I was driving down the street under a canopy of colorful trees, and golden leaves were dancing and spinning down all around me, and it just made me want to squeal, "I love fall!"
And then I was out in that delicious should-I-wear-a-jacket-or-shouldn't-I weather, and we went to Halloween festivities as a family and out to celebrate Sam's birthday.
And it gave me an excuse to dress Alrik in this:
It reads "I love my mummy" and was a gift my niece bought Mikko
when he was born and she was 5 years old.
Here's Mikko in the same outfit, at a much younger age since he wouldn't have fit in it still for his first Halloween!
I really like the suggestion in the comments to teach gun safety rather than get caught up in trying to ban gun play altogether. I feel I could have benefited from something more along those lines myself.
Easy-to-follow tips on using Montessori methods in the infant & toddler years. I've been interested in Montessori for awhile but have trouble grasping how to put it into practice. I appreciate clear suggestions like these & see how I've already been doing them or could be doing them with things I have around the home.
Guest posts
I was honored to share about my miscarriage on Julia's blog, A Little Bit of All of It:
Writing about the experience and the emotions I went through was another important tool for helping me heal, and Julia has allowed me to share some of that work with you. If you'd like to read more of my parenting poetry, I have a whole book of it. Poetry of a Hobo Mama is available on Amazon (in various countries and for Kindle, which means you can download it to your computer or smartphone, too), or you can save 20% off the cover price at CreateSpace with coupon code SAP84AYJ — great idea for a holiday present for a new mama. (Just saying.)
Robin
Robin like the hope of spring
Robin like the blue of an egg, the peace of that blue filtering through me and healing
We buried you, Robin,
or maybe it was umbilical cord or placenta or blood (but let’s believe),
in the hardy mum that weathered
summer and winter, drought and flood,
one journey from East Coast to Midwest in the oppressive droopiness of summer,
and one from Midwest to West Coast in the blasting chills of winter,
and even my unmotherly indifference.
Will I one day be a Hardy Mum, Robin?
I feel more like a Bleeding Girl.
Julia is hosting a series of guest posts — some named and some anonymous — in honor of National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. It's such an important and meaningful thing to share these stories with each other, for corporate healing and the hope of reaching others who need to know we understand their grief and longing.
My first pregnancy ended in a lossat 10 weeks gestation. I chose to miscarry naturally, a process that took five long months and a great leap in trusting my body. I felt the pain, bleeding, and labor at home was a fitting end to my small baby's life. This is my story.
At ten weeks, my husband, Sam, and I went on a short, last-time-before-babies trip to London. On the plane ride back, the spotting started up again, this time with cramps.
We had a cat-sitting business, so we had to jump right back into work when we returned, visiting people’s houses to care for their pets. I kept sitting down while Sam performed the tasks. I felt awful, like a terrible period was coming, and the anxiety was even worse.
Just before we left our last house for the day, I went to the bathroom, and there it was: bright red blood, copious amounts. I began weeping in the car. I knew what this meant.
I hope no one got excited that this was my current birth story. I tried to be as clear in the title as possible. This new baby's still inside!
I feel like I've maybe done things a little backwards, giving you bits and pieces of Mikko's birth without ever posting his full birth story. I started this blog when he was three months old, and I never thought to go back and write this out for you. I had written it out for my friends and family around that same time, though (with Sam's contributions in italics), so I have it in its preserved freshness and hadn't actually read back through the whole thing since I first wrote it.
I had planned to edit this substantially, both for content and for length, but I kind of like the way I wrote it at the time. I'm even keeping my original photos and captions intact. I did add in some more recent links and notes, and I will make the concession of splitting it into two parts: home and hospital.
Here it is, then, from June 2007:
The tale of my birthing time, 42 hours of labor and a home birth-turned-hospital transfer, culminating in the all-natural delivery of our little guy — 11-pound, 13-ounce, Mikko.
