Yesterday was the day.
I thought for sure, it would be too much to bear. I just waited for the emotional time bomb to end all time bombs to come and take me out.
I waited for it to come. I expected it. Thanksgiving, I hosted dinner & I was indeed an open wound. A simple statement of “don’t you miss a baby in the house” sent me into silent hysterics. (more…)
It was a sunny Monday morning. I had just dropped my 4 year-old off at preschool. I had approximately 2 hours to get to my OBs office and have her check me and tell me nothing was wrong. As I lay there alone on the cold, hard table in the ultrasound room, I expected nothing to be wrong. I had some spotting, as I had with both of my previous pregnancies. Both times previously, everything was fine. I had overreacted. I was 10 weeks and 4 days pregnant with our third child. I just needed the ultrasound and the confirmation that everything was okay and I could continue on with my full day of errands. I wasn’t scared at all. That’s why my husband wasn’t with me. I was wrong.
The ultrasound tech made idle chit chat, apologizing for the wand of the vaginal ultrasound and any pressure that I might be feeling. Then her face went white. I knew. But it had to be a mistake. She continued on in silence. Then the words came, as if in slow motion from across the world, “I’m so sorry, I can’t find your baby’s heartbeat.”
I was in shock. All I could think was, she must have done something wrong. There is a heartbeat; she just doesn’t know what she is doing. I lay there for a couple more minutes, paralyzed and horrified. Embarrassed and humiliated, I wanted to disappear. I wanted to die. I wanted to be dead with no heartbeat, just like my baby inside me. I couldn’t talk. I didn’t cry.
I was interrupted from my internal psychotic break by the ultrasound tech taking my hand softly and telling me, once again, how very sorry she was for my loss and that she would take me downstairs to see my obstetrician “the back way”. I know it was so I wouldn’t have to walk through the waiting room filled with beautiful round bellies full of life. I knew. But it felt like, I was being taken down the back stairs because I was not worthy.
My body had failed my baby and me. There was malfunction and all I could do was take one step at a time and try not falling to the ground and crying forever. It felt surreal like I was watching this happen to someone else. I was outside of my body as I found myself in the Ob waiting room downstairs, not sure if I should politely smile or cry at the other expecting mothers. I was jealous. I was pissed. I was hurt. I felt like my initial reaction of surprise to this pregnancy had somehow made me unworthy to hold my baby. I could not speak. I saw my doctor. She explained the situation. I could barely hear her through my own thoughts. My head was so congested from holding in my pain. I was afraid to open mouth because all of the emotion would come pouring out and drown us all.
I was physically aching. My legs were shaking, my mind was racing, my head was spinning and I was alone; more alone than I have ever been in my life. I needed to hear my husband’s voice. He had to be told. I was the only one who could make that call. He knew I was at the doctor’s office. We’d been here before. We worried for nothing. It was always fine. Not this time.
I dialed the number through my blurry vision, I heard his jovial voice on the other end, “How’s our baby?” I was silent. “Is everything ok?” his concern was palpable. I started to speak, but it didn’t sound like me. It couldn’t be me speaking those words. I opened my mouth and the words came out like a death sentence, “ We had a M…………” and then I began to sob in an uncontrollable and animalistic way in which I have never experienced before. I could not finish the word. It was choking me. I could not say it out loud because then it would be real and then my baby would be dead. The promise of our baby would be broken. Life would be different. I would be different. It would all be less. I would never get to hold my baby in my arms because my baby was gone.
How do you survive a miscarriage? You don’t. You are changed forever. On the day that you lose a child, you lose part of who you were and become someone new; different. Your destiny is changed. You will never be the same. Eventually, you learn to breathe again, you get up of the floor, you stop crying and you somehow carry on.
I wrote this in August on Scary Mommy but today is the day that I share exactly what happened on the hardest day of my life. Our babies who have gone on to heaven may not be here in our arms but they are always in our hearts. During National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month, please remember what we can never forget.
photo credit: Jason A. Samfield via photopin cc
Bloggers are full of shit. Some of them anyways. I’ve recently noticed a trend among a few select bloggers who specifically go against the grain just to stir the pot. I am not bashing male bloggers, some of my favorite people on the Internet are dad bloggers but there are a few who have been hitting a nerve. It’s like Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern had a devil baby who is a pathological liar. You know who I’m talking about. Bloggers are story tellers, some truth, some fiction and then sometimes a little bit of creative license (bullshitting if you will) mixed in just to keep things interesting.
I not saying that they post on the occasional controversial topic. We all do that. These particular “bloggers” are all drama, all the time. They’re so full of shit, I’m not even sure if they know the difference between what’s real and what’s made up anymore. It’s exhausting just reading. I can’t imagine how taxing it must be to actually be the one trying to keep all that shit straight. Controversial things happen and we have opinions that is natural and hey, if we’re being honest, it’s not being a troll to throw your name in the hat for consideration by the almighty Google. What I am referring to is the intentional and habitual abuse of salacious titles and creating controversy where there is none just for the sheer joy of pissing people off and increasing traffic. Stop fanning the flames of the mommy war or any war for that matter. Matt Walsh I’m looking at you.
