Miscarriage

It’s not a word that I ever thought would become part of me. There are lots of other words that I had readily accepted as part of my life: death, grief, cancer, failure, pain. Words that fill us with dread. But miscarriage isn’t one I saw becoming part of my landscape, part of my history. Part of me.

And it’s a part of me that is being lost. Right now. Waves of pain crash into an emptying void where, just three days ago, bright hopes lay. I cannot sleep and so I write this.

Utter hopelessness was my first reaction. I am a doer. When the doctor shook her head and said “Oh dear” I wanted there to be something I could do. But there wasn’t, and there isn’t and so I am losing this little life, living through this process as nature decides and my body responds.

I am OK with that decision. Nature has its reasons and I understand that it is for the best. But it is a decision of such sorrow. It is a decision where light and laughter and fun and wild times of a growing family are snatched away before you had the chance to see them properly. It is a decision which is an aggressive attack on me as a woman; a decision which rips out what it means to be female. I can no longer nurture or protect that little life as I should.  

And it is a decision I have no answers to. There can be no whys because there are no answers.

Just silence.

So we hold hands and we savour every drop of our beautiful young son, so full of life and love and curiosity and mayhem that being with him you can forget, just for a minute, the dark hole of loss happening right now. We are lucky to have him. We are grateful that he came first, before this, so that we know the possibilities when nature is on our side.

And we wait. We wait for the storm to pass and peace to descend. We know it will, eventually, after the swells of sadness. And then the sun will rise over tranquil waters and we will keep sailing forwards. Together.

Because that is all you can do.

I have had lots of love and support from friends and family for which I am extremely grateful. Also, reading the information here has helped tremendously:  http://www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk/

Flash fiction - The Break Up

Over at Studio30Plus there's a new prompt. Actually, that's a lie. There's two. You can choose one. Or both. They are HURT and BUTTER. Here's my effort:

The Break Up

On the other side of the door, she sat. I assumed she was sitting because that's what I had always done. I would wipe myself down the back of the bathroom door and stay with my face buried in the half-wet towels. What would a few more tears matter? They were always dry by morning.

Different house, different times, Diane. Focus. "Darling? You OK?" I kept my voice light, though I thought afterwards it made me sound as if I didn't know that, quite obviously, she wasn't all right.

"Go away." The two words a mother ignores again and again. I will never go away, my child. Please don't ever think that I will. I won't. One day, you will go away: but I will never leave you.

"Darling, open the door. Talk to me."

My daughter played the same game I had with my mother until she died. I had always wanted to tell her everything, be her best friend; but I tried to keep things back, have those teenage secrets. In the end, she always knew and I always told. But for a while I would pretend my life was all mine and only mine. Shannon was better at it than I was. She held everything so quiet and close to her, I would only find out days, even weeks later. And she'd then treat it as if it was ancient history and I was a pain for trawling backwards. I wanted one moment in the now. 

"Come on, Darling. You can't stay in there all night. You don't have to come downstairs, let's just go to your room. You don't have to tell me. Just come out."

I heard my daughter thinking about it as the muffled sobs fought their way back inside. There was a beautiful silence before the taps ran and, then, slowly, she opened the door.

That angel's face, blotched with the hurt of a young love that in such a short time will mean very little. I stepped forwards and wrapped her hunched and unhappy shoulders into my own being, wanting to push my heart into her chest and take out her shaken one. 

I didn't expect it, but she collapsed right there and then on the landing. She shuddered heaves of tears onto my cardigan and pressed her elbows into my hips. It felt wonderful. Not since her excitement of her cross country win in middle school had her touch been so meaningful.

Later, in bed, my husband said, "She'll have to have breakfast. She can't not eat and turn into the Turners' girl."

I looked at him and smiled. "I know. She will. It will pass."

"Your first broken heart isn't nothing, Di. But it's good she talked to you."

My face must have misted up for he put his book down, turned to me and said, "I think you quite enjoyed it really."

I did. Oh, I did.