Catching Up, Letting Go, Getting Clear

#142, My latest on Youtube:
The Grand Canyon, Lymphedema, and Marathon Men

Have you ever had a moment in your life when you see your path as if from above, recognizing the patterns repeating, the contours of the landscape you've traveled over and over in recursive circles? Off in the distance, you can make out the little one you once were and how alone in the world you felt way back then, how powerless. You can see the choices you made based on the assumption that you would be on your own, in a certain way, forever. But you feel in your bones how things are different now, how you can put down the recursive circling, the coping mechanisms, the masks, the chalkline limits you once accepted as absolutes. But now you have power. You can ask for help. You can rescue yourself. You can slow down.

For several years now I've had pain in my lower back and hips that I have been trying, alternately, to manage and to ignore. Perhaps in an attempt to avoid hassel and disappointment, I've been reluctant to seek help. But recently I have been taking it on. This recent x-ray of me, presumably standing perfectly straight, shows how misaligned my hips are, which at least partially explains why I'm in pain.

You can slow down.

This is happening to me lately, and it is intense, emotional, and deeply good.

If you haven't had a moment like this, know that it is possible. You must dig in and you must move toward it with purpose. But it is a gentle purposefulness.

Like an anthropologist, you excavate. Like an investigator, one by one, you connect the dots.  Like climbing a mountain, you put one foot in front of the other until the vista opens up before you.

You do it in therapy, you do it in conversation, you do it on your bicycle, on the yoga mat, in your journal, on the canvas. You do it by sitting still. You do it by refusing to rush. You do it by resisting abandoning yourself when you are uncomfortable, even if for only a single minute longer than you thought you could before. You do it by breathing. You do it by taking radically good care of yourself.

One Year Later: Live a Little

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Before Christmas, I was on a roll. I had a yard-long To Do list and I was cranking my way through it, item by item. But after the holidays, that rhythm eludes me. I drag myself to the alter of work each day and not much happens. And then I get a snack. I've been hard on myself about it (both the snacking and the not really working). Which helps my productivity not at all.

Things had just about ground to a halt when it occurred to me that I am alive and not sick and there is no crisis. And perhaps it isn't so important how much I achieve in my day, or in my life, but how much I manage to do exactly what a given moment calls for, exactly what would delight and fulfill me most of all.

In other words, what if I simply rest when tired, eat when hungry, exactly what the body craves, cuddle with my husband. Call that friend, read that book, hike with the dog, play?

Yes, there are accomplishments I'd like to pursue and there is hard work ahead of me in that, and yes, I want to be sure to floss and put away the laundry and pay the bills on time. But maybe I want to ride the spin bike, shower, and spend an entire Sunday cooking for guests (pictures to come). And maybe after they leave I want to peruse that magazine I've been meaning to get to for over a month. And maybe right now I'd rather play Boggle on my iPod than work on my website redesign. Just for a little while.

What's wrong with that? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Mocho!

This one's fun. Hope you enjoy.

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The Good Side of Disaster

I while back I wrote an essay for the NPR series "This I Believe." My essay was recorded by WRNI in Rhode Island and broadcast several times there. (It used to be available online, but I can't find it now). Anyway, the producer emailed in 2009 to tell me that mine was one of the most popular and would I please submit another. 


It took me two years, but today I felt inspired and wrote my second essay. Who knows if it will every see airwaves, but you, dear readers, get a sneak peek. Hope you like.

There are moments in life when, out of the blue, all the clues line up. The pretty veils of illusion part, and suddenly you can see all the way to the very bottom of the deep dark truth. Your stomach drops to your knees. Your heart leaps into your throat. And there it is. You know it. You’re about to lose your job. Your best friend has been lying to you. Someone you love is dead, which means — not as obviously as you might think — they’re never coming back. Your husband is having an affair. You don’t have to wait for the doctor to tell you. You already know. It’s cancer.

I have had many such moments. All of the above, in fact, and more. Sometimes I fell apart. Sometimes I talked myself out of it, trying valiantly to think positive, to not jump to conclusions, to trust.

