Miscarriage

Miscarriage: It’s Funny How Life Works Out

April 4, 2022April 5, 2022 RaeAnna

It’s funny how life works out. I’ve spent the better part of thirty years telling people I don’t want kids. Those closest to me knew I wasn’t being honest with myself. If I’m telling truths, I knew I was lying to myself the entire time. I finally found the missing puzzle piece. I’m full gay, and the idea of having a baby or two with a woman doesn’t make me nauseous or feel like the world is collapsing in on me. On the contrary, I really would like that someday with the right partner. Wow, no nausea.

My life would not be what it is if I had become a mother, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get sad sometimes.

Today is the seventh anniversary of what should have been my due date had my body decided to keep my baby instead of yeeting my baby. (I’m really proud I know that slang term, and yes, I giggle every time I read that, so you can too.) I’ve written about the grief and the opposing feelings of grief and relief going along with my miscarriage. There’s a new feeling starting to creep into my soul on the topic. Anxiety. Which I’m probably going to talk about at some point, but that’s not really where I want this piece to go. Nothing but time to let those feelings marinate.

Life is funny. In a deeply dark and very rude way.

Shockingly, my baby was not an immaculate conception. Though, I was on birth control at the time. I got pregnant with a man, Rob*, who I was very much in love with at the time and still love to this day. That being said, he was an absolute ass hat when he put me up the duff. He would be happy to tell you exactly the same but probably less nicely.** He and I had met four summers before while I was vacationing in San Diego. We kept stayed in contact via Facebook and text. I visited a few times. We went in and out of touch. The games life plays. After I graduated college and he’d gotten out of the military, we both ended up in the teensiest bumfucknowhere town an hour south of Chicago. Long story short, we got drunk separately and ended up at one of two bars in town on Fourth of July 2014. Longer story short, he dropped me off at my home the next morning, and I basically never saw him again. What a dick!

Three months later, oopsies, I was in the family way. And very much alone. Past the point of being able to take care of my problem. I was a mom. Motherhood was not in my plan. Especially not in my 23 years old, just graduated from college, had a big-girl job in the city, finally ready to live my life, single plans. What the fuck, birth control? Call me Myrtle. I was fertile. But, I embraced this new life plan. Fully. I was on board with what was on board me because the baby was conceived out of love and being grown with love. I started dreaming and planning and preparing. Then I miscarried. Grief. So much grief. I drowned in grief for months. There’s still grief. Also relief because again… 23, new college grad, corporate job, single. Did I mention I was 23? I was relieved. Sad but relieved. I also went through it alone. At the time, there was no possibility in my mind of including or even telling Rob.

Here’s where life gets funny. A few months ago, Rob reached out with an apology letter. A real, hand-written, sent in the mail letter. I was bowled over. The thing about our story is that we were very much in love without having ever been together. He may know me better than just about anyone. Still to this day. He knows my heart in a way very few people do. We fell in love at a distance, but we were only ever best friends. If life were a Hallmark movie, this would be our moment to create the family we almost had seven years ago. But I’m gay! And he holds far too much guilt over what he did to me.

Suffice to say, his letter rekindled the friendship we once had. Instead of me in Iowa and him in San Diego talking constantly, I’m in Texas, and he’s in Illinois. We talk frequently, almost daily. It’s going to take some time for us to go back to what we once were. What was so amazing about the aftermath of the letter is the conversation we were finally able to have about my baby. Our baby. Which is a really fucking weird thing to say after almost eight years of referring to the baby that never was as mine. That baby can now belong to us both. We can share that grief in a way we couldn’t eight years ago because he did find out about my miscarriage in a really fucked up way. This story is long and great fodder for the writer in me. So buy the book at your local bookstore… someday.

I just had to stop and message him to tell him I’m writing this because holy shit after nine years (our timeline is weird), I am finally able to text him freely again. I have one of my closest friends back. That was the thing. Tied up in all the grief over losing my… our baby, I was also grieving over the loss of my best friend and a man I loved deeply. Losing him was physically painful. I wrote so many letters. I kept copies, and to this day, I can’t read them because of the pain I can still feel in my chest. My baby was ripped from my body, but I felt like my heart was too. I lost two people. I grieved over someone I would never get to know, and someone I knew all too well.

Knowing someone as deeply as we knew each other, I knew exactly why Rob left me. I knew exactly what he was thinking. I knew in my core that one day he would reach out. I knew that even though he treated me like shit, his heart, as misguided as it was, was doing it for what he thought to be all the right reasons. The years faded the pain of both losses. I stopped glancing around corners in the grocery store. I stopped listening for his name when I saw mutual friends. I stopped pretending to be happy when I passed him at the gas station. When I moved across the country, I left the last connection we had. I stopped hoping he would reach out, which turned into a faint possibility that had no actual impact on my life. When I talked about him, it was always with warmth and love because I could never let the bad ending (we’ll call it a hiatus now) tarnish the great years we had together and every wonderful thing he did for me. Rob, the best friend, was always separated from Rob, the baby daddy, in my mind.

