I was living in a bubble for a few days last week, with family who literally live on the side of a mountain in Vermont. I viscerally understand now, how important it was for me to unplug.
My cousin makes beautiful jewelry. On the Fourth of July, while walking down the side of the mountain, four miles to the site of the little town's parade, I shared the meaning behind the stacking rings she often commented on, that I wear on my right hand. She is a nurse. She was appropriately kind and gentle and horrified by my sad fertility tale.
I was happy to learn that she does a lot of things for women who are miscarrying that the nurses who attended me never did. She asks the patient whether they have the emotional support they need, whether they need help finding someone to talk to. As someone who was sent home with the instructions to simply come back to the ER if it looked like I was hemorrhaging, I would have appreciated that little extra bit of kindness, that acknowledgment of grief. Of loss.
I came back home and made the mistake (again) to peruse the babycenter boards.
There I saw a post from woman who has been whacked by RPL and is continuing to get whacked. Apparently she hasn't suffered enough. I don't know her, and yet I know her. Fuck, I could be her. She's lived through an ectopic, a stillbirth, a tfmr and is now losing another - a healthy baby - this time, to PPROM (preterm premature rupture of membranes for any readers blissfully unaware of the goddamn minefield known as pregnancy to a sizeable enough portion of us). Fuck this universe. What god, what creator, what purpose could there possibly be to force a woman to endure such hell?
The universe is just cruel. I am not apt to believe in God's plan, the Universe's plan...I just believe shitty things happen because it's part of the human condition and some of us have it shittier than others. I'd like to think whatever deity there may be out there is trying to teach me compassion, but really all I've learned is bitterness and anger. I feel for the woman you're describing...I mean, the reasons.for her losses might not even be related. It's a horror story. And I think, to be human is to suffer...but I rail against it because it only applies to some of us.
ReplyDeleteYup. I am nodding my head vigorously as I learn that two more women in my office are pregnant. Yep yep yep.
DeleteI should try to get a job in your office...seems to do the trick for everyone there.
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