The past week, as you can probably guess from my lack of posting, has been particularly stressful. It is the result of the on-going kitchen project, coupled with Rob's week of finals and my own work updating the studio schedule for summertime classes. We feel frayed. Or, more accurately, I feel the low boil of irritation just under the surface of my previously calm life. I haven't felt the results of stress in a long time - not since getting out of the military and getting settled into civilian life. Sure, there's the occasional stress from a deadline, or test, or crazy drivers or something, but not the kind of stress that quietly builds up until you feel like you might just crumble. Thank goodness for my yoga practice...I prefer not to imagine how I'd feel (or how I'd manage) without it.
So we are taking it easy this weekend. The kitchen project had a three-day weekend, which has been great. Nobody in the house but us! Mostly we're sleeping...a LOT. Now we're settled in for the rest of our Sunday (having ventured out for groceries), calling fathers to wish them a happy day, and sipping tea.
On our way home from groceries we spotted a dad and his young daughter kicking a soccerball in the park. She was spinning around with a jacket on her head, and he was laughing and chasing down the ball. Rob looked over wistfully and commented on how sweet it was. I agreed, and felt a familiar ache...
This would have been Rob's first Father's Day. This time last summer, I was pregnant with our first baby. We were overjoyed, figuring out the due date, coming up with names and watching my body change - even in that first trimester. Then we got the phone call from the midwife - hormone levels didn't look good, she gently told me. She probably already knew what I couldn't accept: I'd already lost the baby, it was just a matter of time until the bleeding began. At eight - nine weeks I had what we all thought was a miscarriage, and while it was true that our baby had passed away before it even really got a foothold on life, we later learned that we had not yet reached the end of the pregnancy.
As it turned out, I had an ectopic pregnancy. The embryo, placenta, yolk sac, everything had implanted in my right fallopian tube. Because I had zero risk factors for this, and wasn't far enough along to have had an ultrasound yet, nobody suspected it. We all assumed that when I started bleeding, it signaled the end of the pregnancy. So, when I developed a horrific pain in my lower right abdomen about two weeks later, I thought I had appendicitis! Thinking it might be a complication from the miscarriage, my doctor sent me for a same-day ultrasound where we found out that I was, in fact, still pregnant.
Thus began the longest summer we have ever known. Treatment for ectopics have come a long way, but women are still left with only two options: surgery to remove the mass and the tube, or chemotherapy (a drug called methotrexate, to be specific). Neither option is particularly palatable, but the alternative is the likely rupture of the tube - and possible death of the mother. In my case, the embryo looked to be about six weeks gestation, and had no heartbeat. Since I was technically 10 - 11 weeks along, it was clear that it had passed away awhile before the "miscarriage". It was the placenta that posed a threat to my well-being. It grows on auto-pilot, from what I understand, and I would have been taking a huge risk if I'd waited for my HcG levels to drop enough to get it to stop growing. Since I did not want to undergo abdominal surgery, no matter how "relatively minor" the incision would be, I chose methotrexate.
That was June 26, 2006, almost a year ago. I was bedridden for over a week after treatment (which consists of one injection in each buttock), and had relapses of debilitating pain intermittently for the rest of the summer. I couldn't bend over or lift my legs higher than was required to shuffle down the hall. Passing anything - gas, urine, a bowel movement, was absolutely excruciating. I could barely make it through the post-treatment exam at my midwife's office. My whole pelvic region was swollen and irritated - due to the inflammation from the ectopic, plus the drugs, plus the by-products of the bio-matter breaking down inside of me. This didn't even begin to compare to the feelings of loss: from my perspective, we had lost our baby not once, but twice. It was too much to bear, so we concentrated on helping my body heal.
Coming up on the anniversary of this life-changing event, and realizing its proximity to Father's Day, is very bittersweet. I am thankful to be on the other end of it, and that my body has finally recovered. Rob and I grew together in ways I never knew possible, as I literally depended upon him for everything, and there were more than a couple of times when he thought I might die. We mourned the loss of that pregnancy, even while we hold tightly to the hope that it will not be our last. The stress of last week makes all of this feel very close to the surface. Perhaps, that is the gift of stress - it pulls away the heavy curtain that keeps difficult feelings or experiences at bay. Without that curtain, I can see more vividly into my past, I can feel old emotions as if for the first time, and recognize how very many of them I still carry.
My yoga practice and study of yogic philosophy has taught me that while we say that our hearts ache, in actuality the heart is the strongest aspect of humanity. It represents the home of the spirit in the physical body, and the spirit is much stronger than the body or the mind. So, while today I feel the familiar ache of loss and grief, I know that my heart is far from "broken". In losing my pregnancy I lost my innocence, but through my healing process I also learned to shed a very controlling aspect of myself, as well as a very fearful one. Indeed, a version of myself died last summer, but from its ashes a stronger, more vibrant, more thankful woman arose. This is the gift of loss, and the gift of stress has shown it to me again.
Happy Father's Day.