We’ve all fallen prey to these sort of blog posts. It either turns out to be the old bait and switch or the post is so outlandish that you think your head might explode Scanners style while reading it, all while assuming that you must be getting punked. Surely, this is not intended to be taken seriously. When did the guy next door turn into a rabid Bill O’Reilly? Maybe he took some bath salts or got a bad batch of Krokodil before sitting down to type, either way, this dude is a little bit batshit crazy.
Look, I don’t mind a little creative license but fuck is any of it true anymore? Is everything just part of the “storyline” , added for effect? Stop superimposing yourself into the “mommy wars”, you don’t belong there. You are not a mommy. Stop creating controversy. We all know it’s bullshit and if you are going to keep writing it, for the love of God, man, can you give us a disclaimer that reads that this piece is fiction? I mean, at least do us the courtesy of not pretending that we are stupid and please stop writing press releases about it. It’s nothing personal guys, I just wish we could get something with a little more meat to it. Give me some of your truth.
It’s like when you are pissed at your sister, you can call her on her bullshit but nobody else better say a word? Well, it’s sort of like that. We women live as women and we may not walk in everyone’s shoes but at least we share the plumbing to have an inkling of what’s going on with other women, men do not; at least not from the firsthand perspective. Men are allowed to have an opinion about anything they want but if you don’t have breasts, a uterus, a vagina and clitoris,
*** I am only talking about ME, you are welcome to weigh in on your wives, daughters and loved ones.
Don’t tell me how I should feel about breastfeeding! Don’t tell me whether or not I should have a home birth or one at the hospital. Do NOT even try to give an opinion about whether my labor should be medicated or not. I don’t need your feelings on abortion, transvaginal ultrasounds, date rape, miscarriage, stay-at home, work-at-home or work-out-of-the-home. I don’t care what your opinion is about my breast size, breast augmentation or how, when, why I get pregnant. I don’t need you to weigh in on what size my ass should be or how often I should be want sex. I don’t need you to intervene on our behalf to other women in the mommy wars. I’ve got it covered. I don’t need you to be my shining knight in this area. I have my husband for that. I don’t need you to tell me that I shouldn’t experience mommy guilt or worry about whether or not my perfect balancing act of helicopter mom and free-range mom are coming dangerously close to falling completely uncrunchy. I don’t need you to tell me how hard being a mother is, I know and I certainly don’t need any commentary from you on how I should feel or behave as a mother, me and my uterus got it covered.Thanks.
If you really want to contribute to the conversation be a more interested husband, engaged father, committed boyfriend. Worry about you. Treat women like people, not china on the highest shelf in the cabinet. Go commiserate with your fellow penis people. Just write about something real that you actually have experience with and if that includes miscarriage, abortion, breasts, stay-at-home parenting, work-at-home parenting or whatever else that may include go for it. But leave the stupid controversy on topics you have no experience with to someone better equipped to understand the situation.
End rant.
Has anyone else noticed this happening? What happens when the blogging veil comes down and you realize that the blogger you used to love is full of shit?
***Update, those of you who know me know that I am not a feminist, angry bitter person and I don’t mind sharing traffic so, per the advice of many dad bloggers, I added the links to those full-of-shit bloggers that I was referring to so you can all know I am not speaking to the general population. In fact, I even linked to a couple of my favorite dad bloggers just so you know they rock. You who have read me before today know that the Big Guy, my husband, is my favorite person in the world and he is involved in every facet of parenting our children and he is my trusted confidant in all things in life. He gives me his honest opinion about everything because I respect what he thinks and he is usually my voice of reason and when it is something that he cannot personally relate to..like how it feels to give birth or labor for 13 hours or have your body fail you in a pregnancy, he is there to support me and reassure me that it will all be alright, as I am for him. I’m really not the C U Next Thursday, you all believe me to be.
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That’s my daughter is what I want to scream every single time anyone looks at my daughter, either one of them. Anyone who’s ever had the honor of being the mommy to a daughter knows that our little girls leave us in awe on a daily basis. I can’t even explain the pride and love that I feel for these two little creatures. At their very core, they are pure good. They are everything that I love about the world, about people, even about living. Everything I do is for them.
This past month has been such an emotional roller coaster for so many reasons, least of all because of our miscarriage. I say ours because it wasn’t just my loss. It hurt our family, at it’s core. Thank God,I have so much to be thankful for. I am so freaking blessed that sometimes, I think it’s not fair that I should have so many blessings in my life, especially my daughters and husband. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows over here, hardly. But even when it’s hard, it’s still really, really good because I have the girls and the Big Guy to love me. They love me regardless of the time, day, weather, whether I am fat or skinny. It’s unconditional and that is truly something to be thankful for.
So, I am not going to go on mushy on you and talk about what I’ve lost. I’ve done enough of that. You have all been such a great sounding board. I have shouted profanities at life and collapsed in a pool of snot and tears and I have had so many people to lift me up. I finally feel like I can stand alone and shout my profanities. I know y’all have got my back and I don’t feel sorry for myself anymore. I feel sad at what I will never know and I feel the void but I know that I am strong enough to survive. I know that I am a stronger and better person for having survived it, like so many other shitty things that I have survived.
This is about so much more, this is about my daughters and all the reasons that I had to celebrate this month. No, I am not crazy or delusional and believe me, I didn’t think I could celebrate anything but how could I not. My husband celebrated his 37th birthday. The Big Guy is my soft place to land in a life of never ending rocks and hard places. I celebrate his birth because, he is responsible for my rebirth. He is the part of me that holds me up. He is my foundation.
