Sunday, April 25, 2010

Day 1

Day 1 sucks!....it especially sucks when it comes after day 29, or day 30 or happens in the afternoon when you have all day to think maybe your dreams have finally come true. The moment that you see blood on the toilet paper, the moment Noah, or Madison, or Daniel, dies. The moment…oh the moment. You are in your home, your workplace bathroom, your favorite store. It is the moment when the coaster starts down the hill, slowly for a split second then falling out of control. The tears form in your eyes, the thoughts, the fears, the hopes, that maybe just maybe God would still let you be pregnant and it is a fluke. Then you try a second time, still blood, and the bottom falls out. And you sit, on the toilet and cry. God help you if you are at work, or in public, or even worse, with your husband, because you want to escape for five minutes, five minutes, of uncontrollable rage, and sadness and disappointment, as you realize again that another chance has passed. Another life will not come to you, another 1000 dollars or 10,000 dollars are quite literally flushed down the toilet.

After the moment when you find out you are not pregnant, day 1 starts. You mark a big P in your planner and count up the days. You text your sister, and your best friend with the news that you started. You make the awful phone call to your husband, the one person, who may feel the same way and you tell him. It is hard, difficult, the worst phone call you can make, because now you are crushing another person's dream, you stopping another person's hope. His Noah, or Madison or Daniel dies as well.

Then for the rest of the day, you cry. God help you if you wore mascara that day, or if you have a big presentation, or if in seven minutes, you have to return to 30 students who will look at you and know something is wrong, they see your blood shot eyes, but they are too young to understand why you are upset. They don't want to question it as their teacher is always the strong one, the one with the answers, and yet today she does not have them. She has failed again. She is at Day 1 for the second time, the twelfth time, maybe the last time.

When you think of the first day of anything you have happy thoughts. The nervousness you feel on your first day of high school, your first day at a new job, the first day of the rest of your life. Day 1 is not supposed to be a sad day, it is not suppose to be a day of grieving of disappointment. From the first moment on day 1 goes by in a fog. You don't really remember anything after that first moment, you don't choose to remember anything.

On day 1 you find out a friend had her baby, and wonder if God likes to play cruel jokes on you. And you want to be happy for them, you are happy for them, yet you cannot bring yourself to make the phone call, to send the email, to buy the "It's a boy" card. Not today, not on day 1. Or day 1 starts while you are on vacation and takes you by surprise, and you sit on a hotel bed, and hope you are not bleeding onto the sheets and you cry, and your vacation, your get away, your escape, just became your problem.

On day 1 you call your fertility doctor and leave a message, you will not be in for the pregnancy test, you need to schedule another appointment, you need to take out another loan, max out another credit card, and you wonder if you can go through this for another month, another 28 days.

On the first second you see your husband on day 1, you are safe, you know that there is at least one other person in the world that knows how you feel, that can hug you and kiss your cheeks, and tell you he is sorry and he loves you. You are a pitiful couple. He part of the reason you are not pregnant, yet you cannot blame him, you won't blame him, you don't have it in you to blame him, because you love him and he is already is blaming himself. He tells you so, and the guilt starts, why can't you just hold it together for him? But he is the only one who really sees you, hears the tears on your pillow, rubs his hands on your back. You heart breaks for him. He knows he is the one causing you all this pain and he cannot do a thing about it.

The hardest part is the lack of control. You have none. You have to give it to God, you cannot do this yourself, you cannot will yourself pregnant. You cannot! You have to believe this. You have to believe that as sad as you are that your period started, someone else in the world is sitting on a toilet that very moment overjoyed by this discovery. That somewhere someone is also going through your pain, that life is unfair, and bad things happen to good people, and people who don't want or can care for a child get one, and you do not.

1 comment:

  1. I am so proud of you. You are so strong and brave through our journey together. I love you.

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