Ultimately, there’s no way around the truth. And avoiding it is exhausting, if not life-threatening.

So I believe in falling apart.

I believe in the fabulous life-expanding power of falling all the way to the bottom of the well. I believe in tears and the teeth-chattering knee-knocking nervous sweat of facing your worst fears made manifest. If I can manage it, I play the sympathy card, gather all the support around me that I can, and just plain face it.

As awful as it feels in the moment, I love it when the map I’ve plotted for my life gets ripped out from under me. It’s like waking up from a dream, a dream where I’ve limited my life’s possibilities to those that don’t scare me.

If I can face an unimaginable surprise divorce and find pleasure in being alone, even for five minutes, then I can also experience the wild joy of a new relationship, a much better relationship than I ever thought possible. If I can face a cancer diagnosis and the — cancer or not —inevitability of death, then I can risk a slew of personal and professional rejections, and maybe a few heretofore unimagined successes.

I think of circus fleas, confined to a test-tube laid on its side. After banging into the low, invisible ceiling of the tube, these natural high-jumpers give up jumping altogether. Even when freed they don’t dare jump. They’ve been conditioned to accept a limited life.

Whether we realize it or not, our lives are not taking place in a test tube. Disaster can come along at any moment and smack you right in the face. If it does, please accept my sincere condolences. And my advice:

Let yourself feel it. You are not safe, nor are you limited.

Three Down

Chemo #3. Earrings were a gift from B~, my chemo nurse. She made them herself.

I quit the Avastin trial today. More bad press put me over the edge. The doctors I talk to are passionate about this experimental treatment but I have been on the fence. They've seen amazing things happen - in SOME people, and serious side effects rarely, and only in people with other health problems complicating the picture. Coming from a place of fear for my ultimate survival, it seemed worth the risk. But then again, I don't always want to come from that place.

It was an emotional decision. It is very hard to walk away from anything that might just maybe save my life. I can't say I'm 100% confident in my choice, but this walk away felt right.

And this time my night-of side effects are significantly milder than they were the first two cycles. Almost no nausea, no heartburn either. Just tired. Going to bed soon.

I had M, K, and G with J and I at chemo today, and their presence made the whole thing almost fun. Came home to a gift of food left by P, and then a visit, and more food brought by W later in the evening.

One last thought:

Buddies are good.

Millie agrees.

Hairography

In honor of my impending baldness, and in the spirit of many more crops of hair to come, I thought I'd share a few of my triumphant accomplishments in the realm of hair growth thus far. We'll start a the beginning...

There Are Reasons

I have been silent for a month. Why?

The most recent reason is the lump, but I'll get to that.

At first it was because I was giving myself a vacation from the computer, spending more time outdoors, enjoying the waning days of summer, my favorite time of the year.

Then it was because the fertility specialist had recommended I retest that one clotting factor in order to get a better sense of whether blood clotting might be an issue in my next pregnancy. But for some reason, I kept putting off that blood test, and I didn't know what to say about that.

Then, on the heels of a heart-to-heart with J~ about why it didn't seem to bother him that I wasn't following through, it became clear to me that I was in it, on a certain level, alone. While another child was a dream for him, it wasn't a high priority. I came to understand yet again (but perhaps a bit more deeply) that a baby would basically be my project, my all-consuming chore for years to come, and though he would help in every way he could, and though he would be a dedicated and loving father, and though I would take immense pleasure in raising my own child... I could not bring myself to finish this sentence.

I finally told J~ that I did not want this badly enough to want it badly alone. J~ had to admit, he was not in that place. "Maybe twenty years ago..." he began, and suddenly I was thinking back over my own past, landing on myself at 25. I worked part-time as a nanny for four children, ages 5, 5, 3 and 1 1/2, and I was good at it, I enjoyed it. One afternoon I drew a picture of the baby, asleep in her stroller, all her pudgy folds, and as I did this, on some level I knew. I was ready. But I wasn't financially stable and my boyfriend would have been terrified. I expect if I had told him then that I wanted to have a baby, he would have disappeared in a cloud of dust a la Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. (Which is what he did ten years later, but that's another story.)

