Melodrama

Why can’t I get over it?

Just when I think I’m doing better, maybe I’m done crying, another wave of sadness crashes over me. I can’t focus. I can’t think about anything else. I’m restless but lethargic, I want to move but feel no motivation to do so. I need to concentrate but am unable to do so. Everything feels pointless.

I’m frustrated. With myself, for being so useless. With my husband, who is starting to feel better and can’t understand why I’m not. With my doctor, who hasn’t called me back to answer my 78th question. With my mother, whose pragmatism grates on my already frayed nerves.

My bleeding seems to have stopped, but that only angers me further. I need to be bleeding still, or I may need surgery. I can’t have my cake and eat it too, I suppose - just a few days ago I was complaining of how sick I was of bleeding like a stuck pig and cramping till I think I can’t bear it. Now I regret wishing them away. I sit in the floor of the bathroom at work, trying to cry quietly.

I want to move on, put my energy into the holidays, look towards the future and to trying again soon. I dread the meals I usually anticipate. I don’t want to face my relatives with happy, healthy children. I don’t want to listen to the birth story of my cousin who’s due any day now, or oooh and ahhh over the aunt and uncle who are expecting another baby next spring. I don’t care that the attention won’t be on me - I’d have happily kept our pregnancy a secret, to silently eat for two, to congratulate the expectant mothers at the table while smiling to myself, knowing my own little miracle was there with me.

Why did I have to lose my first? I did everything right. I tried so hard. I read the books and ate the right foods and kept my body healthy. I wanted this baby. Why do some get to be mothers, even though they abuse their bodies and don’t seem to care a whit for the life growing inside them? Is this a happiness reserved for others and simply not for me?

Everyone - my mother, my doctor, my husband - says that it’s okay, and we can try again, and that in all likelihood we will be able to have a healthy pregnancy next time. The rational side of my brain knows this is true. I know that my fears are irrational. I know that this is common, and that almost all women will experience some form of miscarriage, many without even knowing it. But try as I might I can’t shut these feelings off. I want to. I don’t want to keep wallowing in my sorrow and self-pity. But I don’t know how.

I thought I was doing better. I have every reason to be doing better - my OB even said we could try again in a couple months. But that’s no comfort. Two months seems like an eternity. It could be a year before we’re able to conceive again. I don’t want to wait. I’m impatient. How many more announcements will I see on Facebook, how many ultrasound pictures and birth pictures from the hospital and newborn sessions will I see before I have my own? How many friends and cousins’ babies must I hold and pretend to be happy for before I can hold my own? Am I selfish for feeling that way? Am I being melodramatic?

Just get over it, I tell myself. Just get over it.