The Bleed Out

I wrote the following on February 17, 2014 in remembrance of my miscarriage in January of 2006.

How did you want to handle the burial the nurse asked……burial.  I hadn’t even realized I needed to think of that.  At not quite three months along, dealing with the grief of losing a baby was enough, not to mention the surgery needed to remove the fetus.  Now a burial?  Shell shocked, she just moved me along through the process, asking if I understood what was going to happen.  Yeah, lady, I just lost a kid.  She died.  My baby girl.  I bled out.  On a cruise ship.  Just a couple of days after I lost my dad to death.  On the same cruise ship.  Stuck in the ocean.  Yeah, I kinda understand this death thing.  I just went through it before being thrust into it again.

On the day of departure, already vacated from the room on the cruise ship, I felt a sizeable gush.  I knew it wasn’t right.  Rushing to the bathroom in the magnificent ship’s lobby, there was blood.  Lots of blood.  With nothing but my carry on luggage (the cruise ship takes care of the large bags for you, and meets you with it on the dock after departure) I did the only thing I knew how – I wiped and wrapped up with toilet paper and rushed out to my then husband.  I was given a listless pat on the back, and a graceless ‘it’ll be fine’ line.  We’ll just call the doctor once we get home.  With that, he leaves me to my carry on bags as well as to Christian and his bags.  The man just walked away.  Luckily, my brother in law at the time overheard the conversation, and saw me struggling to pull two bags as well as hold Christian’s small hand.  He comes up, whispers that I shouldn’t be doing all this with the situation, and grabs my two bags, attempting to haul them out along with his.  He doesn’t say much, but his eyes convey that he knows what I know.  I just lost my baby, only days after losing my dad, and the douche of an ex husband just walked away empty handed in more ways than one.

The doctor’s visit was a slow, extended, painful process to confirm what I already knew.  When the ultrasound girl only looks but doesn’t say anything, when she leaves the room to get the doctor, when the doctor just looks and sighs and asks me to meet him in his office.  As he sits behind his massive desk his glasses come off.  He rubs his eyes, looks up.  What else can he say…..I already knew.  I asked why.  A million reasons was his response.  A million different complications, maybe even a combination.  But I want to KNOW.  I want to know why……there isn’t a good reason why.  This happens many, many times I am told.

I am walked through the process, how I have to have surgery to remove the baby, that more than likely I’ll have kids again without a problem.  But that isn’t the end of it.  You just don’t remove “it” and move on…..years later I still keep track of how old she’d be, and wonder what she’d be like.  I did have another perfect kiddo, with no adverse affect from the miscarriage.  Christian has told people before that he has two siblings.  A brother AND a sister.  But that his sister is already in Heaven.  He states it very matter of fact.  Even though she does not exist here in the physical realm any more, she does exist.  She’d be eight this August.  I still cry.  And wonder.  And in many ways, I still bleed out, but this time it’s my heart that just pains and bleeds for the baby I knew, and loved, and held, but never got to truly meet.

Not Strong Enough

Was up early on a Saturday for a track meet.  Gone are the days I can just hop in the shower and head out the door!  Just a few months ago I finally figured out how to add putting on makeup back into my routine.  I was tired of hearing my 12 year old tell me how ‘tired’ I look.  Now I still appear tired, but at least my face shows it with a rosy glow and lined eyes!

As I was rolling through my fog of having to function early Saturday morning, I began to ponder over the latest action news in my normally obsolete romantic life.  Understandably, I’m really not looking to date.  I’ve always said that if God wants me to have a man in my life, He’ll literally drop him in my life.  In January a guy asked me out…in church.  Considering the atmosphere I was in, I agreed. 

Very upfront about my situation, I gently informed this guy just how many things he’d have to wrap his arms around if he became a steady pillar in my life.  I hold firm that any man has to have a very big heart, and very large arms, to wrap around my life.  It’s not just me – but one pre-teen, one infant, two cats, one old blind deaf, dog, my mom who comes over practically everyday to help, a job that is worked from home, and a house that’s constantly a revolving mess.  That’s a lot to wrap around.  He seemed to envelop this, stating he commends me for working at home so as not to utilize day care and having someone else raise my kids, and that he’d worry if my house was neat as that would mean I wasn’t focusing on my family or my job.  Unreal, I thought.  Who is this man?  I was not used to the support and it seemed his values lined up exactly with mine. 