And then I wasn't writing because I didn't know how to tell you I'd pulled the plug. Though I still don't see myself actively preventing pregnancy, I am done trying, more done than any of the other times I've professed that I was done. I fear, dear readers, you will be disappointed and you will go away.

It's a funny thing, blogging. When I started this, I was throwing my words into the ether, thrilled and surprised to find anyone out there was actually taking the time to read them. I'm not a secretive person by nature. Over time, many of my friends and family members came to know that I do this. My mother reads regularly, my father checks in. It doesn't escape my consciousness that there's a good chance my ex-husband stops by on occasion, satisfying his curiosity while sidestepping the pesky chore of actually communicating with me. I never thought I'd come to depend on the support I receive from or feel a responsibility to the large community of strangers who make up most of my readers. But sometimes I wish I'd never told anyone I know.

Because then, when I find a lump in my breast, I wouldn't feel reluctant to write about it. I wouldn't worry about pushy questions and panicky judgments about my choices in health care. I don't want to be grilled about what I'm doing and not doing and how fast I'm doing and not doing it. I don't want to hear horror stories. I don't want everyone's fear flying at me. Trust me, I'm scared enough.

On the bright side, my lump is less than half the size it was when we first found it 10 days ago. The radiologist I spoke to said that while "anything can happen" she'd never heard of a cancerous lump shrinking, that it's very common in women my age that benign lumps grow and shrink along with the ebb and flow of the menstrual cycle, and she confirmed what I've read all over the internet – that 80% of all breast lumps turn out to be benign. And that when there are more than one lump next to each other (it turns out there are two of them) it's actually a good sign.

The Waiting Game

What a strange thing to be pregnant, yet not. Queasy, sore, bloated, tired. Waiting for the tide to change.

Top that off with running into an old miscarriage-survivor buddy in the store this afternoon - she's pregnant and glowing. I am hopeful for her, but it's bittersweet.

In some ways, this pregnancy's demise has been the easiest to come to terms with yet. After all, I've got lots of practice, and a rich life to fall back on. But I'm forty now. The future doesn't exactly glow with the promise of a shiny new possibility. I am having to face reality in a way I haven't before.

I talk a good game about moving on, but the truth is, I had my life crammed overfull of commitments and distractions. This time in life's waiting room is my free pass, an opportunity to disentangle, weed out the overflow and come back into harmony with the life I want to be living. If it takes a while to move through it, so be it.

Beta Two

Not good. 18,538. Sorry it took me so long to report this.

I was devastated for about ten minutes but then, surprisingly, I felt so much better, exhausted but better.

It has been a hell of a week. Every time I anticipated a test, or a test result, I would be doubled over with nausea for hours. Not the kind of nausea where I'd actually expect to throw up, not the kind of nausea where I'd get my hopes up about the pregnancy (though I did get my hopes up anyway), but the kind of nausea like someone's boot in my gut, like the week after my first husband admitted he was having an affair, like I can hardly breathe and the only cure is sobbing, sobbing my guts out (which I did, several times).

I will not have a D&C. I will not take misoprostol/cytotec. I will not blame myself for this misfortune in any way.

I will garden. And swim. And walk my dog. And paint. And make beautiful salads. And count my blessings, of which there are many. And Babies or Not, life will go on.

Now

Millie among the tracks (dog, human, wild turkey).

Daily romps with the dog.

Ideas for new art.

Occasional tears - making room for new dreams.

Professional development.

Community development.

Family development (the challenges of step-parenting, dog-parenting, spousing, life in a small house).

Random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.

Moving on.

Puppy Love

The drive home


Meeting the neighbors


Learning the ropes

Millie has arrived! She's nestled in my lap as I type this, alternately sleeping and chewing at the zipper of my fleece jacket. She chews on everything. She has kibble-breath. Until we blocked the entrance, she treated our computer room as her own private toilet. And I'm completely in love with her.

