The Road to My Redemption

   The day that I miscarried my sixth baby was the day my spirit broke.  A decade of struggles with infertility and loss had pushed me to an edge I didn’t realize I perched on so precariously.   With a husband who so badly wanted a house full of kids, it struck me deeply that our odds were only 2 and 8.  And the two were nothing short of miracles, believe me. 

    Baby number eight was definitely a surprise.  We were not trying to conceive; had in fact accepted that we might never get the daughter I so badly desired.  So the unexpectedness of a baby brought joy and fear in such heart crushing amounts that I had no idea where one began and the other one ended.  For three weeks I endured internal ultrasounds (as unpleasant as you can imagine!), blood tests, daily doctor visits and the stress associated with knowing there was no way this baby was going to survive without the pre-pregnancy infertility regimen I had been on with my youngest boy.

     I woke up each day assaulted by morning sickness and slept each night assaulted by nightmares too raw to describe.  I held my breath during the waking hours waiting on each trip to the bathroom sometimes waiting until I could no longer do so just to prolong the discovery of those first signs of miscarriage.  The entire nine weeks felt like a roller coaster ride.  In the beginning my HCG (Human Chorionic Growth hormone) counts were not rising the way they should.  Every two days the blood levels were supposed to double.  Mine did at first and then slowly tapered off- a sure sign that the baby wasn’t growing the way that it should.  But an ultrasound showed a beating heart so I held hope in my own heart and prayed to God that he would let me have the daughter I yearned for.

    It was a Wednesday morning.  I was making my way through the usual morning rituals that kept our household moving forward when  I made a trip to the bathroom.  There was no mistaking what I saw.  Another loss.  Another baby I would never know.  Another child I would never get to love and nurture.

    I cried. 

   I got angry.

   I begged God to tell me why he would do such a thing again.

   I mourned not only the loss of the one baby- the daughter I just knew she had been- but the loss of the others as well.   Eventually I pulled myself together enough to pretend everything was all right.  I had two little boys to take care of, a husband to tend to and a job to return to.  The days blended as I muddled my way through them.  There were only a handful of weeks left in the school year.  Mercifully I would soon be joining my teaching colleagues on summer break.  I told myself if I could just make it to June, everything would be all right.  Days on the beach, nights on the deck under the stars; just the sort of therapy I thought I needed to get my head right again.

    But all the southern sunshine in the world wasn’t enough to mend my aching heart or heal the broken soul I was hiding from the world.

   I remember the day I knew I had to change like it was yesterday.  My temper had shortened considerably over the months following the miscarriage.  My two sweet boys, too young to understand Mommy’s sadness bore the brunt of my breakdown and I didn’t even realize it.  Not until that day.  As I yelled and screamed with all the fury of Medusa, I felt myself separate from my physical being.  I watched this woman I did not recognize as me and I wondered what had happened.  How had I reached such a point that I didn’t even know myself anymore? 

    And I knew I had to change.

    I just didn’t know how. 

    A drowning person flounders and splashes and flails their limbs to no avail.  They make no progress, they just drain themselves of energy.  As the energy flows away, so does hope and when hope is gone, they give up.  I was done splashing.  Hope was gone and water was filling my lungs.

    How was I supposed to explain that to two little boys under the age of eight?

   Days later I was at a routine medical appointment where I learned that stress had not only taken over my life but my body as well.  Blood pressure that had always been a good low 110/70 had shot up to a staggering 170/110 and was still rising.  High levels of cortisol noted failing adrenal glands.  My body and my mind were headed down the same road to nowhere. 

    Not long after that, we took a long weekend at the beach where I spent a great deal of time reflecting on what my life had become.  As I watched my ailing mother in law fight her own battle to retain control of her life I realized that I was just throwing my own away.

   It was in that moment that I resolved to live again.  Not just muddle through my days but really live again.  I went back to the doctor for the medication I had previously refused.  I started eating and sleeping again- slowly the nightmares and insomnia resolved themselves.  My attention to home, my family and even myself began to return and I started to actually feel like me again.

   A year has since passed and although I am not the same person I was before- I doubt I ever will be- but I finally recognize myself in the mirror again.  The feelings of hopelessness and despair have dissipated and I no longer feel like I am drowning in a sea of darkness.    

   I am finally swimming again. 

   Writing is like a buoy in the ocean to me.  In my darkest hours I could lose myself in one fiction story or another, creating characters and situations that I saw as so much better and safer than my own.   My stories, my creative process put me on the road to my own redemption by giving me something to focus on, to almost cling to in desperation.  This blog is merely the next leg of my journey, a new outlet that lets me share, explore, even vent the things that weigh me down or make me happy.  Welcome to my world as I jump into the pool head first and come up smiling from now on.