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miscarriage, loss

Throat Punch Thursday ~ A Miscarriage, a Due Date & the Misery in Between

by Deborah Cruz

miscarriage, loss

The other day, my 5-year-old, Gabs walked into the kitchen wearing a pair of jeans that she had outgrown. She was being silly. We laughed because they were practically up to her knees and wouldn’t button. My unsuspecting heart was happy and then she said, “It’s okay Mommy, we can just save these for the next baby you have.” And just like that my eyes were stinging and my vision was getting blurry and I wanted to fall to the floor and assume the fetal position as the knife in my heart worked itself out.

Today, my heart is heavy because I’ve always been induced the week before my due date & that would be this week. I want to scream and cry and break things.

It’s been almost 7 months & I’m still randomly breaking down in fits of grief, sadness and anger. My due date was supposed to be November 24, 2012. I am angry because I’m supposed to be holding a new baby in my arms and I will never get to hold that baby. I just want to be left alone on my due date. I know next Saturday that I will know THAT is the day that I should be meeting my baby but instead I’ll be doing some inconsequential thing that doesn’t matter and it doesn’t feel right. Something monumental should happen to mark this magnanimous occasion, if nothing else to commemorate the fact that I have survived the pain.

Everyone we love is coming for Thanksgiving on Thursday and I am happy to have them but Saturday everyone has to be gone. I need to be alone, that is how I process my pain. I go inside my head. I write it down. I do it alone.

It’s not going to be pretty. I can feel the pain and anger swelling up inside me, bubbling right beneath the surface. I’m so angry and sad and frustrated. Frustrated that I have no one to talk to, no way to let go, no way to get over it or have closure just pain. I’m mad and I want to throat punch whatever made this happen. I miss this baby who I never got to meet more than any other person I’ve ever lost. There is a connection with this little person and me and when he/she died, so did a part of me.

Can someone please tell me how you carry on after a miscarriage? I go through my days pretending I’m fine, willing myself to be fine but I’m not fine.

I feel like I can’t talk to anyone except for my beautiful sister Mel who,unfortunately, shares this experience but I hate to open her wounds.She is the only one who understands my misery and pain. Quite honestly I feel like the Big Guy wants to put it behind him and forget this ever happened. He never really got to talk about how he felt because he was so busy trying to keep me from falling apart. He surrounded me with love and picked up the pieces as fast as they were falling apart. He’s my hero. But it did happen to us, to me, and I can’t get past it because it’s right here with me always to remind me.

At dinner the other night, the family at the next booth had a newborn and it hurt me to see their beautiful baby. I saw what I recognized as commiseration in my husbands eyes. Maybe I imagined it. But for a moment, we were both painfully reminded of what we were supposed to be doing next week, having our baby. I wanted to take away the tinge of sadness that I thought I saw in his eyes. I wanted to make him all better. I feel like I let him and the girls down by losing this baby. My body failed us all.

I hate that I feel this way. I hate that this is one thing that I can’t fix and no one can fix it for me. I always feel like either I’m grieving too much or too little because what’s the right amount? Either I’m happy and I feel like a jerk because I have this massive hole in my heart that I should be trying to mend or I’m randomly crying over something I can’t change and everyone else’s moved on.

I feel like those closest to us have forgotten; like it never happened. I feel like if I bring it up the room gets really quiet and everyone gets uncomfortably silent, shaking their heads awkwardly and wishing I’d change the subject. Praying I’d stop making them so uncomfortable.  Wanting to stop my pain and wishing I could let it go. But it’s not me hanging on. The grief won’t let me go.

How do you ever stop missing someone that you loved more than everything, your child? If you have had a pregnancy or child loss, how did you get through it? How did you get closure? How do I make it stop hurting so much?

 

 

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12 comments

Jenn@Fox in the City 2012/11/15 - 11:44 am

I wish I had some amazing piece of advice that will make it all feel better but even though it will be 6 years on December 1, there are days when I still feel pain of losing our first baby.

Know that you are not alone. Allow yourself to feel the pain. Eventually, while the pain will still be there, the living will be so much easier.

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Deborah Cruz 2012/11/15 - 12:11 pm

Thank you for your kind words. Ia m so sorry for your loss. I just feel like I am swallowed up and I’m not sure what is normal anymore. I have a lot of good days and then I have these explosive emotional bombs that go off randomly. I just don’t know what is normal or if I am wallowing in my misery. Thanks for sharing your words of wisdom with me.