I had no idea it would take so much to ready myself for a puppy. I'm not talking about money (four digits and counting), or trips to the pet supply store (six), or long drives to visit with her at the breeder's house (four), or hours pouring over puppy care and training manuals (too many to count), or days spent rearranging furniture to accommodate her presence in the house (two), or hours of work and away-from-home play cleared from my schedule in anticipation of her needs.

For years I've had a space reserved in my heart for all of these exertions, but that space was cluttered with baby dreams. In order to make room for Millie, I had to excavate some mighty disappointments.

Sometimes it feels like I'm a one-track record, going on and on about my grief for all my lost babies, but then, as if passing by a mirror, I catch a glimpse of what I've been through and I'm reminded that it's not insignificant. Anyone reading this who has suffered or is currently suffering such a loss, I hope you are surrounded by people who recognize this fact and honor your feelings. And I wish you many adorable puppies.

Inventory

In honor of our anniversary, J~ and I spent a long weekend on Cape Cod, biking, window shopping, hiking the sand dunes, eating big decadent meals, and reminiscing about our early days as a couple. What a strange time that was for us, both reeling from our suddenly broken marriages, thrilled and nervous about the bond quickly forming between us.

The three years since we married are marked with so many milestones, not the least of which was made plain to me this weekend: somewhere along the line, this crazy new romance became a solid partnership. There have been down times of course, our failed pregnancies not the least of them. But the hardships we've faced together are framed by a shared tenderness, which turns them, to a certain degree, into treasured memories.

As I settle into the likelihood that I will not have children of my own, I accept that there will always be a certain amount of sadness in the picture for me. But I also see how that sadness has mellowed over the years. Until menopause – as long as there's hope – there will be vulnerability, but perhaps one day I'll carry only tiny scars where once there was an open wound.

Scanning my inner horizons, I see another emotional trauma yet unhealed, that of my first marriage's end. Time has helped, but I have not managed to close that wound. Perhaps this also has to do with hope, though I'm not sure what I'm hoping for. I certainly wouldn't trade what I have now for a return to that relationship, though it was not without its own beauty, and I appreciate the role it played in my life.

One thing is becoming more and more certain to me with every passing year: Life is short. Too short. It's a tragedy for all of us. The more I accept this, the more apparent it becomes that I can only do my best, assume everyone else is doing their best, grieve the disappointments as they arise but get back to appreciation of the fleeting present moment as quickly as possible. Because life is also pretty darn great.

Millie Vanillie

I have wanted a dog since I was nineteen. Back then, I fantasized about traversing the country vagabond-style with nothing but a backpack on my back, a sleeping bag and tarp my makeshift home. And a loyal and loving dog as protector and companion.

I was brave enough to make the trip, but not brave enough to get the dog.

All these years, I've worried that I wouldn't have the personal and financial resources to properly care for a pet. (No wonder I've been skittish about having children!)

Twenty years later, I am finally taking the leap. I had to get past my family's allergy issues and my own stereotypes about the hypoallergenic breeds (aren't all poodles snooty and, if properly named, called Princess or Fifi?). Apparently not, because this one is named after J~'s Aunt Mildred, who helped raise him, and also after a downright mystical experience I had long ago involving the before-their-time karaoke duo, Milli Vanilli. (I'll tell you the story sometime.)

Meet Millie. She's three weeks old. She comes home to us next month.

Midlife Crisis, chapter 2

The long view.

"It doesn't get any easier," said T~, the tall man swimming, and smiling in the lane next to me. We were at the gym, and I'd just come up for air after a challenging drill. I hadn't met him yet, but it turns out my sage of the swimming pool is a national top-ten champion in his age bracket. But not just any age bracket. T~ is eighty-seven years old. He might just know what he's talking about.

"Oh, why do I bother?" I replied, thinking of so much more than swimming laps.

T~ chuckled gently. "Sometimes I ask myself the same thing."

There's the operative word, folks: Sometimes.