My disclaimer as I sit down to write this, several weeks after the event, is that even if I’d written this the day after, I don’t know that I’d remember all the details clearly. I was in a (helpful) foggy state that let time pass one sticky moment at a time. Concentrating only on the now, I tried not to analyze what had happened so far or predict what would happen in the future (and how much longer it would take). That way panic lay…. I know we annoyed some relatives by not being more update-friendly during the birthing time, but that was the reason — we really were trying not to think in terms of progress and minutes ticking away.
This all to say that I might not get details exactly right, and I might be incorrectly remembering even how I felt at particular moments. But, this is my story, and no one else can tell it for me, so here goes my attempt at telling the birth of Mikko, my firstborn son, who’s talking to me on my lap as I write, waving his hands around and tasting the air with his tongue, and reminding me that everything about his birth was worth it.
[These bits in italics are me, Sam, the daddy, chiming in with a few recollections of my own from the 42 hours. I, however, promise to get all the details right, as my memory is so exquisite that I once made an elephant weep in self-pity.]
SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2007
Regular contractions began at 10 a.m. but weren’t intense enough to stop us from going about our daily business, as we had planned and as we had been advised. Little did we know it would be a couple days yet, and good thing we didn’t! We walked out of the apartment that afternoon to go to the post office one last time, and our neighbors across the street yelled down from their balcony, “Are you on your way to the hospital?” I laughed and said no and debated whether to tell them I was in labor but coming back after errands for a home birth. I just told them the baby was definitely coming soon and that my due date had already passed a day or so ago, and they were excited for us.
The rest of that day, Sam & I kept an eye on the clock every once in awhile to see if the waves were continuing and if they were getting closer together. I also napped for awhile while I still could do so comfortably. The contractions didn’t go away and they stayed regular, which made me happy and excited that I was actually, truly in my birthing time. I started listening to my Hypnobabies tracks. Hypnobabies is a version of self-hypnosis for childbirth, a method of deep relaxation and positive thinking.
Welcome to the Sunday Surf! Here are some of the best links I've read this past week.
Sam and I have been spending time with our heads in the books … the accounting books. It's that time of year again!
Generally speaking, I absolutely love being in business for ourselves, but at tax time I have to admit to envying all those of you with a simple W-2 and the option of using the free filing. Sigh.
Before I get back to my multiple Schedule Cs and trying to locate my unfortunately misplaced mileage log (gah!), I will share some reading for those of you with more time on your hands:
Up, Down & Natural is hosting a fabulous blog carnival called IF We Believe! The Stories & Faces of Infertility. You're invited to post on your own blog (or submit guest posts for Arpita to post) your stories, experiences, heartache and hope. Have you been going through infertility, or do you have a history of struggling to conceive? Or maybe you can share a story from a friend or loved one. The first carnival will take place during National Infertility Awareness Week, April 24-30, so see the post for details.
"I told him that no one, not even Mommy, was allowed to treat him with disrespect. I gave him permission to stand up to me and the tools to make it possible, even at his young age."
"Some of the shortest poems are the most touching, and will stay with me a long time. The images and words from others now frame my own experiences. She has a compelling poetic voice. Mothers, all mothers will recognise their lives, their hopes, fears, longing, frustrations and deepest love writ large in these poems."
As I approach my miscarriage-iversary date (10 weeks into my first pregnancy, and I am nine weeks into this one), my thoughts turn, again and again, to potential loss. I passed the six-week mark, which is when I began bleeding with my first pregnancy, but I have a sort of superstitious certainty that if I get past the 10-week mark, which is when the full-on hemorrhaging and cramping began, that I will be safe. That this pregnancy cannot be touched. That all will be well.
Only, I know from my second pregnancy, the pregnancy with Mikko, and his subsequent three years on earth, that this is not the case at all.
Not because anything untoward has happened, but because of continued awareness that something could. There is no time, ever, when a parent can sit back, relieved, and know that all danger is past. There are reminders everywhere.
