My butt and thighs hurt! I feel like I did when I was pregnant, having to hoist myself up off of chairs…. only this time it’s simply because my legs squeal at me like tiny mice stuck in a frying pan. But I don’t complain – I’m actually quite pleased. I really must have done something with that exercise. And at the time I really didn’t feel like I was doing much.<\/p>\n
::<\/p>\n
Today I had to tell someone that my baby died.<\/p>\n
It was my first official day back at work today. I had stopped in previously to work on some paperwork and for meetings, but today I went in for-real to actually do my normal job. First thing on my list was making a run to Costco to pick up an order. While I was off work no one picked up orders; someone else just stopped at Costco to buy things in the evening. Which means no one has had contact with the people who help me in the mornings with the orders. They didn’t know.<\/p>\n
I knew from the start that it was something I was going to have to face, and to be honest that’s part of the reason I pushed it off this long. I felt like today I could handle it. So I rung the bell and they opened the door. He looked me up and down, smiled big and said, “So… boy or girl?!” Then the woman who helps me out walked over and said cheerfully, “What are you doing back?!”<\/p>\n
I paused for a moment, then stumbled a little through my words. “Well… actually… we lost the baby.” I crumpled for a minute, hiccuping with a sob.<\/p>\n
(I know some – many – women don’t like using the phrase, “We lost the baby.” I thought about it a lot today and concluded that sometimes it just works best for me… and for whatever reason it doesn’t bother me. I don’t like saying, “The baby died” – at least, not for the initial news-breaking. It sounds too flat to my ears. I go back and forth. Maybe it’s just my own hang-up.)<\/p>\n
Faces fell in shock and horror. The woman immediately hugged me tight and said, “Oh Natalie… I’m so sorry!!” She looked so upset. (The men, they never seem to know what to say, beyond, “I’m sorry.” He started talking about other things. Not to brush off what had happened, I know – I saw the look of sadness and sympathy in his eyes. He understood… he just didn’t know what else to say. And frankly I didn’t mind; sometimes talking about other things is easier than sitting in the grief.)<\/p>\n
I hate breaking the news.<\/p>\n
It occurred to me that it’s not just having to go through the pain of explaining again that hurts so much. What hurts almost more is walking in to the big, expectant smiles and excitement. For a moment you get to see what should have been… the image flashes through your mind of how you were supposed to be walking in the door beaming with pride, telling them all about your baby, bursting with joy and happiness. Instead you stand empty and small, wincing in response to the sharp reminder, grief bubbling up when people least expect it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My butt and thighs hurt! I feel like I did when I was pregnant, having to hoist myself up off of chairs…. only this time it’s simply because my legs squeal at me like tiny mice stuck in a frying pan. But I don’t complain – I’m actually quite pleased. I really must have done […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,69],"class_list":["post-1103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ivf-3","tag-loss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}