The Writing Mamas Daily Blog
Each day on the Writing Mamas Daily Blog, a different member will write about mothering.If you're a mom then you've said these words, you've made these observations and you've lived these situations - 24/7.
And for that, you are a goddess.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Strange, But True
My first miscarriage seemed to go on forever.
First, the spotting, and then the ultrasound to confirm the loss. Next, the wait for my body to expel whatever was left in me. The cramps, the blood. And finally, a D&C was still needed to finish the job.
I had no idea that miscarriages could drag out over several days.
My therapist recommended that I plant a bush or shrub to mark the end, to add closure. I didn’t feel like I needed any more markers. But in an effort to try to move on, I planted a green shrub in a shady corner of my front lawn. The lack of light did not make this a prime spot for growth. Next to the plant, a scraggly acacia already struggled to produce small blossoms each spring.
That fricking plant flourished. I flashed an evil eye at the green mass when I came home from a doctor’s visit confirming my second loss.
After the third miscarriage, I had to transplant the damn thing because it was strangling the acacia. I really wanted to toss it, but could not bring myself to kill it.
Eighteen months later, I got pregnant. I’d given up. I was forty. My doctor had told me I was considered barren. I wasn’t tracking my cycles, wasn’t taking Clomid, wasn’t pushing Progesterone suppositories up there every month, wasn’t taking pregnancy tests that I knew would be negative.
That darn plant died in the fourth month of my pregnancy. As life surged in me, it drained from that plant. The plant drooped, turned brown and was dead. After three years of irritatingly lush growth, it had died.
Strange but true.
I have no explanation, but somehow found it comforting. I took the plant’s demise as one more sign that this pregnancy was meant to be (and it was!).
By Marianne Lonsdale
Stumble This Post
First, the spotting, and then the ultrasound to confirm the loss. Next, the wait for my body to expel whatever was left in me. The cramps, the blood. And finally, a D&C was still needed to finish the job.
I had no idea that miscarriages could drag out over several days.
My therapist recommended that I plant a bush or shrub to mark the end, to add closure. I didn’t feel like I needed any more markers. But in an effort to try to move on, I planted a green shrub in a shady corner of my front lawn. The lack of light did not make this a prime spot for growth. Next to the plant, a scraggly acacia already struggled to produce small blossoms each spring.
That fricking plant flourished. I flashed an evil eye at the green mass when I came home from a doctor’s visit confirming my second loss.
After the third miscarriage, I had to transplant the damn thing because it was strangling the acacia. I really wanted to toss it, but could not bring myself to kill it.
Eighteen months later, I got pregnant. I’d given up. I was forty. My doctor had told me I was considered barren. I wasn’t tracking my cycles, wasn’t taking Clomid, wasn’t pushing Progesterone suppositories up there every month, wasn’t taking pregnancy tests that I knew would be negative.
That darn plant died in the fourth month of my pregnancy. As life surged in me, it drained from that plant. The plant drooped, turned brown and was dead. After three years of irritatingly lush growth, it had died.
Strange but true.
I have no explanation, but somehow found it comforting. I took the plant’s demise as one more sign that this pregnancy was meant to be (and it was!).
By Marianne Lonsdale
Labels: Marianne Lonsdale
Stumble This Post
