{"id":3172,"date":"2012-10-13T06:22:36","date_gmt":"2012-10-13T06:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/?p=3172"},"modified":"2014-10-02T18:47:44","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T01:47:44","slug":"recovering-emotionally-from-miscarriage-hemorrhage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/2012\/10\/recovering-emotionally-from-miscarriage-hemorrhage\/","title":{"rendered":"Recovering Emotionally from Miscarriage &amp; Hemorrhage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This list is for those women who are recovering from miscarriage (or serious hemorrhage as a result) &#8211; and possibly more importantly, it&#8217;s for their partners and loved ones.<\/p>\n<p>This month has felt like a roller coaster in some ways and I can honestly say that I would not have emerged as healthily as I have without the encouragement of my friends and family.<\/p>\n<p>My story,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/2011\/02\/a-miscarriage-and-an-unexpected-turn-of-events\/\" target=\"_blank\">Miscarriage and an Unexpected Turn of Events<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I have simply listed what I felt &#8211; and I have decided to categorize it all as normal. I do want to say regarding the &#8220;<em>Guilt &#8211; was it my fault?&#8221;\u00a0<\/em>entry, don&#8217;t worry about reassuring me. Technically, I\u00a0<strong>know\u00a0<\/strong>it probably wasn&#8217;t my fault but those feelings are a natural and probably necessary part of the grieving process.<\/p>\n<p>These are just some of the things I&#8217;m moving through or have already passed.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/2011\/03\/recovering-from-miscarriage-one-month-later\/\">Recovering from Miscarriage, One Month Later.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I hope this is a help for those of you who are going through this. I will not minimize your pain by trying to make it ok. It isn&#8217;t ok. But, know you are not alone and even if I don&#8217;t know your name, I am saying a prayer for your healing even as I write these words.<\/p>\n<p>Blessings&#8230;Monna<\/p>\n<p><strong>Emotional<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Numb\u00a0<\/em>&#8211; at first. Too exhausted to even think of what had happened.<\/p>\n<p><em>Fear\u00a0<\/em>&#8211; about the actual miscarriage. For about a week, I had bad dreams and had a hard time not thinking about it. Remembering stuff I&#8217;d forgotten like<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>being on oxygen from the time I was in the ambulance until after my D&amp;C<\/li>\n<li>discovering I&#8217;d been categorized in &#8220;Critical&#8221; condition &amp; figuring out &#8211; it&#8217;s not good.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Fear\u00a0<\/em>that I\u00a0<em>will\u00a0<\/em>get pregnant again and that I&#8217;ll lose the baby or go through a scary miscarriage again (highly unlikely).<\/p>\n<p><em>Fear\u00a0<\/em>that I\u00a0<em>won&#8217;t<\/em>\u00a0be able to get pregnant again (because I do want more children &#8211; Whoa. Did I just say, child-ren?)<\/p>\n<p><em>Guilt\u00a0<\/em>that maybe\u00a0<em>I<\/em>\u00a0did something to cause this. My reasonable side knows it may be impossible to prove exactly what happened &#8211; which is why doctors and midwives always say, &#8220;There&#8217;s nothing you could have done to cause or prevent this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But, my mom&#8217;s guilt kicks in anyway and I check the laundry list of everything I&#8217;d eaten, done, how much sleep I&#8217;d gotten and possible incidents of bad karma. I know I will probably never know if it was just genetic or something else. I&#8217;m convinced this is a natural part of grieving a baby lost in utero.<\/p>\n<p><em>A return to reason<\/em>\u00a0&#8211; We mothers are programmed to protect our young and being unable to do that with an unseen child is an excruciating experience. Thankfully, I remembered that babies are born to moms with poor nutrition and even moms on crack. Women who have nothing close to the nutrition and healthy lifestyle I&#8217;m fortunate enough to have carry babies to term.<\/p>\n<p>In the end I trust that, for some reason, this baby was not meant to be here now. I don&#8217;t like it but I have faith that it is true.<\/p>\n<p><em>Guilt\u00a0<\/em>that I&#8217;d always hoped I would never be a part of the group of women who have lost a baby. I always grieved with friends and even acquaintances who went through a miscarriage and then secretly prayed, &#8220;Please, not one of mine.