I have entered a phase where my morning sickness mysteriously disappears in the morning, leading me to wonder if my pregnancy hormones have plummeted, heralding a miscarriage to come. The queasiness returns in the afternoons and evenings, when I am both miserable and relieved.
I speak with a friend, who tells me of her unexpected and unexplained miscarriage at 13 weeks. A full 3 weeks past my meaningless all-is-well date.
I read an article in Mothering about an accidental stillbirth — one I had passed over while pregnant with Mikko, when just the first paragraph terrified me. I make myself go back and read it after he is born, to acknowledge the frailty that is life and birth.
I read online of babies and children lost, some in the womb, some in birth, some as infants, toddlers, others as nearly full-grown teens. I grieve for these people, most of whom I don't know, and I try not to let them know of my presence beyond some first whispered words of condolence, because I fear my interest might be seen as ghoulish. But I want to assure them here, anonymously, it is not. I do not know what they are going through, but I know it is not a case of I-am-blessed-and-you-are-not. There is no fair. There is no protective curtain to keep me on the safe side and them on the grieving side. We are all in this together, and I mourn with them for these losses that affect us all.
I remember there was a man at our former church who died of a brain tumor at 36. He left behind a wife and two young children, and I forgot the exact ages of his children and wanted to find out, to know the enormity of the loss and to pray for the family. I typed his name into Google to search for his obituary. All I could find was a relentless list of all the people who had died on the same day he had — some sort of log done by an official record-keeping office. Beside each name was an age, and my eye was drawn to one male name with the age 15 years in parentheses after it.
I copied and pasted that name and found his CaringBridge site. This young man had been diagnosed with cancer four months previously and, now, like that, was gone.
I was really mad. I mean, how mean is that? To have raised your child to 15 years, and you're thinking, We're past the worst. We're past the uncertainty of pregnancy, the potential traumas of birth, the tender infancy, the illness- and accident-prone toddler years. To have gotten all the way to 15 must have seemed like a triumph for his parents — and then cancer takes him in four months.
Just today, it occurs to me. The 36-year-old man's parents? Must be thinking the same thing.
Once you're a parent, until you die, you can never fully exhale.
This post is not meant to be morose — no, I guess it is. Sorry about that, I guess. I think death is shuffled away in our culture, sterilized and glossed over, and we're not meant to think of how, sometimes, children die. If you want to see something heartbreaking yet also, somehow, more real than we are about death despite its superficial artificiality, check out Victorian death photography. There was a time when people knew for certain that life was fragile, that there was a good chance not all of your siblings would make it to adulthood.
Since we're so close to Halloween, let's think of this as a sort of Day of the Dead post, where we're allowed to celebrate and think about those who have left us while acknowledging that our hold over our own lives and those of our loved ones is tenuous.
For now, I'm going to appreciate this baby in me, even if our time together is fleeting (and I suspect it will be as long and lush as I hope), and I'm going to appreciate my loves who surround me much as I surround the little one inside.
To those who are grieving, I send you my deepest wishes for time to mourn, and time to heal. To those who are blissfully unaware of danger, I envy you even if I can't understand you. And to me, I say, Peace. Make peace with death. How else can I let go and live?
Welcome to the Sunday Surf! Here are some of the best links I've read this past week.
We usually have our family fun day on Sundays, but we chose yesterday instead: 40% chance of rain yesterday instead of 100% today. Yes, my friends, we have entered fall in Seattle. It's going to be all drizzle, all the time, from here till the baby is born.
I was talking to Mikko about the baby, whom I described as the size (currently) of a grape. He made the shape with his finger and thumb and said, "Like this, Mama?" Yes, like that. "The baby come out now?" No, I said, the baby will be inside until June. "What Joooon, Mama?" It's a month, I said, clearly in over my head now. It's when summer comes. It's fall right now, and then it will be winter, as it gets colder and colder, and then spring, and then the baby will come when it's almost summer. Mikko looked blank, so I continued. Fall and winter are when it rains and rains. He considers this, watching the rain streaming down our windows. "And the rain wash the baby out?" Hmm. I guess.
