This unshakeable sadness

I keep having these bouts of sadness. I know it should be something I should maybe expect, but what's so weird about it is that these bouts are accompanied by longing for something that I don't even know...or like...I don't know how to explain it. It's like I feel sad and upset, but at the same time I feel nostalgic and I feel a longing to be at a different time in my life. Does that make any sense? I guess it's like a sort of longing for the innocence of the pre-miscarriages times of my life. It seems like all other worries and cares just pale in comparison to the emotions and anxiety caused by having these multiple miscarriages. I never thought this would happen.
Of course, all these sort of things are running through my mind: was I not eating right? Is this punishment for things I've done in the past? Will I ever actually be capable of bearing a healthy child? Is god telling me I'm not supposed to be a mother? Do I not take care of my body? Is there something inherently wrong with my chromosomes? Stupid questions, right?
Yeah right. Everyone keeps telling me not to worry about things like that or not to think that it's my fault (or even worse, that it could NEVER be my fault), but I'm having such a hard time. It comes in spurts, too. It's not that I'm always sad or always upset, but it's like one minute I'll be fine and the next I'll be a basketcase.
The other emotion that's relatively new to me is this sensation of complete isolation, like no one really GETS what is happening to me, emotionally or physically. I have H, who tries his best to understand, but I feel like it's all so perfunctory to everyone, but it's such a big deal to me, every time I start really thinking about it I feel like all the energy is being sucked out of me, like I can feel those intense stomach pains all over again. Is there no one to talk to about this? I feel like it's not a big deal to anyone, or like it's constantly being invalidated by people.
Last night, for example, one of my good friends came over for dinner. He's got a cold, so I invited him to come over. I cooked, I cleaned and I served him dinner and he didn't once ask me how I was doing, or give me any words of comfort. I know he's not the type to ignore other people's pain, but it was a bit surprising to me, I have to admit. And then there's my brothers, who I have pretty much completely given up on. They didn't mention anything last time--no "I'm really sorry" or anything--and now they most certainly haven't mentioned anything this time. They're so caught up in themselves and their own lives.
They can be such assholes. I don't even feel bad for saying that.
I feel sad about it all. I feel sad that at a time in my life when all I really want is to feel the real bonds of family, I'm completely lacking those connections. I just feel sad, I guess there's no other way to explain it.
H and I were talking about planting two plants for the babies that I've lost. I think they're going to be fruit trees.
Also, I keep having all these extremely anxious dreams that are driving me crazy. I HATE people that are sad for no reason. I want to just drop-kick them. I was thinking to myself all the while that the miscarriage was happening of how painful life is....
They say life is pain. It is pain. Moments that should be the most beautiful of all moments can be so tainted that it's impossible to imagine them any other way. It's impossible to imagine finding out I'm pregnant and then just being able to get excited and happy about it. I imagine myself only getting freaked out and terrified, all over again.
See what I'm saying, I'm all over the place. I can't calm my mind down and I can't focus on anything, it all keep boiling down to this unshakeable sadness.
But I want to shake it. I want to be that carefree, totally childless person that I used to be.
I guess in the end that it is true what everyone says: IGNORANCE IS BLISS....

That baby was a monkey

I wanted to post this before, but I had too much other stuff to write to put it in the other blog. It's about a dream I had the night before this second miscarriage, and it is strikingly meaningful. It actually frightens me a bit.

The dream went like this:
I was sitting in this great big brown rocking chair that H and I have in the now-an-office-but-one-day-will-be-the-baby's-room. I had this precious little child in my arms, and I was nursing it and cuddling it and talking to it and playing with it, just loving every minute of my time with it. It went on for a while like that, and then H walked in to the room and started chuckling. "What are you doing?" he asked me. So I laughed, thinking "what a stupid question", and I said to him "umm, I'm nursing the baby and playing with it." And he looked at me very strangely and said "M, that's not a baby you're holding". So I laughed like he was crazy, but then when I looked down, it was true. I was holding this small green stuffed monkey, just like one that my friends had given me many years ago. I wasn't holding a baby at all, it seemed that I had just been pretending to do motherly things, and that the baby that was in my arms, that I was loving so tenderly, was not a baby at all.
That baby was a monkey, a stuffed-animal monkey.

Does that dream make me pathetic?

