So, I’ve been “writing this blog” for almost a year. Mostly staring at it, mostly hoping something exciting would happen and I wouldn’t need to publish it. As it turns out, things happened, but nothing I would exactly call exciting. Since January 2016 I’ve been in what some may call a “glass case of emotion” #ThanksAnchorman. I’ve felt hope and joy and devastation and confusion and shame and loss and guilt and embarrassment and jealousy and actual pain. In the swirl of emotions I kept getting called back to wanting to share this in some way, but not knowing how to do it. Especially with the whole thing where when my mouth opens, tears come flying out of my eyeballs. Makes it kind of difficult to share what is going on with people. Also, for the record, that is not a new thing, I’ve always had shooting tears according to my mom.
Pregnancy loss SUCKS. What may be worse, is having enough experiences where you can actually rank order them as to which one sucked worse than others. But sometimes you need to feel like you’ve hit rock bottom of sorts, to kind of kick your butt into gear and do something you’ve been talking about wanting to do for months.
Well, butt, meet your “kick into gear”…Ectopic Pregnancy, aka loss #4. I guess I will Tarantino part of this blog (Dane Cook reference, you’re welcome college-era friends); start at the present and then work backwards. I have had many of these posts quasi written in the Notes app in my phone for months, but never fully conceived…pregnancy joke, perhaps I shouldn’t make those but sometimes you have to laugh or else you’re just crying all the time.
My most recent loss was definitely the worst. It came with the most hope, and therefore the most heartbreak. I took a positive test at a Spa Resort in Sedona, Arizona on a girls’ trip with my mom…how bomb.com is that. It was also the last month of “trying” before our scheduled IVF pre-op appointment. The hubs and I figured we’d give it a good ole college try one more time before going the science route. I really thought the stars had aligned. Apparently not exactly how I hoped.
I’ll get more into this ectopic nonsense, and the sweet injections I got to get in my behind, (speaking of butts getting kicked) later. The stars may not have aligned the way I wished they had, but I do think they aligned for me to finally release this little blog. I kept seeing and hearing and reading things that were whispering “Colleen, get your life together, and put this thing out for your sake and for others”.
One such inspo came in the form of Chrissy Teigen, who I think is dope AF in general. She just wrote an essay about the struggle with post-partum depression, and while our issue is not the same (although she also dealt with fertility issues) I was inspired by her willingness to put something out that many do not discuss. And today, I saw this article on my friend’s Facebook page and it was so on point in so many ways. Whether you have personal experience with pregnancy loss, or not, I highly recommend you check this article from NPR out:
So, I invite you to come with me along this journey. I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, but in my head I think I will write about once a week or whenever I have all of the feels. I hope this will serve as part journal, part therapy, part information-sharing, part awareness campaign, part comic relief, and part community for those who may be going through the same thing.
notquiteknockedup 