"Your Impact" from Code Name: Mama: Dionna's been hosting a Joys of Breastfeeding Past Infancy series that I've been glad to participate in and read. Dionna shares one mama's response to the series, a newfound confidence to continue nursing her baby past a year, even though she has no local support. It brings tears to my eyes when I think of the community and support we can offer each other online.
"The reality is that I’m not going to magically become super-productive while two kids scale the back of the chair I’m trying to work in. If I want to get something done, I need help. And so I decided to hire some. We put an ad on Craigslist, and found Wonder Nanny. She comes two mornings a week and plays with my children while I work. …
In a different time, I would live in a multi-generational community, where I would trade childcare with other adults and have back-up when I needed it. Here and now, I don’t have that. So I have hired my ‘community’. I will admit, I feel sort of awkward. …
I do need the help, though. I’ll admit it. This is my life, working at home with two kids, and I am doing my best."
As someone who trades off working and parenting time with my husband, mourns the dearth of alloparents, spearheaded a babysitting co-op among her friends, and still has fits of guilt over sending her son to preschool twice a week, all I can say is, Yes. It is so hard for attachment parents (particularly mothers) to let go of the idea that we can or should be our child's only caregiver. I don't think it's even natural in the sense of historically normal. But when we don't have volunteers handy, we have to pay for the privilege of giving our children more trusted adults to attach to and experience life with. To Amber, I say, Go for it, and enjoy! To myself, in my own mind, I wish I could wholeheartedly say the same thing. I'm getting there.
"Homebirth Hypocrisy" from Connected Mom: When I was growing up, it was the norm for people to die in hospitals or nursing homes. Now I've watched several older family members choose to spend their final days in their own homes, with the support of family and hospice workers. After millennia where dying at home was the expected thing, we've come around to allowing people once again to make that choice — or at least feeling that they should be able to. I can only hope the same acceptance comes back around for home birth.
"I write to give voice to those who cannot speak without their feelings being invalidated. I write for those who cannot or will not, for whatever reason, write for themselves. I am not so pretentious as to claim to know what all women feel, for we all experience loss differently and process it uniquely in our own due time, but I write to pay homage to all my sisters in pregnancy loss and to honor and validate their experiences."
"What Everyone Needs To Know About Infant Formula Ingredients" from Breastfeeding Moms Unite!: Melodie's done a great job of researching some of the stickier ingredients that go into infant formula. This post is not meant to condemn those who use formula but just to offer information that's hard to find out as a sort of informed consent that pediatricians typically are not offering.
"The worst epidemic you know nothing about" from mamapundit:
Drug overdoses typically do not end up in police reports or broadcast by the media, even though these injuries and deaths are happening all the time.
"Accidental drug overdose is currently the leading cause of injury-related death in the United States for people between the ages of 35-54 and the second leading cause of injury-related death for young people [after motor vehicle accidents]."
I know Henry's sad experience has inspired me to be as aware and proactive as possible when it comes to drug use and my children. I hope it's enough.
That was depressing, so now I want to end on a silly note. I laughed hard enough at "The 7 Most Useless Skymall Products (Reviewed Accordingly)" from Cracked that I cursed it as my choice of reading material while trying to soothe Mikko to sleep. That said, like all Cracked articles, it's juvenile and filled with bad language and sexual humor. So, you know, you're warned. Of course, that's why I like them.
You can win 25 custom photo cards from Photo Card Creations if you enter by this Tuesday, October 26. These chic, designer cards are worth about $62 and would be perfect for holiday greetings. Contest is open to U.S.
Prima Princessa Presents: Swan Lake DVD from Prima Princessa. My son lurves this preschool-friendly ballet DVD that introduces key vocabulary and dance concepts, shows and explains a professional production, and gives lots of time to twirl around in tutus and tiaras. My review was featured on TutuZone this week, so that was pleasant! This is a Region 1 DVD appropriate for U.S. and Canada. Enter by November 10.