I had to celebrate Mother’s day because look at the two daughters I have been blessed with. My girl’s bring me infinite love to give and to receive on a daily basis. They have made me better than I ever could have hoped to be, more than I could have imagined was even possible. With them, my heart grows to the point that it feels like it may swell and burst out of my chest.
The Big Guy and I celebrated 13 years of marriage. This man came into a moment in my life when I was not expecting love. Up until him, what I thought was love was a faint shadow of what love truly is. Love is all consuming and easy. It’s a submission of your heart, body and soul with a complete reciprocation.It’s a soft place to land. It’s good times and bad. It’s the big things and the little things. It’s sharing a near death experience in order to create a perfect, living breathing , walking around and breaking your heart culmination of your love. It’s holding hair, holding hands and holding your heart together with chewing gum when it’s breaking into a million different pieces. It’s silence that fills a room and noise that fills your heart. It’s all day, every day and it is unconditional without reservation, hesitation or question.
We celebrated Gabi’s birthday. My tenderhearted baby turned 5 this past week and if I were on my dying bed, I would will myself up and celebrate that child’s life. She is strong, witty, funny and amazing in ways that I’d never thought about before her. She is my baby and that is worth celebrating. She is here to be held and loved. I will do it every second and in every way for as long as I take breath into my body.
Along with all that, there were end of year programs, preschool graduation, ballet recitals, firsts performances, last days, life and death and through it all, I am so glad that you are here to share it all with. Which reminds me, The TRUTH about Motherhood just turned 3 and Throat Punch Thursday (Which I’ve been too emotionally drained the past month to dole out but will resume next month) is officially 2 years old. I have truly enjoyed getting to know all of you and I look forward to many more years of growing through motherhood and life with you.
What would I do without to you? What would I do without the Big Guy or my daughters? I don’t know and I hope I never do know life without your community, the Big Guy or my daughters.
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I planned to write a post tonight about my Mommy A-Ha moment and then I read a couple posts of fellow bloggers who I really admire. Tonight, their posts have inspired me to write something different then what I had planned.I know that lately I have been writing syrupy or serious pieces, not my usual “laugh out loud, that lady cracks me up” kind of pieces but that’s just where my head has been lately.Things have been weighing on my mind. I do have a serious side, you know. Sometimes:) Tonight, is not night that the snark makes its reappearance but soon.I promise.
The posts that I read were Empty by Jenni Chiu @ Mommy Nani BooBoo and Hey Buddy by Kelle Hampton @ Enjoying the Small Things. Jenni is normally a rip roaring hoot. I adore her because she is absolutely hilarious, snarky in a way that you either fall madly in love with her style or you are completely offended. I fell hard for her snark. She is honest and real, just like life.Tonight, I first read her post about Green Eggs and Ham and her little boy eating his boogers and I laughed out loud. She is challenging herself to write a 50 word story. Commentors are encouraged to leave a word to be used and she will use the first 50 words that she receives,just like the challenge issued to Dr. Seuss. Of course, given our repartee I issued the word “pulchritudinous”.Then, I went back a post and read, Empty and my heart cracked open into a million little pieces.
A few days ago she had a miscarriage at two months along. It’s her story to tell and I suggest that you read it. I can’t do it justice. But it made my heart hurt and made me want to hold me girls really close tonight. I am so blessed that when I crawl into bed after writing this post, I am going to snuggle so closely to my little girls that they are going to wake up and say ,”Mommy, get off of me!Scoot back!You are smothering me!” And I won’t really mind or care because I am just so grateful that I have them here to annoy. These are the moments that change us.The moments that make us realize that we are mortal that we are all here but by the grace of God.
Then I headed over to Enjoying the Small Things, as I do every single time my blog roll shows that she has posted something new.Have you read Kelle Hampton? She is really an amazing writer, photographer, mother, and lover of life. She is a go big or go home sort of person with her love. I read her for inspiration.She inspires me to Enjoy the Small things and to be a better person. Tonight’s post was about the Downs Syndrome Buddy Walk held in Naples, Florida this past weekend.Kelle and her husband have two beautiful daughters, the youngest, Nella, has Downs Syndrome. I am perpetually inspired by how Kelle views the world and her perspective on life.Tonight’s post touched me beyond words. The gorgeous photos of all family and friends gathered round in support of their little almond eyed beauty in the walk. As I skimmed the photos of Nella herself, in her little Rock star wagon, I found myself crying and smiling simultaneously. My heart breaks knowing how deep a Mother’s love is and how we want every possibility for our children.To see our children grow up, get married and have children of their own, to share their life experiences with us..to watch them exhaust every avenue of potential..that is what we live for. That’s the good stuff. To watch them struggle in any way, tears at our soul.To know that one day limitations will arise for such a small piece of God’s perfection makes me sad. But I am so happy that little Nella has such an amazing Mother, Father,Grandfather, sister, family, and friends who will be there throughout the good times and bad times, the hard times and the soft times, the sunny days and the cloudy days of life. Her piece made me want to do more, to push the possibilities, to embrace the chaos and to love my children with reckless abandon with a love so fierce that it could rule the world.
