Yes, this blog is supposed to be all about the daily struggles of dieting — and I know I haven’t given you guys a good first blog post yet — but today didn’t seem like the right day to do it.  I fully intended to give you all the big, official introduction to my adulthood struggle with my weight, but I attended a very special event today that to want to touch on first.

On Friday, September 11, 2009, I was sitting in a room at my doctor’s office staring at the floor while he told me my 11-week old baby inside my belly had died.  I knew something had been wrong all week, and I already knew my doctor was going to say those exact words, but I still clung to a sliver of hope that just maybe my mother’s intuition was wrong.  Immediately afterwards, I barely remember the process of scheduling a procedure for the following Tuesday, a blur of filling out endless forms and signing any paper they shoved in front of my face…and it was all for nothing. The very next day, I miscarried at home, alone with my three children while my husband was at work.  It was fast, not as painful as I had imagined, and it ripped a permanent whole in my heart that will never heal.

I didn’t leave my house for two weeks after.  I only had one friend who didn’t seem to understand that when I said I wanted — no, needed — to be alone, that meant do not try to call and text me constantly.  I needed to be alone with my grief and pain.  Mental, emotional, and physical pain.  Every person who called, texted, emailed, or messaged me in any other form all said the same thing, that they were truly sorry for my loss and that it wasn’t my fault.

Wasn’t my fault?!  Of course it was! I am a woman, one of the things we can do that men can’t is grow a new life inside of us…and I failed.  I had already had 3 completely normal, uneventful, easy pregnancies. I will never be able to shake the thought that I did something wrong this time.  I failed as a woman.  I failed as a mother. Now, people, of course I know on an intellectual level that there is no way anyone will ever know the cause of an early miscarriage.  But try telling that to my heart, the heart’s not having any of that common sense business.

Back to the event I attended today… I participated in the Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day and 5K.  There was a ceremony before the 5K where each person could release a butterfly in honor of their lost baby or babies.  My youngest child came with me and I let her set the butterfly free since she is my little rainbow baby that came along the next year after my loss.  Guys, it was truly heartbreaking, yet uplifting at the same time, to see all of us (mostly strangers to each other) there crying, reliving that pain all over again while our butterflies flew free and our little ones who made it blew bubbles all around us.

No one wants to talk about death, especially the death of a baby.  But maybe if we did, all of us who’ve suffered through these losses wouldn’t be burying our grief everyday, covering it up with forced smiles and fake replies of “oh, I’m fine…” just because we’re afraid of making someone else feel uncomfortable talking about it. Right before I left my house today, I ran back to my piano and grabbed the giant box of Kleenex off the top and crammed it in my purse. Glad I did, too, I passed out tissues like I was running for election.  Tomorrow, I will commit myself to a daily routine of breaking down my dieting and why it is has been my biggest struggle for the last 17 years of my life. I promise.

But for today, I just needed to remember…🦋

~~Amie<<<<<<
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