Social and Personal Expectations

So here I am… almost four months after my second miscarriage and eight months after my first miscarriage. It is amazing how time really puts a gap between such pain and loss and spreads it further and further from the dripping and aching heart that I once had. My heart still aches… don’t get me wrong. I still see strollers loud and clear. I see bouncing babies everywhere. I see big, round bellies staring me in the face. I still see it all.

The difference today is that I can cope. Only weeks ago, months perhaps I would fall silly to the ground with sadness or die a little bit daily from the sharp blade of pain and loss. I don’t feel that as sharp or as dramatically. My losses will never go away… they are there forever. The memories of being newly pregnant and so beautifully hopeful the first time will always be a wonderful and fond memory- now in the distance.

I am not thankful I had 2 miscarriages. I will always wonder what could have been. I will never know. BUT… what I do know is that I will never look at children the same. What a true and amazing miracle they are. What a blessing. I always “knew” that babies were miracles because it is what “everyone” else would say… but now I am old enough and a little wiser these days… I get it. Babies are total miracles. And not everyone gets to have one. And if people do get to have babies they are very blessed.

My anger is slowly trickling away. I think there will always be a space inside of me that harbors the resentment… the long lost look in my eyes when I see other women conceive and roll through their pregnancies with no bumps or curves. But I am not as angry. I am sort of moving on. I feel selfish in saying this but I am. I have taken on some new directions in my life in the last six weeks that have changed my landscape in what I believe to be a healthy way.

I am beginning a new job that could potentially be a very prestigious position and will give me some freedom. It will also provide the canvass I have so longed for in my professional life- a canvass in which to create, design, explore, investigate, research, execute and really use my mind. Marketing is a wonderfully complex and outrageous field. I so adore it. Bob and I have also put out town home on the market and are hoping for a quick sale. We found the home we have dreamed of. It is amazing. And with a new job and potentially a new home I think our baby plans will be taking a different place in our lives right now. And I am okay with that, surprisingly. I thought I wouldn’t be – but I am and oddly feel somewhat relieved.

For some time I have felt such a deep hole in my core being that I felt such an urgency to fill it up – with something- with anything!! Now, I just want to get on with my life. I want to notice the beauty in the world and really just enjoy the simplicity Bob and I have been so freely given. I am not backing away from Mommy hood… just taking a sabbatical for now. There is so much to do!

I have also joined the Board of Directors for a non-profit in Denver and that will fill my “do-gooder” square. I like that.

And not to mention reserving time for friends, fun and activity. Something in which Bob and I have been totally void of due to overwhelming sadness and grief for the better part of the last 8 months.

So this is good. Baby steps. No pun intended. But it is true. You don’t get over a miscarriage over night. Sometimes never. But from what I am learning you do change the course and adjust your sail.

Bob and I will get our chance- I just don’t think the time is now… and I am finally okay with this. I am looking forward to blossoming as a young professional woman and leveraging my career in as many ways as I can. And, I know it is okay to want and have both a professional life and a life as a mother. Soon, I hope to combine the two.

The only nagging feeling I have is that I am just getting older…31 and Bob 44. The only reason I feel a sense of urgency is that I want my kids to have young enough parents that we will actually remember their names! I want them to see us in our youth as much as they can. And, I want them to know their grandparents. But I am learning… a little late I might add, that you can’t have it all. And you can’t have it all, now.