I want to be a Tigger

but I feel like an Eeyore...

Great lecture by Randy Pausch here on youtube. I watched the Diane Sawyer interview and pretty much cried through the entire thing. With all that has happened in the last few months in my life, his message really spoke to me. His comment about brick walls hit home for me:

"Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things."

If you have a chance to listen to his lecture, I highly recommend it. He also has a book.

Some thoughts

After my last post, I realized that basically no one reads my blog. Well I didn't just realize that I knew it but anyway. So I'll likely need a better way to spread the news of the miscarriage. It just doesn't seem like something you bring up in normal conversation.

Hey, how are you? Haven't seen you in awhile...

I'm ok. I was pregnant but now I'm not. How about you?

But yet an email seems not much better then just posting on this blog. (Well except that people will read it.) Maybe I'll send an email with a link to this blog. Kill two birds with one stone. Tell everyone and gain readership.

Some useful links:

BabyFruit - her post about celebrity miscarriages is interested along with her own struggles to have a baby
Newsweek article - I loved this article. It says so much and is part of what convinced me that I should tell more people
General info
There are also a ton of great discussion forums on line.

I read a great quote on line. I can't find a link to it right now but it went something like this. A girl was talking about how she felt so bad for being so upset over her miscarriage because other people where dealing with things 100 times worse then an early miscarriage. The response came back:

'If it was your birthday, would you skip celebrating because somewhere there is someone celebrating something more exciting then your birthday?'

March 5

March 5th was the worse day of my life. On March 5th, I started to miscarriage my first child at 7 weeks pregnant. Why am I writing about this? Do I want to share all the gory details of the experience? Not particularly but if you want to know I'll tell you. Is it because I want everyone's pity? No, I don't think I should be treated any differently then if you didn't know. Is it because I now hate all pregnant women and babies? No but yes it is a little harder to get excited when people share their baby news. It is because miscarriages are such a silent burden. Women are some how made to feel assumed of them and that they should not be talked about. It took me almost a month to decide to write this and I did it because I want other women (husbands and their families) to know they are not alone if they go through a miscarriage. We should be able to talk about this openly and not just for the first few days afterwards. Women should not be told to get over it after a week or made to feel like their grief isn't real because it was only an embryo. Me? I've had a great support system with family and a few close friends but I know others probably suffer through this in silence. I found the internet and on line message boards a great source of strength and a way to connect with others with similar experiences. But it would be my hope (sorry if this is too ‘I had a dream’....) women could turn to their immediate friends and neighbors to find support and strength through shared experiences. This will only happen if we talk about miscarriages, stillbirths, and infant losses instead of burying them deep inside. So this post is the start of my attempting to be open about what happened. If you have a similar experience or just want to talk, don't hesitate to contact me.

My emotions... my emotions have been all over the place. There are good days and bad days. I do no think I will ever be 'over' this. I don't know if I have accepted it yet. I know I can't change it but I am still searching for answers. I will probably never get answers but I don't think I'll ever stop hoping for some kind of explanation. I don't think I'll ever stop wondering why.

Some advice: I have found that there is nothing that anyone can say to make me feel better. People try. People say oh it was early or it was probably better to happen now then later. Or it just wasn't meant to be or you'll have another chance at a baby. They mean well but all I needed when I was having a bad day was someone to give me a hug, let me cry, and to listen to me without trying to explain away my feelings. You are allowed to grieve. You are allowed to angry and sad and hurt. You shouldn't expect to snap out of it over night or in a week or just because someone thinks you should move one. It will take time and like I said before there will be good days and bad days. The goal is that the bad days will be further and further apart.

I could probably write a book on this but I'm going to stop now. Thank you for listening to me. Let's provide support and love for women who have gone through a pregnancy loss and not keep the experiences hidden.