Thank both of you ladies for sharing such intimate moments in your lives. You both have inspired me to be a better woman, mother, and wife.You have made me want to be a better me and to be thankful for this beautiful world that I see. These moments are truly changing me.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Today is May 1st and it’s the day I dread all year long. This year particularly because it’s been a rough year, month, week and day. 10 years ago today, I lost the baby who would have been our third child. It’s weird because on that day, a part of me did die. I am not the same woman I was the day before. I have been broken beyond repair and put back together with existential gorilla glue or maybe just sheer mother’s love because if it weren’t for my 2 living daughters, I’m pretty sure I would have just given up which is saying a lot considering that giving up has never been in my wheelhouse.
I’m sure that anyone who has never survived a miscarriage or loss of a child thinks I’m being overly dramatic but I assure you, when my baby died, I wanted to follow suit. I was shattered and felt betrayed by my body, by the world and even by God. God, is the one thing, I have always had an unshakable faith in but in those moments after hearing that my child no longer had a heartbeat, I wasn’t so sure what I believed anymore. I was angry, sad and felt like I had been completely blind-sighted by the events that were unfolding at an alarming rate. I felt vulnerable and helpless and worthless simultaneously and I hated myself and everyone else for that. Why couldn’t I make this better? Why didn’t I stop this? How could I have prevented this? Why me?
Why me, indeed. You know, I used to think that child and pregnancy loss was something that only happened to other people. I didn’t think I was better. I just thought that it didn’t happen that often and I was probably safe. There was no genetic history of miscarriages happening on either side of my family. For some reason, I thought I was exempt from the possibility even though rationally, I knew horrible things happen to everyone and I’m not special but maybe on some level I thought I was. I’ve survived a lot of tumultuous shit in my lifetime, maybe I just thought I deserved a break.
But when it happened and I was falling apart in every way possible, an invisible community of women who most I had never even met or spoken to previous to this catastrophic moment in my life, rallied beneath me and lifted me up in compassion, understanding and love. From the nurses who wheeled me back to my D & E, to the other moms who read this website and I’ve come to know and love over the years, to my IRL friends who comfortingly disclosed their own losses and even strangers who read my post, these women across the world swooped in like superheroes and saved me from myself. How could I give up when so many stoic women who had gone through this same thing were holding their hands out to me to give me the strength to carry on? How could I give up when I looked into the teary eyes of my little girls who knew but could not comprehend what was going on with their mommy? They needed me and I needed them to be my reason why and they were.
You know, I was so devastated on that day that I became the most selfish version of myself, I had to in order to live. I still feel really guilty about this but in my soul-crushing pain, I never once asked the Big Guy how he felt. I couldn’t even face him. He was the one person who I felt the most that my loss had let down. I’ll never forget in the minutes after finding out that our baby had died, my Obstetrician, Nina (yeah we’ve become close like that after the gynecological tragedies we’ve shared), made me call my husband and tell him so that he could take care of me. She saw me disintegrating before her eyes. She knew a total collapse was imminent.
He knew I was seeing the gynecologist and he answered the phone with his usual jovial, kind, caring voice, “How’s our baby?” I’m crying right now just remembering. When I told him, when I tried to say the words I felt as if I was going to choke to death. I tried to swallow them down and rewind time. Nothing made sense and everything was hazy. I felt like I had betrayed him in a way that I can never undo and that somehow made it all worse. My husband is my best friend and the one person I love and respect more than anyone else in this world. We’ve built a life together, we made an unspoken deal when we got married to always be there for one another and I feel like I didn’t keep up my end of the bargain.
But today has been 10 years since I lost our baby and it still hurts as much as it did on that day, even if I sometimes feel like I am the only one who remembers or commemorates the day. But how could I pretend that today is like any other day when I so vividly remember the devastation that I felt on that day 10 years ago?
Even though I feel completely alone in my loss, I know that I’m not. My husband gives me space and my beautiful, sweet, kind, compassionate girls are extra tender with me every May 1st because they know. They’re only 14 and 17 but they feel the love that I have for them on a daily basis and they sense the gravity of my loss; the void in my heart, the heaviness of the emptiness of my arms that tinges my life every day with sadness that grows just a bit heavier every May 1st. 10 years ago today, I died a little bit.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
There’s a reason they call dogs “man’s best friend.” They worm their way into the deepest crevices of our hearts and become inextricable parts of our families. So when the day comes to say goodbye, it absolutely shatters you.
Last year, on May 6th, our beloved Lola, a sweet, quirky Victorian bulldog who’d been by my side for over a decade, passed away. Her loss left a chasm in my soul that still hasn’t closed, even weeks later.
Our Lola was more than just a pet – she was our furry child, a bright light during one of the darkest chapters of our lives. Back in 2012, my world imploded after suffering a devastating miscarriage and losing our first boxer, Saffaron. I vividly remember curling up night after night, hollowed out by grief, utterly convinced that my family would never make it through that gaping void of compounded loss.
Then, on December 14th of that same year, Lola quite literally pranced into our lives – a tiny ray of hope swathed in a big pink bow. From the moment we locked eyes with her sweet, gentle spirit, we knew she was our family’s redemption and path to healing. Lola filled every nook and cranny of our broken hearts with her pure, unconditional love.
She was there for us through all the ups and downs over the next decade – our steadfast, loyal companion who sensed our every sadness and snuggled up to us until the sorrow temporarily melted away. When I shattered my leg in 2015 and couldn’t walk for 3 months, Lola stayed dedicated by my side day and night, raising my spirits in a way only she could.