I am joining Authentic Parenting and Baby Dust Diaries in doing a Sunday Surf! It's a way to bring you some of the best links I've read this past week.
There are a lot this week (and yet I'm still behind in my reading — how is that possible?). Plus, I'm in a hurry because we're going … to a movie! With our child! Yes, it's an experiment. We're going to see Toy Story 3 on a weekend matinee and hope the general chaos will drown out our own particular chatterbox. Wish us luck!
So … I'm going to just sort of list them, along with the notes I took when recommending them. 'K?
"The Semantics of Babywearing" from Code Name: Mama: Really interesting response to Janet Fraser's article on the term "babywearing" as being offensive.
"The Formula Experiment" from Tales of a Kitchen Witch Momma: This is so funny! I love kids making their own science. I in no way want this to become some sort of formula-user-bashing, because I know some mothers and babies need it, but I agree with the results of the experiment on a personal level. When Mikko was born, we supplemented with formula for a few days (based on very bad advice from a nurse); we had to suck the drink up the tube we were using, and I was astonished at how nasty the formula tasted. When we switched to fully expressed breast milk (and then, thank heavens, to fully breastfeeding), I was amazed (but not really) at how good it tasted!
"Why I Think Going to Blog Her ‘10 Would Be Like Going Back to High School" from Breastfeeding Moms Unite!: I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks about the pressure of interacting with other bloggers this way! Will you be my friends, dear readers and fellow bloggers, if ever we meet at a conference?
"gathering" from woman seeking mother: On gathering a support network during a time of illness, with her trademark clarity and lyricism.
"Preparing Your Body to Conceive" from Becoming Mamas: Reminds me of what I did to prepare for TTC! Did you do any special preparations when you were first thinking of becoming pregnant?
"Nobody puts baby in the crib!" from Connected Mom: Cosleeping vs. fear. This is the same reasoning I went through, and the same conclusion I made.
It's Father's Day here in the U.S., so happy Father's Day to all the connected dads I've been privileged to meet online and in person! Here are some fathering-related posts:
"Fatherhood Friday: Tribute to the dads" from Stay at Home Dad in Lansing: Wonderful links and a Year of the Dad Blog list of dad-blog reviews! Lots to add to your reader there.
I coached Mikko to tell Sam "Happy Father's Day" before we went downstairs this morning. So we came in view of Sam, and Mikko exclaimed, "Happy Father's Day!" And Sam said, "Happy farting day?!" Ah, well, we tried.
For more Father's (and/or Farting) Day celebration, here are my previous tributes to Sam:
Sam and I decided to wait at least a few years after we got married to start having kids. Three years turned into five, in a flash. We weren't ready. We were having fun. We waited a couple years more.
Finally, we felt some internal pressure. It was time.
I went off the pill and began charting. I started preparing my body — and Sam's, as much as he would let me. Boxers, I told him, and no hot showers, and here, take these supplements. We stopped drinking alcohol and caffeine, and I switched to natural cleaning and toiletry products. I was determined: We were going to get pregnant, and this baby was going to be safe.
I was 29 and a half and Sam was 30 when we started trying, which was a little behind my schedule, but we could still have a baby at 30, if not by anymore. Somehow this seemed important to me.
The first month, we decided to try all those old wives' methods for conceiving a girl, and nothing happened. After one unsuccessful try — yes, one — I was antsy. We threw those methods out the window and went all out.
Two cycles later, I was pregnant.
See? That was easy.
Pregnant? Not pregnant? Ah … it's a trick question.
We were feeling all superior and DINKsy to the people we knew who were obsessed with pregnancy and children and parenting (um, you might be able to tell I've turned around on this by now), so we didn't really tell anyone around us. We thought we'd wait past the magical first-trimester mark when risk of miscarriage decreases. We did tell our parents, who immediately started buying baby clothes and giving us ideas for names and arguing with our decision not to have an ultrasound to find out the gender even though that was months off.