Then he did reach out. Exactly one month after the seventh anniversary of my miscarriage. And my best friend walked back into my life.

Miscarrying was one of the most emotionally taxing things I’ve been through. It has long and lasting repercussions; some of which I’m just starting to grasp. As I look to my potential future as a mother, I know my relationship with miscarriage is not over. I know I am going to have to confront my feelings and anxieties if and when I get pregnant. I know when I do get pregnant, it’s going to be a choice with a partner who I will love beyond measure and trust to hold my hand through every step of the way. I never faulted him for leaving me because he didn’t know how that night would end, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt for years.

But today will always be the day I honor the baby I’ve never held. For the first time, I’m getting to share today with the man who helped me make that baby. In a way, today is easier because I have him back. I know how hard it was for him to send me the letter in November… I have always known his heart. He put words to his vulnerabilities, and I took a chance. I am grateful for the baby I wanted to raise. I’m grateful for the man who gave me those thirteen weeks. I am grateful that I get to call him a friend again.

*He specifically asked to be named, so Rob is his real name.
**He was the very first to read this before it went public.

bisous un обьятий,
RaeAnna

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Due Date-Versary

April 4, 2020March 23, 2022 RaeAnna

If my body had done what it was supposed to five years ago, I would be throwing a quarantine birthday party for my five year-old son or daughter right now.

Instead, I’m cuddling my new babies. | Texas Shirt | Yoga Pants | Earrings | Chair |

Having children has never ever been a part of my life plan. Being a mother is not something I have ever craved. It has been something I’ve avoided like the plague. When I am sexually active, I obsessively avoid getting pregnant by using birth control and condoms. I’ve even gotten Plan B when condoms break because NOPE. I have enough money set aside to take care of problems if need be. I’m that kind of person.

I was that kind of person when I found out I was thirteen weeks pregnant in early fall of 2014. Miracles happen, I guess. It was too late to do anything about being pregnant. I was pregnant. I was going to be a mom. I was very much alone in my soon-to-be-parenting party. It hit me like a truck. I started planning and dreaming and getting excited because that was the only option, so I embraced it. Then, I had a miscarriage. I was mostly devastated. Relief came several weeks later as the tears slowed and the dreams faded.

As the years go by, the feelings are less poignant; the hurt is less sharp; the dreams are hazier. I still get sad. Sometimes, I even cry when I watch kids movies. Every once in a while, I think about what my life would look like had my body not failed at one of its main biologically female tasks. As ready as I was financially, in my career, and at that point in my life, I had never planned on being a mom. Five years later, my feelings have not changed: I’m sad and relieved. Those feelings can go together. You can be sorrowfully content with a miscarriage. You don’t have to have just one feeling. You are allowed to feel all the feelings whatever they are, no matter how at odds they may be with one another. It does not make you less of a woman. It does not make you less of a mother. It does not make you less of anything. It makes you a complex human, who is coping with a really difficult physical, mental, and medical situation.

Miscarriages are rarely talked about. That is starting to change as women speak about women’s issues more and more openly. Thank you to all the women on social media who are deciding to be vulnerable and honest about the crap we go through. When miscarriages are talked about, it’s usually about how overwhelmingly sad and painful they are. They are. I’m not going to lie to you about that. It’s true. It sucks. It’s sad. It’s the worst. There can also be some real positives coming out of miscarriages. They’re not apparent at first, but over the months and years as your mind and body heal, things start to look and feel better.

The majority of miscarriages happen because, for whatever reason, the body knows the baby shouldn’t come into the world for one biological reason or another. You can do everything right starting months before conception and still have a miscarriage. (Granted that was not me. Accident baby. Although, I didn’t really do much wrong.) Miscarriages happen. They happen for almost always good reasons. All babies are perfect, but not all babies are meant for this world.

Loving the babies I have on this sad day. | Texas Shirt | Yoga Pants | Earrings |

Positives of miscarriages differ from person to person. One thing I can say for everyone, the life we have in this moment is not at all the life we would have had had that baby come into the world. For some of us, that’s a bad thing. For some of us, that’s a good thing. For some of us, it’s just a thing. I have an incredible life. I wouldn’t change it for the world. I would, under no circumstance, have this life with a five year old.