Remembering is much better than Re-experiencing

So here's my post from last week that never got published:

Date: January 23rd, 2008
Title: I will be OK
Body: Estos posts los tengo que escribir en español porque no quiero que nadie en mi familia los lea. Claro que pensaba no escribir nada acerca del tema este, pero ya que representa una parte de mi desarrollo, creo que es importante. Además, creo que es importante para mí mostrar que soy capáz de let go del pasado, y de lo que me pasó con el primer embarazo, y de seguir hacia el futuro con nuevas emociones y nuevos conocimientos de la vida. Hasta ahora, pues, es bastante claro que estoy escribiendo este post porque pienso, otra vez, que estoy embarazada. De verdad, no sé si lo estoy, pero en el fondo de mi corazón creo que puedo casi sentir el thump-thump de otro corazón dentro de mi cuerpo, o sea, dentro de mi barriga. Pues es muy posible que no esté de verdad embarazada y que la idea de serlo, o sea, mi imaginación me ha enamorado. Pero es interesante porque me siento de casi la misma manera de la primera vez que me encontré embarazada, pero sin el miedo que tenía sobre la posibilidad de tener un aborto espontáneo. Es que ahora no tengo este mismo miedo...es sólo que....

That's where I left off. Funny that I wrote that stupid post, all about how I wasn't afraid this time (which I wasn't), but then nearly three hours later, I started to bleed. That's right, if you haven't already guessed, I've experienced another miscarriage, and this time it was FAR worse than the first. I never thought I would have to go through this again, especially not immediately after the last time, but of course, here I am, just having had another miscarriage. I hadn't taken a pregnancy test when I wrote the last blog, but when I started bleeding I just had to know, so I took one, and of course, my instincts were right and I was pregnant. I am not pregnant anymore though, so I guess I'll have a drink tonight.
This experience was far more traumatic than the first, and far more painful as well. I always thought with such pain and sadness on the last miscarraige, thinking that it was really the worst experience of my life. But then, when I was going through it all over again, I thought to myself: "remembering the last one was much better than re-experiencing it with a second one". And I still stand by that thought. I think I'm going to put another "In Memoriam" in the sidebar, even though I really don't want to remind myself of this second little bean that I've lost. That's two beans lost...God I hope there'll be no more.
I was just thinking to myself about these two pearls that H got me in the Keys. The first one he got me was when we went to the Keys before we started dating. It was inside of an oyster and for $15 I got to fish it out myself. The second one is from our honeymoon, also in the Keys, that we bought as a sort of reminder of the fact that our relationship had started in the Keys and reached its consumation in the Keys as well. I've always said I wanted a ring made with those two pearls in it. Now, I think those pearls have a different meaning to me. Each one is like the precious bean that I've lost, each probably about the same size as the beans when they expired, about 6 mms. So, now I want that ring, only I want it to symbolize not only the pre-marriage relationship that me and H had, but also the love I have for the two babies I've lost, and how much they will always be a part of my life, and a part of our marriage.
Death is terrible, really. All day yesterday, while I was experiencing the first throws of this second miscarriage, I kept thinking to myself that I was literally feeling the hand of death, reaching far down inside me to pull that little one from my womb. I was overwhlemed with sadness, despair, desperation and anger. Even now when I think about it, I feel so many emotions that I start to get physically dizzy. It's like I've crossed this threshold in reality and I can't ever turn back, like who I am has changed so dramatically from the inside out and I can't ever return to who I used to be. I will, from now on, be this woman who has lost two children, even though unborn, and I will never again be a young childless woman, frolicking around and thinking about fairytale endings. Of course, I never have been that kind of young woman, but there's always been a small bit of an idealist in me...well, there WAS anyway, but after these two losses, and in this particular moment in my life, I feel like that bit of me, that small tiny iota of idealism, has painfully ripped itself from my womb and escaped in a big bloody mass of tissue. Can't I have you back? Can't I carry you to term and make this ugly and painful world more beautiful with your presence? Can't I cuddle you and nurture you and do my best to keep you healthy and alive? Can't I? Won't I? Will you come back to me?

Please come back to me....

Me encantas Sr. Cirque

Aquí es una foto de H y yo antes de nuestra buenísima experiencia con el Cirque du Soleil en Orlando (este espectáculo en particular se llama La Nouba). Fue, de verdad, una de las mejores cosas que nunca he visto en toda mi cortísima vida. Las personas que trabajan en ello son completamente impresionantes y no sé cómo empazaron a practicar sus deportes--bueno, no son deportes como el fútbol o el baloncesto, pero requiere un atleticismo extremadamente intenso--pero son excelentes. Mi acto favorito fue un tipo de ballet aéreo en que un hombre y cuatro mujeres se envolvieron en largas secciones de seda roja y se apoyaron dentro de ellas en medio del aire. Fue como mirar aves volando y fue totalmente lleno de gracia. Después del espectáculo, fuimos a comer en un restaurante muy famoso y muy elegante que se llama Roy's y es un restaurante que tiene comida riquísima de Hawai'i. Me gustó muchísimo aunque tenía mucho miedo de que no nos fuera a gustar. De todos modos, H me hizo sentir una reína con todos sus muestras de amor y sinceridad. ¡Qué marido tan bueno tengo yo! Muchas veces me pongo a pensar en toda la buena suerte que tengo en haber conseguido un matrimonio que me hace tan felíz, pero este fin de semana fue aún otro recordatorio de este hecho. Ahora, sólo tenemos que añadir unos niños para, por fin, consumar la validez de esta pequeñita familia....por lo menos espero que el 2008 sea el año para esta adición. Verémos lo que pasa, pero venga lo que vendrá, quedamos H y yo llenos de felicidad y totalmente comprometidos a llevar a cabo nuestras promesas y, sobre todo, a preservar nuestra vida dulcísima.