Our bond went far deeper than most people share with their household pets. We loved our Lola as fiercely and wholeheartedly as we love our human children. So you can imagine the earth-shattering despair when her health began rapidly declining in the summer of 2022 due to Cushing’s Disease.
For months, I had to hand-feed Lola, spoon by tiny spoon, as she grew weaker and more emaciated before my eyes. My heart shredded further each day watching her die a slow, undignified death despite our relentless vet visits and medication protocols. It’s impossible to know when to let go. We were in constant contact with our vet to make sure that she wasn’t in pain,
I tried preparing for the inevitable while paradoxically holding out hope for a miracle. I told myself “When the time comes, at least you’ll know you cherished every second with her and eased her suffering in the end.”
But as all my fellow pet parents know, those affirmations offer little solace when you’re suddenly staring into the eyes of your beloved fur baby and realizing this might be the last time. On May 6, 2023, Lola collapsed in the yard, finally succumbing to her illness. The light faded from her warm brown eyes as she locked her gaze on mine, silently communicating this was her final goodbye.
That pit of dread and grief was all too familiar, conjuring up the anguish of my miscarriage – that same powerless feeling of watching someone you’d give your life for slip away. I promised myself I’d hold Lola until her final breaths, stroking her soft fur and reassuring her that everything would be okay. For hours, I cradled her in my arms, violently sobbing as I felt her tiny heartbeat grow faint under my fingertips.
When the inevitable occurred and Lola finally stopped breathing, a part of me went still and cold too. We rushed her to the emergency vet not to save her, but to ease her transition to the other side since she seemed trapped between two realms. Standing in that sterile lobby begging strangers to help my baby as her limp body hung in my arms…I’ve never felt so hopeless and hollowed out.
Lola was more than just a beloved pet – she was a child to me, a treasured family member whose cuddles and kisses provided comfort unmatched by anything else. Her love helped carry us through some of life’s most traumatic, arduous valleys. And now, home no longer feels like home; living in a Lola-less house each day is like being stabbed anew.
My morning routine is forever altered – there’s no tiny wagging tail to greet me or watchful brown eyes following my every move as I get ready. No affectionate snuggles as I breakdown in tears reaching for her favorite soft blankets that still hold the smell of her. I see her everywhere yet nowhere. One saving grace is that we have Stella, the Dogue de Bourdeaux we adopted the spring before we found out Lola was sick but even so, our Lola was irreplaceable.
Friends and loved ones with the best intentions still mention our sweet Lola. But they couldn’t possibly comprehend the permanence of this loss. Just like humans, our pets leave indelible pawprints on our lives that we’ll carry forever.
While the searing pain of acute grief does inevitably dull over time, for those of us who love our pets as our own children, that dull ache never fully disappears. We simply learn to rebuild our lives around the holes they’ve left in our hearts.
One step at a time, one fond memory at a time, we transform our sadness into newfound gratitude for the unconditional love they bestowed upon us. For me, this pain transcends just being “sad Lola’s gone.” More than anything, I feel deep regret, knowing we’ll never again experience her constant companionship, her intuitive snuggles on my darkest days, those small joys that comprised my “normal” for over a decade. No other pet could ever replace the sacred space she occupied.
So if you’re grappling with this same devastation, please be gentle with yourself. Don’t beat yourself up for days when you can’t pull it together, because this grief is incredibly disruptive and all-encompassing. Let the waves of sadness crash over you – cry until your heart feels hollow again if you have to. Your pain is valid and real.
Most importantly, keep your beloved pet’s spirit alive by sharing their story and honoring their unconditional love. I’m finding solace in reliving all the hilarious Lola tales that made our family roar with laughter over the years. Though our home feels emptier without her tiny paws clicking across the hardwoods, she’ll always be our guardian angel on the other side of the rainbow bridge.
In time, we’ll be able to celebrate Lola’s life without feeling consumed by tears. We’ll adopt another rescue and pay forward the boundless affection she shamelessly showered us with each day.
Until then, we’ll continue leaving the porch light on for our sweet girl, so she knows there’s still a way back home to the people who love her most.
I’m sharing Lola’s story today because I know I’m not alone in feeling this profound, seismic heartbreak and upheaval after an adored pet passes away. Whether your baby had fur, feathers, scales, or something else, their absence leaves a cavernous void that humans are simply not equipped to navigate gracefully.
So let’s build a community to uplift each other through these brutal, raw moments. If you’ve ever lost your own furry BFF, please leave a comment sharing their name and a fond memory that still makes you smile through the tears. Let’s swap coping strategies, survival tips, and most importantly – humor and hope that our pets’ legacies will carry us through the darkness.
We’re in this together, opening our arms and hearts as wide as our four-legged friends taught us unconditional love means. Hug your babies a little tighter today and be ever-grateful for their pawprints on your soul. After all, it’s better to have loved and lost an irreplaceable pet than never experienced their extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime companionship at all.
I have, literally, been trying to write this post since the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump but I can’t form my thoughts into coherent words because every day there is some new mind boggling executive order being passed down. What I do know is that we have to resist. We the people have to resist.We cannot go gently into that good night. The man is on the fast track to being a dictator the likes of Hitler, Pinochet, and Castro.
