Today I had a little boost.
I shared the medium essay with Princess' former owner - a dear friend who also happens to be a prolific - and highly published - non-fiction writer.
She asked that I remove the essay from medium and try to get it published in the NYT Modern Love section.
It's hard. Mr. Viking is not in favor of my going any more public with "our personal medical issues." For what it's worth, I am confident that my parents would feel the same way. I posted the Medium link on my somewhat more anonymous twitter page, but not on facebook, where ironically, I know it would reach more readers (for demographic reasons, and because my twitter account is pretty limited to union and labor related things, with a little bit of Baltimore community stuff thrown in).
Writing about your miscarriages is hard, and writing about your miscarriages in a way that doesn't pull your family into your story can be even harder.
One of the reasons I'm always hesitant to discuss Samantha being a donor egg baby is that her origin story is hers to tell. Personally, I am at a place of comfort with her origin story, I would shout it to the hilltops if I could. 'Samantha is biologically mine, but genetically not mine! And she is the most tremendous gift we have ever been given!"
My TFMR is still entwined in my grief. Not sure I could go there amongst strangers. I am hugely vocal (and generous) with my support of the reproductive rights movement. Going public about Celine? I'm not there yet.
But the miscarriages, these are in many ways the easiest to disentangle from my fertility story. I want to write about them so badly. I want to make women feel less alone. SO. BADLY. I want to validate the grief of women who are hiding in their showers. I want to be a voice for family leave policies where woman can use sick leave and bereavement leave if they're fortunate enough to even have it in the US. I want to take my activism and expand it.
I need to get my husband on my page.