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Laurel 2012/11/15 - 11:58 am

Hi Deborah, I am so sorry to hear of your loss. The pain is excruciating and relentless. It happened to me and like yours, my husband moved on very quickly. He didn’t know any better. He was not the crucible and he felt it was right to put it behind. I needed him to next here while I howled my pain. He thought it would weaken me. Believe it or not it was 33 years ago and I still think of that child. I wrote about it briefly https://timeandchance.ca/2012/01/fleeting-memories/ Time is needed and eventually you move to a place where you can cherish what happened instead. I was one of the lucky ones. The child that came next was and is truly special and she is now an adult who respects the memory of that baby who did not come home. Talking to others who have had the same experience may help. The pain eventually becomes less piercing but it is real and you are wise to acknowledge it. Hang on. Everything will be alright. We just don’t know what alright looks like while we are in the worst part. Sending love and healing and hope. Laurel

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Deborah Cruz 2012/11/15 - 12:14 pm

Your words spoke to my heart. I am so sorry for your loss. I do have a sister that I can talk to, this is one thing that connects us that no one else in our family shares but I hate opening her wounds. She spoke to me this morning and she did lighten my heart, but I fear I made her sad. I hate to do that to anyone. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and experience with me.

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Kristen Mae 2012/11/15 - 12:39 pm

You are not alone! My friend’s blog – https://www.bysuchthings.com/ (it’s new, I don’t think she’s gotten to the part about the miscarriages yet.) She’s the first person to ever ‘let me in’ about the pain of miscarriage. I’ve never had one. I wrote about her in my blog as well, in the post “Idiots With Viable Uteruses and Why I Want to Learn Korean.” Not posting the link because I don’t want to spam my material. =/

I’m so sorry for your loss. Just please remember you’re not alone. My friend Kim said exactly the same thing you did, about feeling alone, feeling like no one ‘got it.’ ((((you))))

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Sarah 2012/11/15 - 2:59 pm

https://mommieswithhope.com/ I have a friend who lost two children due to miscarriage. She has two children of her own, and since has gone on to adopt two beautiful little girls. She talks about this group a lot. I can ask her if she has any recommendations if you’d like. She is a super person!

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Heather O. 2012/11/19 - 1:29 pm

Oh Deborah, I am so sorry for the pain of your loss. My daughter was born still almost 5 months ago, and I blogged about this very thing today — wondering if I will ever be able to get past my grief. You are not alone. Love and hugs from across the internet!

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Deborah Cruz 2012/11/19 - 8:51 pm

LOve and hugs back to you. I just read your post and I hate that we know this grief. I pray that we will both know peace again and a heart that is not heavy with grief and sorrow. I just want to feel normal again but I’m not sure that is even possible.

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Alise 2012/11/19 - 8:28 pm

I am so sorry for your loss. I don’t know what it is to lose a baby, but I know that grief is something that we all experience in some way or another and we can only process it in our own ways. Much love to you as you sort through this painful season.

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Deborah Cruz 2012/11/19 - 8:48 pm

THank you and I hope that you never know what it is to lose a baby. I wish no parent ever had to know what it is to lose a pregnancy or a child. It’s a gaping wound that is impossible to fill. I am coping the best way I can, one day at a time. I’ve been doing pretty well, until last week. I think knowing that the due date would have been this weekend is like waiting for impending doom.I can only wait and brace myself. Your kind words mean the world to me.

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The TRUTH About Motherhood | A Year Ago Today, the Loss of the Unimaginable - The TRUTH About Motherhood 2013/05/01 - 9:23 am

[…] I have to become whole again. I have to live, even though part of me died with you. I have to stop mourning and start living. I have to say […]

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Heather C. 2016/10/03 - 4:08 pm

Hello, Deborah,
I came across your website today, because I, too, am trying to find answers. First of all, please let me say that I pray that in the four years since you wrote this, you have found peace and healing of some kind, whatever that might look like. I’m a firm believer that it never looks the same for any two people. It’s not linear, it’s not predictable. But I pray – whatever form it’s taken for you – it’s one that’s beautiful.

When I started reading your blog, I began to cry, because our little one that we miscarried back in April was to have been born on November 26th, right around the Thanksgiving holiday as well. My husband and I miscarried back in 2011 only a few months after we married, but it was a situation where we didn’t know I was pregnant until after the miscarriage began. We didn’t even tell our family and close friends about it until just about a year ago.
The one this past April came after over two years of trying to get pregnant, and making plans for me to have surgery. I only knew I was pregnant for a week and a half before the miscarriage began…but I’ve never known love – or loss – of that nature before. My husband and I both took a couple days off of work to grieve intentionally – reading Scripture, praying, choosing names for both of the children we lost…and I think for him that was a very helpful part of the grieving process.
It wasn’t enough for me, though, I guess. We chose to name the one we lost in April Autumn Zoe…”Autumn” to honor the time of year she would have been born and “Zoe” to celebrate the life that she had been, and in hope of life to come. Abundant life in autumn…but with this change of the seasons, I find myself grieving anew. Thanksgiving is a HUGE holiday in my family (really bigger than Christmas), and I just don’t know how it’s going to look or feel to have my family around when I know that, had things worked out differently, we would have all been together for her birth.
I know you asked in your post, ‘How do I get through? How do I find closure? How do I make it STOP HURTING?’ Maybe you’ve found those answers by now. But I wanted you to know that it has helped me to read your thoughts and know I’m not alone in this. Thank you so much for sharing your experience and your heart. May God bless you and your family.

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