It Only Took Seven Days For Me To Break

Trigger warning: miscarriage

How do you tell the world that you are broken and that you hope they don’t look at you with eyes that mirror the way you feel? How do you tell the world about one of your biggest failures and hope they don’t use that to define you? How do you tell the world that you are actually not okay, despite saying it for weeks? How do you process a loss when society tells you not to talk about it? How do you tell the people you love that there is nothing anyone can do to fix it? How do you tell someone you are actually the worst you’ve ever been?

The simple fact is — there’s no pretty way to do it. There’s no perfect way to say: I had another miscarriage, and it has broken me all over again.

But I did. And it has. And I am tired of pretending like I am okay for the sake of everyone else’s feelings. Because I am not okay and I don’t know when I will be, or IF I ever will be.

It has been an absolute whirlwind since I found out I was pregnant. In the span of seven days, I went from a positive pregnancy test, to a negative pregnancy test that was supposed to serve as a confirmation of the first, to a blood draw, to spotting, to outright bleeding, to a blood redraw, to confirmation that I was no longer carrying my child.

My emotions went from shocked, to acceptance, to excitement, to fear, to heartbroken and shattered. In seven days. One week. That’s all it took.

The weight of this miscarriage feels heavier than my first. Having Addison allows me the understanding of just what I’m missing out on as I process losing this baby. The love. The snuggles. The laughs. The feelings. The sleepless nights. The worry. The want to give them everything they could ever dream of. All of it. I am missing out on all of it.

And I have been in the weirdest mental state ever since because of it — balancing between anger, sadness, and numbness. All in a 60-minute span. Rinse and repeat, 23 more times.

Almost no one knows. I wish people understood the fine line I am walking without me having to tell them. I wish I could wear a shirt every day that says, “please be delicate with me, I am breaking” and not have to explain to everyone what it means. I wish someone would just wrap me up in the biggest hug and tell me I’m going to be okay, even if it’s a lie. I’m not saying the world should walk around on eggshells around me, but… I’m also not saying I wouldn’t kind of be okay with it either.

But somehow, the world keeps (unsteadily) turning, and I seem to be falling apart more and more with each turn. It doesn’t seem fair. None of this seems fair. How is any of this fair?

Is it because I wasn’t overwhelmed with joy at first? Is it because I went for one too many runs? Is it because I went bonkers nesting and did too much around the house? Is it because I lugged two bags of mulch when I should have just grabbed one? Or was it none of those things at all?

It eats me up inside to know that I will never know just what it was that ultimately led to me losing my baby.

How do you cope when you don’t have the answers? How do you mourn someone you’ve never even met? Felt kick or hiccup or seen smile or giggle? Never got to hold or name? How do you process all of these feelings and emotions when they continue to consume you so deeply, day in and day out?

Seven days. That’s all it took for my heart to completely shatter. To fall out of my body, onto the floor, never to look the same again. Seven flipping days is all it took for me to completely break. And I have no idea how long it will take to put this new version of myself back together again, but I do know it will be longer than a godforsaken seven days.