At six weeks, I went to my ballet class as usual (because I wasn't going to let this baby business interfere with my regularly scheduled life), and I was horrified to see spotting when I came home. I lay down on my left side (the side that's supposed to be most protective) and crossed my fingers and my legs. The next day, I called the midwives we'd settled on but hadn't yet seen for an official appointment. The one I talked to was reassuring on the phone but couldn't tell me much other than to keep an eye on it. If it subsided, it was probably nothing. If not, well, sometimes that happened.
A few days later, the spotting stopped. I checked nervously at every pee break for the faintest tinges of pink on the toilet paper, but there was nothing more. In retrospect, I realize I subconsciously decided not to get too attached to this baby, just in case.
As a last hurrah, and even though we had absolutely no money for it, we jetted off to London for a short vacation. We figured it would be our last child- and fancy-free time. I was ten weeks along.
I hadn't been feeling morning sick. I hadn't really been feeling much at all, apart from some soreness in my breasts. I had continued temping for a little bit after my pregnancy test came back positive, until a slightly lower temperature — not under my coverline but enough of a dip to spook me — made me back off and put the thermometer away. I took a couple pregnancy tests, but the second wasn't quite as dark, so those, too, I had sworn off. The early spotting was another sign something was wrong, but I didn't want to believe it.
My ill-fated chart
On our flight back from London, I started feeling crampy. I think I began spotting in the airplane bathroom. The next day, as we were back in our swing of cat sitting (our home business at the time), the spotting continued and got worse, and the cramps became nearly unbearable. It was the weekend, and our first prenatal appointment was Monday. I bled all that weekend and knew — I had lost the baby.
I couldn't believe how hard it hit me. I couldn't talk without sobbing. I tried telling my parents on the phone and broke down about the second word in. There was more blood than I imagined possible, and it hurt — a lot.
Sam and I wallowed. We drove to the store and picked up some caffeinated soda, then drove to the liquor store and stocked up on several assorted bottles for good measure. What had been the point of all that good behavior?
On Monday, we drove to our first prenatal appointment and told our midwives the sad news. They were astonished we had come in at all and told us we could have called to cancel. Somehow, I needed to see someone in person, though, to be reassured that all this bleeding and pain were normal, if not welcome, and that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with me and my reproductive abilities.
We started the process of explaining to our friends why I couldn't be bothered to go out and see them, and why, when I finally did, I was depressed and blotchy and apt to burst into tears at any moment. It was awkward, considering we hadn't told our friends we were pregnant, to tell them we'd lost the pregnancy. But I lost my concern about appearing strong and stoic and only wished they'd been in on it all with us the whole time. I decided that any future pregnancies would be announced right away, not despite the threat of loss, but because of it.
I started telling strangers, too. It was all I could think about, after all. And I found out that I was not alone, not by a long shot. I was part of a vast sisterhood of grieving mothers, and many had far sadder stories than mine. Not that it was a contest — they all welcomed me in, and we commiserated together. I found out that behind the facades of even the largest and most fertile families often lay heartbreak. I found out both my grandmothers (with four and five living children each) had had miscarriages, and that my aunt had had several between her two boys.
I heard a range of reactions to losing a pregnancy, as well. Some women were casual about it, particularly if they had other children to care for or had not even known they were pregnant. But if the baby had been dearly wanted and there had been no other successful pregnancies, like with mine, women were most apt to be upset. It's a betrayal of your body, and it bodes ill for the future. I knew now I could get pregnant, but I had no idea whether my body could be trusted to sustain life. It had royally failed me in its first attempt. I didn't know what stretched out before me — would it be a string of losses? Was this just the first crushing blow in a series?
Our grieving process included taking melancholy photos of ourselves on the beach.