My mind has been having a hard time keeping up with everything going on during this first week of Trump’s presidency.My heart is heavy but my mind says resist. Resist the urge to lay down and curl up into the fetal position. Resist the natural response to drown in my own tears. Resist the wrong that is being inflicted. Stand up. Fight. Now. Use your voice.
I feel like we are all patiently awaiting the purge. Those who are complacent are part of the problem. Quietly disagreeing is no longer an option. We’ve gone way beyond that point. You must be prepared to stand up and speak out. You must be prepared to fight because your life is at stake. Your basic human rights are in jeopardy. This man is turning the United States into a sinking ship and we are all being held hostage aboard the S.S. Hate.
I am a woman. I am a Latina. I am the daughter of an immigrant. I am the mother of a new generation of Latinas. I do not have the option of being quiet and not fighting. I choose action, for my father, for my children, for myself and for you!
Women, United we Stand and Divided we Fall.
Ladies, what are you doing? We’re fighting with each other over who should march and who shouldn’t. And while we’re not paying attention, the government is slowly putting its hands on our uterus while Trump is single-handedly stripping us of our basic human rights. If you are a woman and this doesn’t scare you, you might want to get a dictionary and Google Women’s rights.
Marching was not just about the right to choose. It’s about the government telling women what to do with their bodies. How we reproduce. When we reproduce. How we feed our babies. How we deal with the loss of our babies. The punishment for not carrying a pregnancy to term for several reasons, including rape, incest, medical reasons and yes, even choice. It’s about men having domain over our bodies when we don’t give consent and even when we say no. It’s about women being treated like livestock and not humans. It’s about every single human being born with a vagina and a uterus.
Ladies, our daughters are watching.
Last week’s March was an amazing show of solidarity in a time of turmoil. The American women came out in powerhouse droves to stand up for their rights as human beings and their reproductive rights. Women across the world put everyone on notice that we are no longer going to stand silently by as the patriarchy treats us like second class citizens.
I’m still having a hard time understanding why our reproductive rights are a point of discussion at all. Why is it anyone’s business what we do with our bodies? How does my choice to do what I want with my body fall under government jurisdiction?
If men can justify this behavior and the right to have dominion over women’s bodies, why can’t we women make federal law on how men use their reproductive systems? What if we banned all the Viagra, imposed vasectomies on any man we saw unfit to reproduce and, just for shits and giggles, give every man a good lecturing about how he should not be masturbating because it is fornicating and that is a sin under God’s law? What if we made touching your balls without permission a sin punishable by jail time, just because?
You know what’s even more disgusting than men having their hands metaphorically in our uteruses, controlling how we use our own bodies? Women who mock the feminists, the marchers and the women fighting for equal rights for women. The ladies who stand on the sidelines and support a man who categorically believes you are a second class citizen.
You ladies are self-loathing pieces of shit and I wish there was a way that you could sign a petition to show your lack of support for women’s rights so that when we do get our rights fully and unequivocally, you can have yours taken away. Your body, your choice. You don’t want them. Hand them over. But, I’m not going to fight against you, my sisters, because I will fight for you and whether you know it or not, you deserve to be treated and paid and recognized as a full human.
We have to stop fighting each other because our daughters are not equal to our sons, not in the eyes of the law. Not in pay. We are not the same as men. We are not equal. Sit with that for a moment, we.are.not.equal. Not under our government. We are second class, at best. Is that what you want for your daughters?
Equal rights for others does not mean less rights for you, It’s not pie.
Censorship of the United States
We are being censored to our death. Since before the election, people who have defended their choice to vote for Trump have always prefaced it with,
“I don’t think he is actually as racist/anti-woman/homophobic/xenophobic/anti-disabled/anti-poor as he pretends to be.”
Apparently, none of these people have ever heard of the saying, “when someone shows you who they are, believe them.” Actions speak louder than words and your vote said everything.
Now, we live in a world of censorship where randomly shutting down U.S. government social media accounts that tell a truth that contradict the alternative facts, ignoring the press when they ask hard questions, shutting the press out and eliminating the transparency of the presidency, “alternative facts” and straight up lies are all acceptable behavior by our leader.
We are beginning to get only the news Trump wants us to have. Where was the coverage of the protests the night before the inauguration? The coverage of the women marchers and the #NoBanNoWall protestors? Trump even brings along his own people to applaud when he gives these unbelievable speeches to fool us into thinking anything he says is worthy of applause. It’s a tactic used to deceive us into believing we are misunderstanding because surely there would not be applauding for something so outlandish as the complete deconstruction of our government.
The man is playing the shell game with the American people, in one hand he is signing outlandish orders and while we are protesting he is quietly slipping Bannon, a known white supremacist, into his cabinet. The man is filling his cabinet, one-by-one, with less and less qualified people.
Trump is turning the United States into a sinking ship that he nor none of his cabinet know how to drive and all the American people are stuck along for the ride. His entire cabinet is made up of billionaires who are not qualified for their positions and who are so out of touch with the average American that it is ridiculous to expect them to be able to relate. Pay attention people, this is your life we are talking about here.
We’re not paying for the fucking wall.
