Due Date

I’ve been in such a funk. And that’s an understatement, really. More accurately, I’ve been pretty damn depressed. I just can’t seem to stop mourning for the babies I lost, first in October, then in March. I feel so sad and angry and….alone. I feel like I want to cry out to the world, but the world feels I’ve had my allotted share of grieving time and why don’t I just stop whining and get on with things already. I stopped expressing my pain when I realized this – that my pain was frowned upon because I wasn’t that far along or because I should just be grateful that I have one healthy child or that enough was enough already and they were just tired of dealing with my sadness. Like there is a time limit on when you are supposed to snap out of it and “get over it.” Well, I’m not over it. I may never be over it.

Sometimes – most days even, I do just get past it and get on with things. But the first baby I lost was due yesterday, May 21st….and the closer we got to that date, the harder it got for me. I’m resentful about having to get up and go to work when I am supposed to be on maternity leave. And to go there and try and work through the day while everyone else is so wrapped up in the B.S. of office politics just seemed…pointless…empty…stupid.

I mean, there are more important things in life. And there are certainly more fulfilling ways to spend my time. Like nursing a newborn and losing sleep over the one thing in life worth losing sleep over…caring for baby.

But I’ve been robbed of that. Twice. And there I sat in my office, the day before my baby had been due, the baby who was no longer due that day or any day, or ever…there I sat listening to the complaining and feeling so empty….empty for the loss and empty for the fact that I sit in this place and serve little purpose to make the world – or even just myself – better.

And as I sat there, it happened. I started crying…not just crying even, but sobbing, unable to stop. So I picked up and left.

No, I didn’t quit, just took a couple of days off. I need to mourn, I need to rest, I need to just be. I need to honor the two little lives I lost. I need to accept that there may never be another child for me. That I may never have a second child and my daughter will never be the big sister she so aspires to be.

And it’s not that I am not willing to give it another try. I’m just so afraid of losing another. And I’m not sure my husband is willing to try either, not because he is hurting too badly, but because he hasn’t the faith that I can bounce back from a third loss.

Right now the whole idea has been tabled. By me. I don’t want to discuss it or even consider it until I am in a little bit of a better place, maybe once I can look at a pregnant woman without feeling sick inside.

I was getting there. But that due date just brought it all to the surface again.

The $358 Miscarriage

So yesterday I get a bill from the hospital for $313.00. This is for the ultrasound that confirmed my miscarriage. As if it’s not enough it cost me $45.00 for the parking ticket the day I had the D & C. A parking ticket for parking at a broken meter….like it is my fault the meter was broken. The meter wouldn’t take the damn $2.00 in quarters, so instead of charging me the $2.00, the city tickets me $45…yeah that makes sense.

Anyhow, this bill comes in the mail and I have to say I know I shouldn’t have let it, but it ruined my whole weekend. Why is my insurance not covering this? Is my coverage limited to one miscarriage per year? They paid for the first, second one is my responsibility? Why did my doctor send me there without making sure they would cover it? And why do these type of things always come in Saturday’s mail, when you can’t even call anyone to try and rectify it?

Instead it gets under my skin and irritates me for 2 days.

And yeah, I know it’s not necessarily the bill itself that bugs me. It’s the reminder. Like I needed a reminder. Like I don’t remember every single day.

I am sure tomorrow I will call the doctor, call the insurance company, call the hospital and somehow manage to find out who didn’t process what. And I am sure they will resolve it and I probably won’t have to pay a cent.

But I will have to pay in other ways. Spending hours on the phone dealing with the subject, undoubtedly crying as I am right now.

The worst part is, the baby from the first miscarriage was due this week. I should be planning my hospital stay, shopping for diapers, getting the last details of the nursery put together. Instead I get to argue with hospitals and insurance companies who don’t give a damn that my babies died, just as long as they don’t have to foot the bill.

I can say this much. I don’t care what they all determine, I am going to contest this bill. I refuse to pay. I’ve paid enough.

Rainy days and Fridays always get me down

It’s been flooding rain since sometime last night. The only thing worse than having to get out of bed on a rainy day is having to get out of bed early on a rainy day. Friday is the one day of the week I have to be at work at 8:00 AM, and the only morning I wake to the sound of an alarm clock. And while all you T.G.I.F.’ers are singing in the shower, I am crying the Monday blues. Having off Wednesdays and Thursdays makes for a wonderful midweek, but it also makes it all that much harder to punch that time clock come Friday.

Yes, I know what you are thinking, Boo freakin’ hoo…at least I have a part time job, and for that, I am luckier than some. (Then again, you haven’t experienced my workplace.) And yes, I agree, I have little room to complain about my schedule. And normally I wouldn’t even bring it up.

But today was harder than most. Lily woke at two in the morning, crying for me to take her to the bathroom. When I picked her up, her skin was hot to the touch and I knew what that meant…fever. I took her temperature…99.1, which isn’t actually considered fever, so I tucked her into my bed so I could monitor her.

So every five minutes, I would start to doze and wake myself up to check and make sure she was okay. By 2:30 she had risen to 100.1, and I knew it was only going to get higher, so I gave her some Tylenol. Another hour later, she was cool to the touch and I finally fell asleep, only to keep waking for fear of missing the alarm.

I must have woken every half an hour until 5:30 when I finally reached over and shut the thing off, because now I was simply too tired to be woken at 6:00. It makes no sense, but to me at the time, it was perfectly reasonable.

And so I slept until 7:00, stumbled to the coffee maker and into the shower. On Fridays, I only work until 11:45, so Jean-Marc stayed home with her for the first half of the day and I was on the afternoon shift. By the time I made it to work it was 8:30, so I had a big three hour work day and it all seemed barely worth the trouble of getting out of my p.j.’s…

At least Friday is payday. And Lily is fine other than her fever, which last peaked around noon, JM gave her Motrin…that is about to wear off, so we will see if her temp. goes up again.

Hoping to go to bed early and wake up to T.G.I.S.

Look at me, I’m blogging!

I’m officially starting this blog. I have the humor site and the various freelance projects, but right now I need a space to just write freely. So here I am, writing freely…

 Ummm….I don’t know what to say.  This is a rarity for me, so maybe I should step back and cherish the moment. You know, have a moment of silence in honor of my moment of silence…

I am also having a moment of silence just because I can. My three year old is in school and I am at home. ALONE. This doesn’t happen every day. The TV is off, the windows are open and all I hear are the birds chirping outside.

Well, that and the sound of the washer and dryer, churning away endlessly. Another forty or fifty loads and maybe they can take a break. I wonder if I did continuous laundry which would happen first…would I run out of clothes to wash or would the washer and dryer wear out and break down. I guess we have an experiment to try when summer vaaction rolls around….yippeeee!

Serioulsy, though, I am not going to sit here and blog about laundry. Not when I have this alone time to better utilize. I could be working out or running errands or writing a pulitzer prize winner. Or partying like it’s 1999.

If only my 1999 outfit still fit. Alas, it’s back to the fat clothes and dieting like it’s 2008. I need to walk to the post office because I missed the mailman this morning. So, at least I will get some exercise today.

And while I’m walking, I can think about what to write in my blog…