I went back to church tentatively, and wouldn't you know? The first Sunday back, they were introducing the new elder board. One of the prospective elders stood up and cheerfully pointed out his wife and two daughters and then announced, "And we're having a third, due in October!" I burst out sobbing and had to leave for the bathroom. Our baby would have been due in October. This man had stolen my baby. And he already had two! Why did he need ours? I knew it was irrational, but I couldn't get over how jealous I was. When I'd see a pregnant woman at the store, I would have a mean and hidden desire to run over and kick her in the stomach. Hideous, I know, and don't worry — I never acted on it. The worst was when people would talk without any fear at all about how they were planning their pregnancies and how their baby was due on such and such a date, and I'd think, You don't know that! It could all turn upside-down for you, too. And then I'd get even madder thinking, it probably wouldn't. Probably all their plans would work out perfectly on the first try, and they'd think that was normal.
At least we still had cats to care for.
My looming 30th birthday was even more horrifically mocking than I'd anticipated. I had no baby, and now not even a promise of one. I had optimistically signed myself up for email and mailing lists, and I kept receiving callously chipper reminders that "You are now in your second trimester! Congratulations for making it this far." I boxed up all the maternity clothes I'd bought and shoved them into the farthest reaches of the closet (so well hidden that I didn't find all of them until after Mikko was born).
I also belatedly became attached to the baby I'd lost. I named him (and decided it was a he). I buried some of what I believed to be him in a plant that has great meaning for me. I wrote a lot of poetry. A lot. I resolved to love any future baby starting the minute after conception. I'd rather love recklessly and freely than withhold and be stingy and feel like I'd missed my opportunity — again. But I felt, somehow, that this baby forgave me my detachment and released me of any guilt surrounding this, my first attempt to be motherly.
I decided to miscarry naturally, which was part philosophical, part penance, and part financial. My miscarriage ended up lasting five long, bloody months, which I realize in hindsight was a wee bit too long. That last month, finally, a retained piece of tissue was birthed in a pain-wracked night, and I was at long last fertile again. I became pregnant the next month.
That pregnancy? Mikko.
Strong and sure, a BFP.
I tell this story not to garner sympathy, because I honestly don't feel in need of it anymore. I'm not upset that I was at the old, old age of 31 when he was born. I didn't have that string of miscarriages, and my heart aches for the women who do. Losing a pregnancy at ten weeks is nothing compared to … etc., etc.
I tell this story so anyone who's going through this and is in the stage of wanting to kick women who are pregnant will know: You're not alone. Even that tauntingly pregnant woman might
Go ahead — you can punch the screen
if it makes you feel better.
have had five miscarriages up until this point, and if she didn't — well, sucks to be you, but you're part of a large coterie of suckiness. It's a sad communion, but it's real. Also? It gets better. The pain is never taken away, but you eventually heal. Miscarriage is normal, it's common (oh, so very common), and it is not easy. I know this.
I send my deepest sympathies to any of you dealing with loss, and I hope you can share your stories and find comfort as well.
I'm Lauren Wayne, writer and natural parent. I embrace attached parenting with an emphasis toward green living.
Riding the rails with my husband, Crackerdog Sam, and our hobo kids, Mikko Lint Picker (born June 2007), Alrik Irontrousers (born May 2011), and Karsten (born October 2014). Trying every day to parent intentionally and with grace.
I'm honored to have the second part of my guest posting on pregnancy loss over at 
(in various countries and 
which means you can 
too), or you can 
tracks. Hypnobabies is a version of self-hypnosis for childbirth, a method of deep relaxation and positive thinking.
. And I am so very pleased to share 
hemorrhaging and cramping began, that I will be safe. That this pregnancy cannot be touched. That all will be well.
from 
from 
There are a lot this week (and yet I'm still behind in my reading — how is that possible?). Plus, I'm in a hurry because we're going … to a movie! With our child! Yes, it's an experiment. We're going to see Toy Story 3 on a weekend matinee and hope the general chaos will drown out our own particular chatterbox. Wish us luck!
It's Father's Day here in the U.S., so happy Father's Day to all the connected dads I've been privileged to meet online and in person! Here are some fathering-related posts:
I'm Lauren Wayne, writer and natural parent. I embrace attached parenting with an emphasis toward green living. 
