Pro-Life Shock Value and the Miscarrying Mom

 I have a unique perspective.  Maybe it's not really that unique, considering 1 in 4 women have a miscarriage at some point in their lives.  I've had 3 miscarriages, all in the span of one year, so the emotional impact of this hits me pretty hard, and I think that is understandable.  

I am Catholic and I am also 100% pro-life.  You would think those two things would be synonymous, but it is sadly something I must clarify due to current leadership who loudly wave the Catholic flag and yet fully support abortion.  But I digress.  

Around this time of year, there is much talk about supporting life, as the March For Life (was supposed to) happens at this time.  Lots of people do good things such as post their support for the unborn on social media, images of the unborn and the like.  It is good to support good things.  

But by golly it stings.  Seeing images of newborn babies, ultrasounds of the unborn, talking about making "the womb into a tomb" for those who have abortions, etc...freaking hurts.  It hurts my raw emotions.  My brain knows that my dead children are not the same as dead children lost to abortion.  But seeing those ultrasounds and all the macabre shock value pictures...yowza.  It's like a gut punch to someone who isn't your intended victim. 

I am a mother begging for God to give me just one child to hold.  Just one to somehow survive the horror house that is apparently my womb.  There are so many like me.  Please think twice before you hit send on that noble pro-life post that is meant to shock and shame those who support abortion.  There are silent ones who get caught in the cross fire.  

New Orleans and Merry Christmas!

 After singing a ton on Christmas Eve, and attending church on Christmas day, we went to New Orleans to see our Jesuit friends there.  Though Texas is next to Louisiana on the map, it's about an 8 hour drive from Dallas to New Orleans.  That's why we haven't gone sooner.

I always have the first Wed/Sunday after Christmas Day off from church choir, so we took the opportunity to go on Sunday, Dec. 27th.  We made it in time for mass at the Baronne Street Jesuit church where my friend Fr. Sean Salai was saying mass.  I've been spoiled to not having to wear a mask at mass (I LOVE that my church takes advantage of the mask mandate exceptions!)  People in NOLA seem to love their masks, indeed.  

We ate a ton of good food while there, as you can imagine.  I heard an accent which I thought sounded like it was from Brooklyn, but was told that it was a "Yat" accent which is native to NOLA and slowly dying out among the younger people.  Very strange. After that I realized I don't understand much about New Orleans at all.  It seems like its own thing - its own country.  And that's okay.  America needs to hold onto the dregs of culture that mainstream conglomeration tries to squeeze from it. 

Hunter made a new friend.  My friend who I met in Berkley, Fr. David.  He and Hunter hit it off :)  David is truly one of the smartest people I know, and one of the few who will discuss St. Thomas Aquinas and then practice the sword dance from Brigadoon with me in the span of 10 min.  

We saw some beautiful churches which always makes me think "why can't we have nice things in Dallas?"

One of the best things was how this Catholic city still has all their Christmas decorations up!  They understand that Christmas is still going (and going...and going...)  I loved it!  We drove through a light display in the park and went and saw this elaborate train setup at the mall.  

It was depressing to come home and see that most people here had taken down their Christmas decorations even before New Year's Day.  Come on, people!  We will be that annoying Catholic family on your street with our house decked out until February.  

Saints Jude and Simon

Today is the feast of Saints Jude and Simon.  These apostles of Jesus Christ share a feast day.  I'm sure there are good reasons for this, but I am not aware of them right now.

I didn't know they shared a feast day.

When I named my little first saint in heaven Jude, it just seemed like the right name for him.  He was, I thought, impossible...so long prayed for...so hard fought for and loved.  And just like that, he was gone.  His name is Jude.  

The twins were unnamed for long time.  Naming your unborn children who you will never meet on earth is emotionally draining, to say the least.  But they needed names, and the names came to me.  Simon and Celeste.

Our latest little flower (in July) was Veronica.  She who imprints the face of Christ.

I knew that Jude's name day was coming up, but I was shocked when I started seeing the name Simon with his.  They share a name day.  How amazingly cool is that?  

A few paintings

 I did a few watercolor paintings for a swap-bot swap.  I am loving this hobby!

First Sunday in the Octave of Miscarriage

Everyday is a different set of emotions, and we shouldn't expect to see it as moving forward or backward.  Emotions simply are.  We accept them, feel them, respond to them, and process them.  Doing otherwise may damage us in the long run.  

Yesterday was a pretty good day for me.  I latched onto future plans and started planning for some videos I want to make about miscarriage, to help others.  I am not an expert on anything except my own expirience, and if I can be of any help, I want to.

Today I'm not feeling as good.  I'm more inward focused and with drawn.  I feel the buds of anger forming in me, and of desperation.  I want answers.  I have no answers about why this keeps happening to me.  There must be some reason, other than being on the older end of motherhood.  I have had a lot of testing done and it was all completely normal.  My doctor set an appointment for July 29th.  I have no other contact with him before that.  Apparently, its now too dangerous to come into the office anymore, so I have to do a video conference with him.  This COVID nonsense is getting so ridiculous when you can't even see your doctor for him to help you stop having miscarriages.  

I just want some answers.  I want some hope.  I feel like he did nothing to help me other than throw some progesterone at me.  Surely there is something more that could have been done?  