A few years ago, when I had my miscarriage, I got a bill for a few thousand dollars to pay for what the hospital referred to as a “Missed abortion.” To say I was insulted and hurt would be the understatement of the year. It’s like someone murdering you and you going to jail. The miscarriage happened to me. It was bad enough that I had to pay for it like it was a new bag or I got new a new nose or something but then to call it a “missed abortion” that cut like a knife. That’s about how the Mexicans feel about paying for a wall to keep them out. Are you kidding me? No, they’re not paying for a wall that so clearly puts them on the receiving end of the biggest insult the U.S. government could issue against an ally.
My dad is an immigrant who has papers to legally be here. He’s lived here for almost 50 years. That’s longer than he lived in his native Mexico. He is now retired and currently in Mexico, as he goes there for the winter months. I don’t even know if he will be able to come back, at the rate Trump is throwing people out. What if his papers get revoked? This is a very real and legitimate concern of mine.
Trump enacted the Muslim ban. If you don’t see the problem with this, then there is something wrong with you. Our government is actively detaining people at the airports and sending people back. People who have lives, families, and jobs here simply because their skin is brown and maybe, they don’t worship like we do. Saying all Muslims are terrorists is the same as saying all Christians are members of the Westboro Baptist.
I’m a Christian. I am Catholic under a pope who does not condone this Muslim ban. You cannot call yourself a Christian and disobey the fundamental teaching of the church to love your brothers and sisters as you love yourself. So to ban Muslims under the guise of Christianity is simply dressing your hate up as religion and it is not possible. The two do not line up.
America is a country born on the back of immigrants. The whole premise of our country is that it is a place where people could come when fleeing religious persecution and unjust, tyrannical governments to pursue a better quality of life. This is why we are known as a melting pot. This is what makes America great but Trump doesn’t agree.
Keeping people out of our country, turning children in need away, sending people seeking political amnesty from a tyrannical dictatorship goes against everything this country stands for. It is issuing a death sentence. It’s like locking people in a burning house. We are killing them.
Calling people rapists, drug lords and terrorists are doing nothing but villainizing the victims. Have we all forgotten what happened to the Jews during the Nazi reign? And it wasn’t just the Jews that Hitler destroyed.
Hitler put 6 million Polish people (Jewish and Christian) into his concentration camps, as well as people from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Russia, Holland, France and even Germany. There were 11 million victims of the Holocaust. He targeted Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma Gypsies, Courageous Resisters, Priests and Pastors, Homosexuals, people who were disabled, Black children and anyone in an interracial marriage. Does any of this sound familiar to what we are looking down the barrel at right now?
“First we need to examine Hitler’s egocentric and maniac ideology. Hitler, who was Chancellor of Germany during the Holocaust, came to power in 1933 when Germany was experiencing severe economic hardship. Hitler promised the Germans that he would bring them prosperity and that his military actions would restore Germany to a position of power in Europe.
Hitler had a vision of a Master Race of Aryans that would control Europe. He used very powerful propaganda techniques to convince not only the German people, but countless others, that if they eliminated the people who stood in their way and the degenerates and racially inferior, they – the great Germans would prosper.
Neighboring Poland – The First Target: “All Poles will disappear from the world…. It is essential that the great German people should consider it as its major task to destroy all Poles.” Heinrich Himmler
Hitler’s first target was Germany’s closest neighbor to the east, Poland. An agricultural country with little military power. Hitler attacked Poland from three directions on September 1, 1939 and in just over one month, Poland surrendered — unable to defend itself against the powerful German prowess.
In Poland, Hitler saw an agricultural land in close proximity to Germany, populated by modest but strong and healthy farmers. Hitler quickly took control of Poland by specifically wiping out the Polish leading class — the Intelligentsia. During the next few years, millions of other Polish citizens were rounded up and either placed in slave labor for German farmers and factories or taken to concentration camps where many were either starved and worked to death or used for scientific experiments.”
Do you see the similarities? To read more similarities, read more from this article about the Non-Jewish victims of the holocaust. Just in case you think you are safe from the New Nationalists because you are white?
Edmund Burke once said, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
Please know your history or you will fall victim to it. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be a part of a history that destroys our country under a government that cares nothing for us but for what we can do for it.
I will not stand idly by as my rights are stripped away one by one. I am a human being and so are you and we have to stick together to fight against what is sure to be history repeating itself. It’s already begun. It’s been a week. What do you think this will all look like in the history books in after 4 years? Viva La Resistance!
It’s time to mobilize. Get into formation ladies, gentleman, children, homosexuals, Muslims, Latinos, Disabled people and the poor and disenfranchised. Time to protect our freedoms and our human rights and dignity.
Give us your tired, your poor and your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
It stands to reason that since women’s superpower is that we can conceive, grow, birth and feed babies taking our uterus is like using Kryptonite on us. I never knew how vital my uterus was to my existence until I had children, then I knew it gave me miracles. I never realized that three little uterine fibroids could kill me. I never believed a hysterectomy would be my best case scenario.
I also learned quickly with my miscarriage that my uterus could also bring me to my knees in prayer, pain and humility. When it’s supposed to work and it fails you, there is nothing like that pain and vulnerability. It’s indescribable. It feels like a failure and betrayal by your body against your soul.
With each of my beautiful children that I was fortunate and blessed enough to conceive, I was also given a uterine fibroid; a tumor. They’ve been monitoring my fibroids, Mo, Larry and Curly, since 2004 to be sure they caused no interferences with my pregnancies. Each doctor made it sound like there was no cause for concern. So, we let them go…grow with estrogen, not with love. But as they grew, so did my uterus.