Because sometimes it - life, laps, infertility - feels every inch as hard as it is. Sometimes it feels like mild drudgery, surmountable, but dull. Yet other times, it's really okay. And sometimes, some times, every once in a rare while, everything feels easy and great. You never know quite which you're going to get, but you have to show up to find out. And that is the answer in a nutshell. That is why I bother.

The other day I braved the heat and went for a run, my usual 6-mile loop from my house through my rural neighborhood, thinking all the way: look how lucky I am. I get to live in this beautiful place. I have a loving husband. I have a solid, cozy home, challenging, fulfilling work, health insurance, and not a penny of debt. I have a 39-year-old body that can run six miles with relative ease!

After my run, sweat-drenched, I peeled off my shoes and dove directly into my neighbor's pool. (I have a lovely neighbor who practically begs me to use her pool whenever I like.)

A week later I retraced my steps with a camera, counting my blessings, and documenting them too. A few of those pictures are included here.

Maybe I'm emerging from my midlife crisis. Or maybe this is a temporary reprieve. Whatever it is, I didn't want to let it slip by.

J~ took the week off last week. Perfect timing for ovulation - let's just say we put in our best effort yet.

I'll keep you posted.


Runner's heaven - a long dirt road through the woods.


Great Blue Heron on a beaver's dam - what a lucky day to be carrying a camera!


Joe pye weed in full bloom.


The pool next door - all of the cool, none of the work.


Warmth for the coming winter, one more cord on the way.

Midlife Crisis

When people ask me lately how I'm doing, I tell them, in a light and joking tone – but in all seriousness – that I'm having a midlife crisis.

I'm told a midlife crisis should entail flashy distraction: an extramarital affair, a shiny new sports car. In my case, there are long bicycle rides, the most recent of which was undertaken alone on the Fourth of July, 100+ miles of winding Connecticut roads from my home to my mother's where I met up with family and friends and celebrated the holiday, old school. (Literally - we went to see fireworks at my old high school.) The whole day was a pleasure.

That's the thing about midlife crises, they aren't straight-out despair and depression. There is something vigorous in them, a reclaiming of life's joy, a new-found intolerance of years-long low-level misery.

As long as I'm exercising, or with loved ones, I'm fine.

The down part comes only after several hours alone, during my solitary work days. That's when I start to sink. For the past two months, I've felt downright miserable a good deal of the time.

On the bright side (I know this will sound strange) I'm doing a lot of crying.

What's bright about this? The stuff I'm crying about is stuff I have needed to cry about for years: childhood loneliness and disappointments, dashed hopes, all the miscarriages, the divorce, the fact that I felt so poorly about myself that a marriage to someone who I knew wasn't deep-down sure he wanted to be with me felt like the best I could expect out of life, that such a thing, not so long ago, actually felt like good luck.

It's hard work, all this crying. I often feel feverish beforehand, heachachy, and afraid. The tears come in heavy, sweaty, snotty, guttural sobs.

I'm not doing this alone. I have counseling partners (we trade time in counselor and client roles, sometimes on the phone, sometimes in-person, taking turns caring and listening and handing each other tissues, trusting that this emotional expression is the path to healing). Sometimes I cry with J~. After each round, I feel lighter, better.

I love this midlife crisis, actually. I love that I can no longer tolerate a dull, low-level misery, that I can no longer mask it with a trumped up enthusiasm for a long list of chores. I love the sense that old limitations are lifting away, that slowly, subtly, I'm moving my life to higher ground. I feel brave.

I also have new thoughts about pregnancy, and the not-yet resolved Babies or Not question. More on that soon...

Letting Go. Or Not.

I've been ruminating on questions raised by my last post, namely, have I truly given up on pregnancy, and if not, why not continue to pursue answers? Why risk another miscarriage?

Such good questions, such simple questions. I've been soul-searching for weeks.

This is what I've figured out so far:

No, I haven't yet given up, not fully anyway, in spite of my fervent wish to the contrary. There is still a glimmer of hope, like an ember in an otherwise dying fire. Add a little kindling – a well-timed cycle, pronounced premenstrual symptoms, a bunny in the front yard – and the whole thing is ablaze again.