I’ll spare you the gory, mushy details.  Two months later after a bit of a slow run, I receive a phone call stating he wasn’t coming over as planned because “the guys” were at his house for a ball game.  He quickly transitioned into a very roundabout conversation that led me to wonder what had just happened when I had hung up the phone.  There was talk about it being slow (wasn’t that what we had agreed to do?  Move slow and get to know each other?).  That it is amazing because I am one of the greatest women he’s ever dated, and he just can’t say anything negative, but that I have ‘a lot going on’ (um, I know – didn’t I tell you that?).  At one point he even stated that he was glad we talked about this lull between us and we’ll see how it goes.  Then it quickly moved into the “I’m so glad we’re friends, and you can’t have too many good people surrounding you”, at which point his friends started getting louder and he said he better get to the game.  I hung up the phone and actually had to sit and translate what had just happened.  I came to the conclusion that he had just broken it off.  Yeah, go get your friends buddy.  And here’s a hint – if you don’t want to spend your next four decades single like you’ve spent your last four, don’t break up with a girl as your friends sit in the next room watching the game.  Be respectful enough to at least do it in person and plainly communicate through it!  I watched an interview with Aretha Franklin a few Sundays ago.  The host politely asked the famous singer about her love life – or the lack of it.  Smiling in her quiet fashion, she promptly responded that none are strong enough.  I double that, sister!

As the day winds down to a close and the once applied makeup wears off, I know I am strong enough, even if someone else is not.   It can get lonely being the strong one every day, all day, but I know my shoulders are strong, my heart is big, and my arms can wrap around this house and all those in it. 

Living with Integrity (and Laughter!)

Ahhh, you think I'd be used to this single mom thing by now. But, I have found every day is different, and each dawn comes with its own challenges. A wise woman once told me the best I can do is to live each day with integrity.  For me, it’s not living with integrity – it’s surviving with integrity.  And a survivor I am.  As my journey is revealed throughout these blog posts, it is my hope that my words may speak and come alive for another. 

I am one, but I no longer stand alone.  I know that now, but for many years I thought just the opposite.  One in four women throughout their lifetime will personally experience or be exposed to some degree of domestic abuse.  Feelings of isolation and seclusion were prominent; living with an abusive man can be a very solitary existence.  Masters of control and manipulation, they are very adept at pulling you away from every comfort you once knew – including your own self-confidence. 

Many who have witnessed or experienced abuse do not speak up, fearful of what may happen if they do.  Because of this understandable fear, the statistics on abused women are not concrete, and many court systems as well as counselors underestimate the unyielding power an abusive man holds.  In turn, many therapists, judges, and law enforcement officials often do not give the abused the help they so desperately need in times of crises.  I know all this not only because I have been down that muddled path, but because I have learned through self instruction and through counseling with a local crises center the tools and education I need to move on, and to move up.

Some days this blog will be about my struggle or my survival, some about my past or educational tools for the future.  Others will be about the mundane and sometimes overwhelming day to day tasks a single mother faces, or even just the silliness of having a twelve year old, a nine month old, two cats, and a fifteen year old blind, deaf dog – all in the same household -  with only one woman coordinating it all.  (To confirm the silliness – I must share with you the afternoon the rice fell off the top shelf of the pantry, scattering all over the floor, right after we came out of hiding in the closet from a tornado warning with the electricity being out.  This was shortly followed by my oldest son dropping a can of root beer which subsequently exploded all over the tile.  In the midst of it all, the poor old blind, deaf dog piddled on the kitchen floor in the confusion.  True story.  I kid you not.  Welcome to my world!)  I do not want my journey to only be about the heavy or the oppressive, because there is so much more to it than that.  There IS joy, and there IS hope, and I want to convey that.  And when it is all said and done, the dry rice on the floor which is absorbing the root beer in the dark which is being spread around by the dog wandering around really is funny, if you stop and think about it. 

If you are reading this and are in an abusive relationship yourself, please use caution if you are using your home computer.  An abuser will check your activity, whether it be via phone records, computer history, or travel itineraries.  Make sure at the least to clear your computer’s history, cache, and cookies, and for your own safety, use a public computer or go to a trusted friend or family member for the use of their PC.  Many cities have crises centers for domestic abuse; if you are ready to seek help please utilize the wonderful resources they offer, or go to a trusted friend or family member to have them help you institute your safety plan as leaving an abuser can be a potentially dangerous situation.