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I cried again today.
I suppose it’s a good thing that it’s not every day anymore, but it still gets me at odd times. Today I was coming home from the grocery store and I had to cross the lane where the MacDonalds drive through lets out. A car pulled in front of me and this woman – it’s hard to judge the age of someone who has obviously lived hard: her skin was that odd leathery freckled consistency that speaks of hours in the sun unprotected and her voice, when she spoke to the kids in the back seat, spoke of many cigarettes smoked during her life – was unwrapping straws for said kids while she was driving. She can’t have been that much older than me, but I thought her more likely to be a grandma, than the mother of the two blond ringleted tykes in the back seat chomping on chicken nuggets. I can’t really make judgements on that single glimpse, but mother, or grandmother I felt a pang of… everything. I was upset that she got to be a grandmother while my mother didn’t – jealousy, regret and failure all at once. Even more so if she was a grandma because she started early and possibly even by accident. It seems so easy for people who seem less to deserve it than others. But that’s not fair either. Who is to say that she doesn’t love her kids/grandkids any more or less than I love mine? But perhaps she wouldn’t appreciate them as much because she didn’t suffer as many losses or have as much of a struggle as I did. But then she had other trials, most likely. And all at the same time I felt joy and love for the way she patiently answered the all their little questions as she waited for traffic. A kind of kinship because it’s these small moments between heartbeats that make life worth living.
Mere seconds. All it took was mere seconds, as she handed those straws back to the pudgy little hands for me to feel all of these things. That’s what makes this so complicated. There’s no rote, no rulebook, no path that makes infant loss easier. We don’t talk about it. It’s not out in the open, normalized.
Hell, women’s health isn’t even normalized. Periods? Ew, don’t talk about that. PCOS? Fibroids? Cramps? Ew, don’t talk about that. Miscarriage and infant loss? Oh no that’s something too terrible to contemplate! We don’t talk about either. Did you know that 20 – 26% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage? Known – meaning you’ve missed a period. Many more happen before that time. And no one knows exactly why. I mean I asked so many questions: did I eat the wrong thing? Did I do too much exercise? Not enough? Did I not get enough sleep? Likely the fetus was just not viable, but there were no reasons or answers about that either. Genetic testing can only give you so much information after all – and your child gets only 50% of your DNA and there’s no telling which 50% that will be so you cannot predict if this time will work or not.
Earlier in the day there had been an obviously exhausted young mother outside the pharmacy with a very new baby in a stroller who was fussing, as they do. I couldn’t help myself, I said “Aaaw, a new one!” She smiled wearily at me and I nodded back. I wanted to tell her she was doing a good job. I can only imagine how out of one’s depth one feels with a newborn, and she looked it. I wished it were me, even so.
So there were some tears behind my sunglasses as I trudged up the hill in the heat. There was no breeze today to ease the stickiness. The neighbourhood tuxedo cat, who lives in one of the houses below our building was sunning herself on her usual sun-dappled paving stone in the driveway, so I had to stop and give her the traditional tithe of pets and scritches. Her tiny body vibrated as she purred and rolled in the dust.
I think about how it’s still not too late for me to try again: I’m only mid forties. Way past optimal, considering anything over 35 is considered a geriatric pregnancy, but not impossible. But then I think of how many I have lost, even with fertility drugs and treatments and the roller coaster of emotions every time. I think of our twins, stillborn at 21 weeks and I am not sure my heart can take it.
Listening to: Seven Seconds by Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry