Can I Have my Body Back, Please?
How to honor our bodies, and our time, after a pregnancy loss
“I’m around next week! Why don’t we grab dinner?”
I hadn’t seen Lauren in over a year, and we were well overdue for a dinner date. I knew, more than anything, that I needed to see her. I had recently received the news of my second miscarriage. And I sat, waiting, for the miscarriage to complete. My doctor wanted the miscarriage to happen naturally (as in, without taking Cytotec), but this week was dragging on…and on…and on.
The false starts of labor, the cramping and light bleeding, were teasing me. This must be it. But then, everything would stop. And I would be back waiting, waiting, waiting for this miscarriage to complete. Could I have dinner with Lauren next week? Would I start delivering the embryo when we were together?
I waited two weeks before deciding to take Cytotec. And while I was sad that I would not be delivering a living, breathing baby, I was relieved that this awful purgatory would be over. Those days, or weeks, of living in limbo, vacillating between pregnant and not. My body was starting to feel like it wasn’t my own. Taking Cytotec was my way of returning to my body: not my intended baby’s body, not my fertility body, but MY body. Taking Cytotec was also giving me back my time. No longer would I suffer in the mental drain, the indescribable anguish of uncertainty, of love and loss, of false starts and inevitable endings.
During and after a pregnancy loss, our body and our time can feel like it belongs to someone else. We do not have control over if and when we get pregnant, stay pregnant, and deliver an embryo or breathing baby. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find even small ways to reconnect with ourselves physically, emotionally, spiritually, and take charge again.
Last week, José and I vacationed in Southern California. It was the first vacation in four years that wasn’t centered around fertility, pregnancy, or babies. Last year, we took a Babymoon to Florida, only to lose the baby one month later. Two years ago, we postponed a trip because it was during my ovulation, and my Reproductive Endocrinologist scheduled me for an IUI. Other trips over the last four years were in response to loss, trips to help us grieve and reconnect as a couple. But last week, we took a vacation for the simple act of taking a vacation (shocking, isn’t it?!?).
We walked along Laguna Beach.
I allowed myself to be a tourist and find Benedict Cumberbatch’s star (you don’t have to know me long to know my deep love for the actor and everything he does).
And, we had lunch at the Hotel del Coronado (we learned there isn’t actually anything in the turret pictured behind us, a defining architectural feature of the hotel).
For a week, we focused on ourselves, with no other motivations or intentions.
We were all autonomous human beings before our miscarriages, stillbirths, ectopic pregnancies, molar pregnancies. We all had time, connection, and love. And (this might surprise you), we had hopes and dreams outside of becoming parents!
You don’t need to take a trip across the country to regain your time. Think about two or three things you can do, even just today, that help you reconnect with yourself.
Take a gentle yoga class
Cook a meal you love (and eat everything, for just one meal, that your doctor tells you is “bad” for fertility)
Call a friend and ask how they are doing
Take five deep breaths
Be a tourist in your own town for an evening
You deserve to reconnect with yourself after a loss. Your body is your own.