No me arrepiento de nada(?)

El signo de interrogación está en paréntesis porque es realmente una pregunta. Ya que estamos ahora en otro año nuevo (el 2008, no lo puedo creer!), estoy, como siempre, pensando sobre lo que quiero cambiar en mi vida, y lo que no he logrado cambiar en el pasado. Y, lógicamente, me lleva a pensamientos sobre las cosas de que me arrepiento. Claro que a toda persona le gusta decir que no se arrepiente de nada, y a mí me pasa la misma emoción, pero creo que la verdad es que sí, hay cosas de que nos arrepentimos....muy desafortunadamente. Ahora estoy en un lugar en mi vida en que estoy más felíz que nunca, y no quiero cambiar nada ni volver a los tiempos del pasado en que había vivido. Pero, llego a puntos a veces en que tengo que perdonarme de errores que he hecho para poder seguir con mi vida y con felicidad...o sea, llego a puntos en que necesito tener closure sobre alguna cosa u otra. Pues, hoy estoy en uno de estos puntos. Pasé la mayoría de esta mañana pensando sobre mi vida del pasado y creo que hay cosas que no he hecho bien o cosas que no debía de haber hecho, pero que hice sin embargo. Claro que cada persona goza (sarcasm) de esta experiencia, pero no me gusta que sea yo la que está sufriendo de ello.
Lo que tengo ahora en mi vida son algunas cosas que no merezco y algunas cosas que sí merezco, pero que aún así me han venido gracias en gran parte a la buena suerte. Mi marido, por ejemplo, es el mejor blessing que nunca he tenido en mi vida, y no quiero hacer nada que pueda poner nuestra relación en malas pistas. Nuestro matrimonio es de verdad the best thing that has EVER happened to me...y cada vez que me pongo a pensar sobre lo bueno que será nuestro futuro, casi me lleva a lágrimas. Con todo lo que puede venir--los hijos, los nietos, la felicidad, el éxito en general--no puedo esperar más de mi vida salvo el hecho de siga siendo tan felíz.
Si ajunto todos los acontecimientos de mi vida, el que sale como lo más significativo es sin duda mi relación con H. ¡Cuánto lo amo! Él me da seguridad, felicidad, esperanza y razón de querer vivir y mejorarme. No sé como logra ser una persona tan buena, pero agradezco su presencia en mi vida cada mañana que me despierto con él a mi lado. Estas no son palabras de una persona recien casada que no ve la realidad de la situación, sino las palabras de una persona realmente agradecido de ser viva y in awe de una persona tan noble como lo es mi marido.
De verdad.
Ewwy gooey, no? Oh well. Es la verdad según yo la veo. Con todo esto dicho, vuelvo al tema original, el de los remordimientos. En gran parte, no me arrepiento de nada, pero hay algunas cosas que cambiaría si tuviera la oportunidad, por ejemplo, mis años de amistad con K. Siempre he dicho que mi "tragic flaw" (como si fuera una heroína) es mi ingenuidad, y todavía lo creo, y es precisamente lo que me llevó a mantener contacto con él durante tanto tiempo. La verdad es que a veces me involucro en situaciones en que no tengo ni un grano de business, pero no me puedo parar. Es como que estoy parte de la situación antes de que reconozca la gravedad de ella. Pero, si tengo que poner todo en perspectiva, me ayuda pensar que todas estas lecciones son parte de mi desarrollo como ser humano, y que me están (espero) ayudando a ser una mejor persona en el futuro, sobre todo de ser una mejor esposa y madre a mis inexistentes hijos. That's one way of looking at it.
Pero siempre pienso en una cita que vi escrita sobre una pizarra en un café en París: "Les bonnes expériences nous laissent de bons souvenirs et les mauvaises expériences nous laissent de bonnes leçons". Y ya tenemos el punto final.