Hopes and Dreams

I was talking to a friend of mine about my miscarriage the other day.  She had one also, her first pregnancy, and she now has two gorgeous daughters.  She's super into eating healthy, exercising, organic everything and so on.  So, to hear her story really made me feel a bit better about mine.

Anyway, she said something I thought was pretty profound.  She said that what's so difficult about recovering from a miscarriage is that you aren't mourning something you actually had.  You aren't mourning a person you really knew.  What you're mourning is all your hopes and dreams.

I'm really struggling now, because Thanksgiving was going to be the magic day when I told all my family about the pregnancy.  At that point, I'd have been beyond my first trimester, and thus would have been "safe."  And I was really looking forward to that.

I felt like I was going to be making so many people so happy.  My grandparents.  My aunts.  My cousins who all have children of their own.  And I somehow felt like this news was going to make me fit in better.  Like suddenly I'd be "normal" and be able to relate to my family on some whole new level.

I know that's a lot of pressure to put on a baby.  But that's what I felt.  And now it's just another family get together with all the stress and uncomfortableness there always is.  And one of my cousins recently brought a new baby home from the hospital, so they'll be there, and everyone will be ooing and awwing, and I'll just be miserable, and nobody will even know why.

Well, somebody will.  I'm going to tell my grandma.  I think she would want to know.  Especially because it was twins.  My dad is a twin.  And I lived with my grandma for many years, so we're very close.  So, I'm probably going to go see her this weekend and tell her then, in private, before the big get-together next week.

Anyway, so my dream of sharing my big news at Thanksgiving isn't coming true.  At least not this Thanksgiving.