I would not…

have the boyfriend I have now.
had the freedom to quit my corporate job, the stable paycheck, the benefits.
be a freelance writer and blogger.
be able to sit on the couch and do nothing for hours on end.
live in Houston.
travel as much or the way I do.
have Beau in my life.
have been able to pick Tess up off the side of the road.
have the time, energy, or money to take care of thirteen puppies.
have found or reconnected with my truest passions in life.
be chasing my wild, crazy, unrealistic dreams.
have the friends I do.
walk around pantless all the time.
read as much as I do.
stay up late doing whatever the fuck I want to whenever the fuck I want to.
have the body I do.
have a savings account with money in it specifically for travel (which happens often) and/or buying things I decide I need right now (which never happens, but it’s nice to know it’s there).
be me the way I am right now.

I have no idea what my life would look like had Paeton Rae been born. I know I would have a corporate job with good benefits and a salary high enough to pay for everything she/he/their needs and wants and for us to go on a family vacation once a year. I know there would be a bedtime, healthy snacks, play dates, trips to the park, time outs, library trips, tantrums, snuggles, bedtime reading, dance parties, messes, and a lot of other things my life does not have right now. I would have loved that life for what it was, but that was never my dream. I never had to make the decision to not be pregnant, to not be a mom; my body did that for me. I was sad. I am sad. I miss the life I could have had and holding the baby I never got to hold.

But.

I love my life. I see the blessing the sadness of my miscarriage was. I see all the opportunities and possibilities my life still has in store for me that would not have been possible as a single mom to a five year old.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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In My Own Words, Lifestyle

April 5, 2019June 23, 2019 RaeAnna

I’ve tried writing this in several different ways. None of it feels quite right. Then again, nothing feels quite right about having a miscarriage.

Today was my due date four years ago. A due date that never came. I miscarried at thirteen weeks. My heart broke in a million different ways. I don’t really know how to describe that kind of loss. It is its own kind of grief.

I had never wanted to be a mom. It was something I actively avoided. This pregnancy was a surprise and with the wrong man. When I found out, I was almost in my second trimester and very alone. My life changed in a moment. I went from a recent college graduate to a mom. I didn’t want kids, but I wanted that one very much. I was in a place in my life where having a baby was more than feasible. I had a job and was looking into buying a house. Single motherhood was terrifying, but I was in a place where I could have made it work. I was going to make it work. I wanted everything that came with it.

I never bought the house. I didn’t keep the job. I never became a mom. I lost the baby.

When I found out I was pregnant, something happened. I wanted to protect my baby from the world. My baby would grow up knowing how loved and protected it was. I couldn’t protect it from my body; the thing that was supposed to nourish it, grow it, protect it. My body failed me. Failed my baby.

Standing in the shower has always been the place I’ve felt safest to cry. The morning I miscarried, the water washed away the tears and the blood. It couldn’t wash away my guilt or my grief. It took months to shake the guilt. The grief has dulled but has never gone away.

Being a mom is not high on my list of things I ever want to be. Honestly, I don’t want to have kids. I still want the baby I never got to hold. There is an ache. In the short time I knew I was pregnant, I had so many dreams and plans. I saw a new life. That life never happened. In so many ways, having a miscarriage was the best thing for me. The responsibility of motherhood would have kept me from following the dreams I’m just starting to find. Even though my body knew what was best, my heart still hurts.

Had my body not betrayed me, I don’t know where I would be now. I know I would have done everything for my son or daughter. That baby would have been my life. Instead of writing this, I would be finishing up the plans for a birthday party this weekend. A golden birthday party for my four year old little boy or girl. Paeton Ray. I chose a name the day I miscarried. I couldn’t just think of it as my baby, who wasn’t meant to be. I’ve never said that name out loud. This is the first time I’ve written it. Gender neutral. Similar to mine, RaeAnna Kay.

It’s been four years. I don’t cry every time I think about my miscarriage anymore. I’ll even go days without thinking about it. The pain can still creep in at the oddest times. April 4th has been a hard day the past four years. I can’t watch children’s movies without thinking about watching them with my baby. A year and half after my miscarriage I went to Inside Out with four of my guy friends from college. I ended up breaking down in the parking lot. It was impossible to find the words to explain, to make sense of it. It’s grief. Grief doesn’t go away, and it doesn’t always make sense. We live with it. It’s one thing to grieve a person you knew. It is another thing entirely to grieve someone you love so completely but never knew. I’ll always grieve a life I will never live with the baby who changed my heart.

I was laying on the couch this morning. Beau was on my chest with her head snuggled into my neck. She is the one being I love anywhere close to how much I loved my baby. I had never thought about it, but Beau is almost exactly the same age my baby would have been.