I’m ready for May.

It’s been a month since my miscarriage.

Actually, yesterday was the one month mark but I felt a little too raw to write about it. It’s strange… I sometimes get in these moods where I feel deeply like I need to write to process and sort out my feelings, but at the same time I just… can’t.

I feel like I’ve been in a weird head space these past few days. Sometimes it feels like what happened to me was just this awful dream. I know it happened, but it all just feels so surreal. I can’t even begin to describe how strange it is to be pregnant and planning a course for your life, and then having everything forever altered in an instant. Sometimes I can’t quite wrap my head around it.

It’s been a month, and I feel like the physical symptoms are finally subsiding. Again, I felt so unprepared for what was happening with my body these past few weeks. Sorry if this is TMI, but my doctors and all the “official” websites I searched out looking for what happens after a miscarriage told me to expect bleeding for roughly 1-2 weeks before things settled down.

Well, when I passed the third week and eased into the fourth with no end in sight, it seriously began feeling like my body was broken or cursed. I spent nearly 18 months fighting through my lopsided hips after P was born, and then I had this horrific miscarriage that just. won’t. end. It’s hard to try to move forward when you’re still dealing with the physical effects every single day. Last weekend I finally reached out in desperation and made a post in an online mom resource group I’m in. I briefly explained my situation, hoping that someone might also have experienced something close to what I was going through.

Multiple women commented or messaged me to let me know that they too bled so much longer than the “1-2 weeks” that they were told they would. The average answers spanned from 4-6 weeks, with some lasting as long as 8-10. It was so sad to read all their experiences with miscarriages, but also so relieving to feel that maybe I wasn’t as broken as I felt I was.

Today is the first day that I can say -with hope- that it might actually be finished. It is with me all the time, but it would honestly just be so nice to not feel it for just a minute. I just need my body to cut me some slack… I would love to feel normal again, even just for a second.

I was finally able to go see my osteopath about my tailbone last week, and he helped a little. It was really the first time I think I could have let him touch it without me screaming in pain, and he worked his magic and took some of the pressure off. He thinks I probably did fracture it when I fell and passed out in my bathroom, and there’s nothing I can really do now but wait and give it time. It’s world’s better than it was a month ago–I can sit without pain for longish periods of time on hard chairs, and I can go from sitting to standing in almost one fluid motion if I launch myself off the chair a certain way. Couches are still hard (I can’t sit straight yet) but if I roll my knees and kind of sit on my side I can sit for a while and then switch positions before it gets too painful.

I’m trying hard to keep things in perspective: five years ago, when I hurt my shoulder so badly that I couldn’t lift my arm over my head, I was convinced it would never heal. (Remember that time that I got stuck in a shirt I was trying on at Target?) It took 18 months to heal, but I barely notice it now. Two years ago I didn’t think I’d ever live without hip and back pain… and now that’s mostly gone too. I know that “this too shall pass”, but I just wish it would all pass a little more quickly.

Emotionally, I’m up and down. People ask me all the time how I am, or how I’m doing, and I never really know how to answer that. I completely overthink it every time. I worry that if I say that I’m “good” then it looks like I’m unfeeling or ignoring what happened, or if I say I’m having a hard day, then I worry that it looks like I’m dwelling too long in what happened and not moving forward.

I told you. I overthink things.

Most of the time I just say that I’m doing okay. Which I mostly am. Really, I feel like I’m searching for a word that doesn’t exist to describe how I’m doing. I feel… different. Still me, but less me somehow… if that makes sense. I know that that will fade a little with time too, but I feel like this experience has fundamentally shifted something inside me. Not necessarily in a bad way, it’s just… different.

I think the hardest part in all of this is reconciling the fact that time keeps marching on, and sometimes I feel like I’m standing still. There are little reminders that pop up occasionally–a midwife appointment in my calendar or their card stuck behind H’s artwork on the side of my fridge. A stray maternity top that was lost in the wash. The Costco pack of Tums I bought anticipating heartburn sitting on my food storage shelf. The remainder of the adult diapers I bought to get me through the worst during the early days of the miscarriage.

I threw those out today. It felt good.

Last week someone we hadn’t seen in a while congratulated us on our good news, not knowing we’d lost the baby. He was so thrilled for us, and M had to gently tell him that we’d lost the baby a few weeks ago. He felt horrible for bringing it up, and I found myself consoling him while I fought to keep my eyes dry and my smile bright. Thankfully it was the first time that that happened, and I’m grateful for that.

I’m also grateful for all the people who are still checking in on me, I appreciate that more than you know.

I feel like this post is so disjointed and mish mashed, but I’m tired and my thoughts are all over the place. I know I need sleep, but I also felt like I couldn’t sleep until I had let some of these emotions out. This past month has just been so full–the miscarriage, the recovery, the side effects, going back to work to dive into midterm marking and report cards… I’m tired. I’m ready to say goodbye to April and dive into May.

I’m also very ready for bed.