But kindling is easy to come by. There are flare-ups every month. I find the prospect of stoking and tending the fire, gathering the heavy logs of sustained desire and a pursuit of purposeful intervention, utterly overwhelming. Why? Well, for one, the hope simply isn't very strong. I am discouraged by the idea that all that work and heartache could be for naught.

And then there is the shame. Somehow I feel foolish still longing for a baby after all these years. I suppose I've felt foolish all along, so strongly have I absorbed the message that smart, talented, interesting women have more important things to do than make babies. Or if they do make babies, and raise children, they do so with ease and only peripheral attention, akin to a trip to the bathroom in the midst of writing a fascinating dissertation. It's a terrible, sexist notion, one I know is patently invalid, but I live in a sexist culture, and in spite of myself, I've absorbed and internalized a measure of this thinking. It creeps in when I least expect it and requires concentration to banish.

And then there's the issue of pursuing effective medical help. I don't trust doctors easily. I mustered the courage to see a Reproductive Endocrinologist at one point, J~ and I went together. The doctor leaned way back in his chair and spoke in a relaxed, weary tone, going on about how underfunded research is in this field and how nobody really knows anything, reinforcing my feeling that it's all a crap shoot anyway.

I was relieved and pleased with this doctor at the time, so afraid was I of a salesman's fake smile and hucksterish enthusiasm, pushing me toward interventions that made me uncomfortable. Just sign on the dotted line and hand me your life savings, please. Now lie still on the table and we'll see if we can get to the bottom of this.

But then I started wondering maybe if this jaded-seeming doctor would have treated me differently if J~ and I were younger, if I seemed a more promising candidate. A letter came from the practice, two weeks after our appointment, announcing this doctor's decision to retire.

I never followed up.

I haven't tried another doctor.

J~ and I are talking about going to someone else, maybe someone recommended to me on this blog. The ball is in my court.

I keep putting it off.

Mother's Day Again

In the front yard the other day - she's back, daintily nibbling violets and dandelions. (If you were reading this blog last spring, you might remember this visitor, nicknamed Henrietta, and the symbolism I ascribed to her then.)

In the neighborhood, a barred owl – tan and white with great yellow eyes, big as a (fat) cat (we call it Hootie) – implores each evening and morning: Who cooks for you? Who cooks for yoooou? I got a good long look at him (her?) perched on a log not eight feet away, but no camera on me at the time, alas.

Biking 90-ish miles on the weekends lately, and a little more during the week. Loving it.

All dressed and ready to meet riding companions yesterday morning, I burst into tears when it hit me: it's Mother's Day.

This is still so new, this letting go of the pursuit of motherhood. I'm not sure that I have let go completely. Not yet anyway. But I'm headed in that direction. I'm thirty-nine now, after all, and though I'm not preventing, I'm no longer trying to conceive, nor am I pursuing answers anymore, or super-charge health cures, in regard to my many miscarriages. Another Mother's Day passing.

So I cried for a minute, then kissed my very sweet and supportive husband, strapped on my helmet, and rode off into the bright windy morning.

Turning Over a New Leaf

After so many years of orienting my life around where I am in my menstrual cycle, it is both liberating and sad to throw in the towel. Liberating most of the time. But then I stumble into a pocket of sad. I suppose it will be like this for a while.

After a long two weeks of marathon work, I packed my cameras and a journal and took a leisurely afternoon hike yesterday. These photos are (part of) the result. FYI - the black background you see in some of them is my shirt.

Or Not.

See more of my art >>

Friday
9:15 am: Positive home pregnancy test. It's a faint second line, but it's really there. I stare and stare. A sweat breaks across my lower back. I leave a message on J~'s cell:

I want to talk to you... about... something.


9:30 - 10:30 am: I post a photo of the test on this blog. I have some happiness, some trepidation about the demands of parenthood. Though I know it may very well happen, I'm surprised to note that I'm not worried about miscarriage.

