Loss impacting others, more guilt & the future

I feel like my main iPhone photo album (when you go to camera -> pictures) is just a linear history of a heart breaking.  There are photos of the positive pregnancy test from last July.  The one decision I will always regret.

Then there's the positive line from December.  I remember that morning so vividly.  It was a week and a half after we returned from Paris; our selected locale for trying to conceive for the first time.  We thought, how romantic to begin such one of the most loving of endeavors in the most romantic city in the world.  I remember putting my hand on my pelvis, and quietly saying "hello.".   I remember trying so hard to take a picture of that light, but oh so present line, so I could text it to my sister for confirmation that I wasn't going crazy.  It was 12/21.  I didn't tell C until Christmas morning.  Then I remember on 1/2, making a frittata, happily chopping vegetables, excited to use a new roasted tomato and artichoke spread that I had found at Williams-Sonoma.  But then I felt a warmth.  And it was like my heart stopped.  Instinctively I knew what the warmth meant; I knew that the pregnancy was over.  Little did I know that the next couple weeks would be crazy because while I hemorrhaged on 1/2, the pregnancy progressed for at least a week, and completed itself at the end of January.  Which is why we didn't try again until the end of March.  And, as luck would have it, I have a picture of the positive line from that single March event; it's another picture on my iPhone.

In December (and April) called my doctor for a routine blood test - she likes to monitor hcg levels and progesterone in women who have miscarried.  I had all the blood work, received all the confirmations; but never a congratulations.  My obgyn office does not congratulate a woman until she passes the first trimester.  As someone who has lost, I see why they do this, and I am thankful for this practice.  For first time mother's, they sometimes wait until after the 8 week ultrasound confirms a heartbeat.  I think that happens more when the women want to be congratulated.  I fit solely into the other camp, the one that does not want to be congratulated until the terrifying first trimester is over.

I find it to be so crazy that there are women that go through this process blissfully ignorant; convinced that their pregnancy will result in a baby; screaming immediately from the rooftops. Maybe I'm weird, but I just don't have that in me.  There's just so much that can go wrong; so much pain that can be caused; I just can't bring myself to help create hopes and dreams and excitement in others, knowing that in the back of my mind that it may not last.  No one but C knew I was pregnant in December - I told him on 12/25 and was able to keep it from his family the entire time, even though we were there for 4 days.  Somehow no one noticed I wasn't drinking.  Or I made virgin drinks and pretended they contained alcohol. I told my mother only after I miscarried.  I'm relieved I did it that way.  I'm relieved I saved her the pain of losing that grandchild - or rather, of expecting it to arrive only to find out that it wasn't destined for us.

And, considering for us, no pregnancy has ever truly lasted the test of time, I don't know when I'll again share my pregnancy.  This time around we told C's parents on Mother's Day because we had seen the heartbeat and I was about 8 weeks.  We told my parents the day after via Facetime because my sister graduated from college on Mother's Day, and I didn't want to take that day from her.  I wanted it to be about her, as it should have been.

Next time, I guess we tell after the anatomy scan?  After the CVS?  I mean, if the amnio and microarray from this pregnancy are clean, then we have to wait until after the anatomy scan as a 'perfect' CVS just wouldn't be enough.

I feel like with every pregnancy I'll be afraid of breaking not only my heart, but the hearts of all of those who love us.  How fair is that?  How do you deal with those feelings, too?  Knowing that the loss touches and breaks the hearts of everyone close to you?  I know I'm not responsible for the feelings of others, but once you have caused such intense pain in others, even when it's beyond your control, it's hard to imagine how you will react when put in that place again. My cries for the son I lost are the most primal, guttural screams of pain that I ever knew existed.  I contrast that with the joy on my mothers face when she opened the frame containing an ultrasound picture, how she jumped up and down, tears of joy streaming down her face.

All of that is gone now.  And I played a role in robbing it from her. From everyone.  It's like a highlight reel that runs through my brain that just cannot be stopped.  Everyone acts strong for me when they're with me, because they have to put on that facade; but I know that's all it is; a facade.  I know that the people we love still break down over this loss.  And those close to us with children grab their children and hold them closer, thanking whichever god they believe in that they were not us.  Hoping with all hope that they are never us.   And our friends who haven't started trying yet probably partly think we are pariahs, and hope that our bad luck/ju-ju won't rub off on them.

This event, these events, will truly reverberate in every word, every action, every decision we make in the future.  They have reshaped the way that we look at the world.  That song about painting with all the colors of the wind?  Well, our palette has forever changed.