Church isn't even a blip on my radar today.  I am angry at God.  When we found out we were pregnant, we got in the car and went straight to mass and got a blessing for our pregnancy, in Latin, at the altar, with tears streaming down our faces.  It was wonderful and hopeful.  And it didn't make a bit of difference.  

The world seems to be falling apart around us.  And within me, falling apart.  I know I must keep going, but it's so very hard.  I'm so sad and angry.  I wanted this baby so much.  I see pregnant women complaining about being fat and tired and it just makes me want to scream.  Why does God give me babies in the first place and not let me keep them?  Why are we told "God knows what's best for us" and then I am to assume that it's best for my babies to all die?  Is it bad theology, bad interpretation, or just bad in general?  

Someone told me that suffering is a mystery, and not something to figure out.  Good, because I can't figure it out.  I don't think I'll ever figure it out.  

Writing to this lovely rain track - check it out.  Very calming. 

Perfectly folded

In the evening, as the sun starts to think of sinking a bit in the sky, the breezes get a tiny bit cooler.  The cicadas are singing their unmistakable song of summer.  Families are starting to settle into dinner and watching TV together.  And a heaviness descends on my heart.  It starts small; almost imperceptible.  Then it becomes a few blinks of a headache, a fatigue, a "I just need to lie down for a bit".  Then, before you know it, hours have past, the sun has gone away, and my thoughts are hopelessly tangled up in despair.  Thoughts of "what if..."

"...maybe I should have stayed with my old doctor".
"What if I had started progesterone a few days earlier?"
"Should I have stayed on the paleo diet?"
"I did have a glass of wine last week..."
"Maybe this was my last chance."

Thoughts are invisible, but they are heaviest things in the world.

I see flickers of health in me, mentally.  But sometimes it is crying or acting crazy.  Or writing bad words over and over in my journal.  A lot of times it is avoidance, or transferring my feelings onto obsession with some unrelated thing - "I need to find the perfect PopSocket for my phone!".  Or "I need to read about the history of human interaction with sloths".  Today was "I need to organize all of my quilting fabric into perfectly folded five inch stacks.". 

All of this is an attempt to gain control over some small aspect of my life.  My heart has been drawn and quartered, I think, because I can't feel much today.  Not much at all.  Except a dull, heavy pressure. 

I want to fold myself into squares in lovely rainbow order.  I want to be organized and have my life put together.  I want to make baby quilts for my own babies, not just other people's babies.  I want all this stored up love to be tangible. 

God has taken my joys.  I do have a few more left, but they are small compared to my children.  So I focus on the tiny things - the mundane and meaningless things, because they are in my power. 

Another Loss

It's really interesting to me how I'm always too scared to announce that I'm pregnant, for fear of it failing.  When it fails, I'm okay with writing about it.  So guess what I'm doing today?  

I still have never announced officially that I'm pregnant, not any of the three times I've been pregnant in the past year.  I was always of the conservative mindset that you don't announce until the end of the first trimester when the "danger was mostly passed" (lol).  Now that I've been pregnant three times, and never gotten past 10 weeks, I cannot conceive of being past the first trimester.  I was talking with my husband yesterday, before I got the utterly shocking phone call that my HCG had plummeted, and saying that it's so hard to be hopeful because I literally cannot imagine having a huge belly at this point, or seeing a heartbeat on the scan, or taking a baby home.  It's a foreign concept.  

Pregnancy to me is like playing Stella in "A Streetcar Named Desire", which I did.  It's putting on a pregnant suit and taking it off a few days or weeks later.  It's acting.  It's not real.  

But the devastation that follows it is real.  Whew momma, is it real.  It's lying in bed, silently crying and scrolling though Twitter while I emo tweet what I'm feeling and delete most of them later on.  It's messaging a few select people who I only talk to when I'm trying to get pregnant or losing a baby.  It's seeing babies in public, at mass, the store...wherever, and feeling my heart rate spike.  It's the endless pregnancy announcements that feel like a lead weight in my stomach.  It's watching myself become a more and more bitter and angry person every time it happens.  It's seeing myself rapidly age in the mirror.  It's having to go back and tell a few people that my pregnancy will no longer be an issue in their plans.  And then the actual miscarriage - curled up with cramps as my body goes through a tiny labor, canceling plans because "I'm not feeling well", and having to put on a brave face to a world that didn't even know I lost yet another child.  

This isn't a fun post to write or read.  But I must get my feelings out.  COVID-19 and the ensuing societal political dog-and-pony show have taken away my coping mechanisms.  I need to GET AWAY, but where?  Everywhere has restrictions.  I can't go visit my friends in New Mexico or New Orleans because there is nowhere to go once we get there.  Restrictions, distancing, capacity limits.  Places closed.  Quarantines.  The political implications aside, wearing a mask is chipping away at my sanity.  I need to be FREE right now and it is a very visceral set of chains to me.  I feel the world is closing in on me and it's hard to breathe.

I stopped being open with the world years ago when the politics started heating up to the point where people couldn't disagree and respect each other.  Now that I've lost my jobs, my income, all of my babies, and my social life...I'll probably start writing here a bit more.  (I hope).  I need community even though I'm an introvert.  I need people to talk to.  I need support.  I have the best husband in the world, but the weight of all of this is too much to bear.