READ ALSO: The Surprise Biopsy
But then last year happened and this entire year has been a catastrophic menstruation disaster. Nothing is working right. I’m as about as anemic as I can be. They’ve just upped my iron again and apparently, my uterine fibroids, now more reasonably named, Jason, Freddie and Michael are trying to kill me. If you don’t believe me, explain a uterus full of blood?
You can’t. As I told you in the last post, not even my doctor can. I’m just this anomaly with a uterus like a swamp that needed to be drained. Whatever the hell that even means.
The thing is, as I was referring to women possessing the superpower of conception, gestation and birth, it makes me think that our uterus is pretty vital to our womanhood. It’s our essence. Or maybe that’s just my scared out of my wits that I have cancer, I just read the hysterectomy surgery pamphlet and all these hormones have me jacked talking.
I’ve had tonsils and adenoids taken out. I’ve had tubes put in my ears. I’ve survived a miscarriage and a D & E. I’ve Humpty Dumpty broken and shattered my leg into a thousand tiny pieces, had it put back together and then had the armor put in and surgically removed 3 times. I’ve dislocated my elbow and had it go back into place (both equally as painful). I’ve survived excruciating gallstone attacks and had my gallbladder removed. I’ve spent the better part of the past 3 years in hospitals, laid up and still paying the bills. But this surgery scares me and it’s not just that I might have cancer. Though, believe me, that scares the shit out of me.
READ ALSO: The Poor Man’s D & C and Waiting for Biopsy Results
This entails a mandatory hospital stay. I may wake up with a couple robotic incisions or a cesarean like incision. I might get to keep my ovaries or she might take everything. I might go into menopause or onto hormones. I might have an oncologist in the surgery or I might not. There’s a 6-8 week healing period. My doctor says that’s very restricted. I have children and I have been here in this restricted position and it’s so hard to be so vulnerable and dependent on others.
There are so many uncertainties and that’s nothing to say of the fact that I just put myself out there and interviewed for a new job in a brick and mortar establishment. I mean what do I say? What do I do? That’s if I even get the job.
My mind is a million different places this weekend and my sore uterus from my Friday office visit is a constant reminder that this is real. I’m still bleeding…day 29. I’m trying to stay calm for my girls but then all I can think of is what if these fibroids kill me?
I’m afraid of all the things I’ll miss. The milestones. Our 25th anniversary. Bella’s quinceanera. Gabi’s confirmation. Gabi’s quinceanera. High school proms. First boyfriends. College. First heartbreak. College graduation. Weddings. Babies. Becoming a grandma. Growing old with the Big Guy. So much life still to live; so much love still to give. Not enough time to change the world. Not enough time to love the people I love.
So, I’m getting a hysterectomy and I’m waiting on biopsy results. I’ll never have another baby. I’ll never have another period. Bella and I, our periods sync up. Gabi and I will never have that. I know it’s stupid. I know that maybe everything might be all right but right now, I have to face the facts that these fibroids are slowly killing me and now, my uterus has become hostile towards me too. I just want to be ok and be here for the people I love.
So, if you are the praying kind, I’m asking for all the prayers you’ve got. Because, right now, all I can do is wait with nothing but prayers to keep me sane. And to think, a few days ago, I thought early menopause was the worst thing that could happen to me.
The past week has been the hardest of my life, thus far. I’ve been walking around in a surreal state of existence since last Monday, only half-feeling my grief.
I can’t seem to get the ultrasound image of my perfect baby out of my head. He looked so peaceful. In my heart, that was my baby boy.
The girls have been distracted. I’ve gone out of my way to keep them occupied. Partly because I don’t want to see them sad, partly because I can’t survive another round of my 4-year-old ugly crying telling me that maybe if she loved the baby more, the baby would still be alive. My heart can’t handle being broken into too many more pieces or it may never heal.
I’m not crying constantly anymore. I’ve spent most of the last week in a Vicodin induced fog and I’m all right with that. I need the physical and emotional pain dulled. Each ache and pain is a constant reminder of what I’ve lost.
People are afraid to talk to me and when they do, I see the pity and sadness in their eyes. I’m able to talk about it now, a little bit. I still can’t say the word miscarriage aloud without crying. I’m still trying to wrap my brain around all of this. It’s hard. I’m trying to see the purpose but I can’t make myself understand.
One thing has gotten me through without jumping out of my skin or curling up into the fetal position and dying, and that is you. All of you. Your love, support, kind words and endless prayers have given me the strength to survive this tragedy. People I have known my entire life, my parents, my family, my friends and my beautiful husband and children have been here to love me, to hold me and to give me the space I needed to muddle through.
But you have given me a steady stream of reassurance and by sharing your stories of your own losses; you have made me feel not alone when I have felt the loneliest of my life. When I felt my whole world was spinning out of control and I was losing sight of any hope of normalcy, you have been my touchstone. A terrible thing has happened to me but through it, it’s been made clear to me how blessed I am in my life by the people I know. You are all so much more than just readers, followers and people I know on the computer, you are friends because only a friend could show such genuine love and continued compassion. Your words have saved my life and my sanity. Thank you does not seem to express the gratitude and love I feel for what you all have done for me in this past week but it’s the only words I have, so thank you from the bottom of my heart.