants (warning boys, if you pale at the word “menstruation” you’d better stick with the TSN website) to post their comments or stories too.

One night, about 7 years ago, while crying on Sarah’s shoulder about a break-up (or some similar teenage tragedy) so said a simple thing to me: “It gets better.” That was all, but it was the most encouraging thing to hear while my head was full and my heart was sad and it felt like it would hurt forever. I had already heard countless encouraging comments from everyone but this simple thought stuck on because it was simply stated enough to poke through my grief-induced stupor, and because when you feel sad it feels like it will never end and that is scarier than the loss itself. So I repeated to myself “It’ll get better.” And it did. Hang in there.