So why this nervous shaking in my thighs?


10:30 am: J~ returns my call and I tell him the news. Our conversation is guarded – upbeat, but not ecstatic.


11 am: It's decided - I will ride with my bike club on Saturday, despite the cold I'm fighting, despite the pregnancy. I find myself having an imaginary conversation with an imaginary Devil's Advocate:

D.A.: With your history, I'm surprised you don't just crawl into bed and stay there for the next nine months.

ME: No way. I don't want it that bad.

My response catches me off guard. I don't?


4 pm: I have not veered from my original plans for the day – work (client design stuff, plus I'm preparing for an art show, only two weeks away and still lots to do), a walk, and a drive to the bike shop to pay for my new bicycle.

This is no small purchase. I've resisted for a year, unsure of my commitment to the sport, reasoning that if I were to get pregnant again, I would not be riding much. Last year, a fancy new bicycle seemed like a leap of faith in the wrong direction. But a year later I'm still riding, still loving it. And another pregnancy has not emerged.

Until today, of course.

Isn't this the way it always goes in the movies?

Okay, now I'm getting a little excited.


4:30 pm: I plunk my credit card down on the counter along with a patch kit, a spare inner tube, a few tools and accessories. The shopkeeper is chatting with her friend, commiserating about how, with young children, they no longer find the time to ride like they once did.

I resist the urge to blurt that I am pregnant, resist the pull to think about what they are saying. Resist also the desire to add an expensive form-fitting windbreaker to my purchases.


5:30 pm: Home again, I do another HPT, anxious to see a darker line. But it's just the opposite, fainter than the first test, almost nonexistent.

I feel completely deflated.


Saturday
7 am: another HPT: Negative this time, no doubt about it. Damn.


9:30 am: Bleeding. And to think - my period wasn't even due until Sunday! If I hadn't done the test, I never would've known an egg had been fertilized. Bum egg, bum sperm, bum uterus. Who knows.

10:30 am: pick up the co-op order. I look at all the other co-op members. It feels strange, and sad, that no one knows.


1 pm: 40-mile bike ride with my club. Feeling happy.

Happy? It makes me nervous that I'm happy.


Sunday
Another 30 miles with the club followed by a two-hour nap on the couch. Still feeling happy. I can't make heads or tails of it.


Monday
I'm troubled that I don't seem to have any lingering feelings about this miscarriage. I admit to K~, my friend and counselor, I may be more excited about my work and riding my bike at this point then I am about getting pregnant.

And then it hits me, and I start to cry.

It's been a long, hard road. It didn't lead where I had hoped it would lead. This was not the goal. I did not want to find myself here. But it's happened, and there's nothing to be done.

I've moved on.

Recap and Reprise

Past and Future Ghosts, 11 x 17" gouache and ink on paper.
This piece will appear in an art show upcoming at Windham Arts Collaborative, in Willimatic, CT. If you're in the area, come to the opening reception on Friday, April 3rd. I'd love to see you! (Details here)

I began this blog shortly after my second miscarriage, which took place on a Wednesday night in November, 2005. I was at work when I knew for certain.

I worked as an abortion counselor.

I left the clinic early that evening, heading home to my hot water bottle and an empty apartment. (My husband, A~, was away on business.) Luckily, this loss was easier than the first - quicker, less painful. I could handle it on my own. The grief that followed was a hard but familiar terrain.

Shortly thereafter, my marriage shattered. After more than a decade together, it was a sudden and devastating break. I felt like I'd been run over by a truck: nauseous and heartsick and unable to breathe properly for months. At the same time, I felt freed of a great weight. A life I thought I could never endure (without A~) became a life full of promise. I wrote all about it on these virtual pages.

During this time, I was introduced to J~, who was struggling with a very similar life crisis. Three years (and, sadly, two more miscarriages) have come and gone. J~ and I are married - happily, to say the least. B~, my stepson, now in high school, is thriving.

Babies or not? It's still an open question, though it burns less urgently than it did when I began discussing it here.

Babies or not, life is good.