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Bursts of grief\u00a0<\/em>at odd times, like when I &#8211;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>realize there are certain foods I can now eat that I couldn&#8217;t eat just a few weeks ago because I was pregnant<\/li>\n<li>see pics of newborn babies on friends&#8217; facebook pages or meeting pregnant women in the grocery store<\/li>\n<li>recalculate what I&#8217;ll be able to do this summer and fall because I won&#8217;t be completing a pregnancy and taking care of a newborn<\/li>\n<li>read the children&#8217;s books to my girls that we read before bedtime the night of the miscarriage<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Anger\u00a0<\/em>about random, unimportant stuff &#8211; such as a nasty coffee drink and wi-fi not working at a coffee shop I visited.\u00a0<strong><em>So\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>not my normal tendency.<\/p>\n<p><em>Anger\u00a0<\/em>&#8211; This is kind of embarrassing but I felt this way toward people who didn&#8217;t realize how serious my miscarriage was (this is completely unfair but who says the grieving process is rational?). Or who minimized the experience with comments like, &#8220;Well, it&#8217;s over. Now you can move on with your life.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Jerk<\/em>. Or people who asked &#8220;How are you?&#8221; but didn&#8217;t want to hear the truth. Part of me wanted to shock them with a blatantly honest answer. I didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p><em>Control freak-ishness<\/em>. I don&#8217;t think this is in the list of typical stages of grief but I believe this is my way of compensating for not having control over what happened to me and my baby. So, I tried to control everything my little world. For instance, I hyper-cleaned or got frustrated with the kids if they didn&#8217;t do exactly what I asked within say, oh &#8211; 2 seconds of my\u00a0<em>thinking\u00a0<\/em>it. Yeah, that&#8217;s reasonable.<\/p>\n<p><em>Gratitude\u00a0<\/em>&#8211; for my sweet husband, daughters, family and friends I was surrounded with during the weeks following my miscarriage.<\/p>\n<p><em>Feeling abandoned<\/em>. Life goes back to normal for everyone else &#8211; even a loving, supportive husband who has to return to work &#8211; but seemed to stand still for me for a while. People stop calling or asking about the baby (very normal) and it feels like they have forgotten.<\/p>\n<p><em>Depression<\/em>. As I was recovering mentally from how scary my miscarriage was and as I began to feel the loss of the hopes and expectations of greeting a new baby, I felt dark, listless and grief stricken. Like my life was over. This stage did not last long for me because I woke up one morning and decided that despite the circumstances and the loss we endured &#8211;\u00a0<strong><em>I am lucky to be alive!<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0While I still have moments (and probably will for a while) when I feel sad or cry unexpectedly,\u00a0<strong><em>I choose not to dwell in the darkness<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wp.me\/p1GpYg-2k\" target=\"_blank\">Recovering Physically from Miscarriage &amp; Hemorrhage<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The loss of a child is so painful and often isolating. I share my story in the hope that it will make you feel less alone. Please pass it on if you know of someone who it might encourage.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Don\u2019t miss updates from Organic Mama Cafe. Subscribe.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"wysija-register\">YTo3OntzOjk6IndpZGdldF9pZCI7czoyMDoid3lzaWphLW5sLTEzNTAxMDkyNjMiO3M6NToibGlzdHMiO2E6MTp7aTowO3M6MToiMSI7fXM6MTA6Imxpc3RzX25hbWUiO2E6MTp7aToxO3M6MTM6Ik15IGZpcnN0IGxpc3QiO31zOjEyOiJhdXRvcmVnaXN0ZXIiO3M6MTc6Im5vdF9hdXRvX3JlZ2lzdGVyIjtzOjEyOiJsYWJlbHN3aXRoaW4iO3M6MTM6ImxhYmVsc193aXRoaW4iO3M6Njoic3VibWl0IjtzOjEwOiJTdWJzY3JpYmUhIjtzOjc6InN1Y2Nlc3MiO3M6NTA6IkNoZWNrIHlvdXIgaW5ib3ggbm93IHRvIGNvbmZpcm0geW91ciBzdWJzY3JpcHRpb24uIjt9<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This list is for those women who are recovering from miscarriage (or serious hemorrhage as a result) &#8211; and possibly more importantly, it&#8217;s for their partners and loved ones. This&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[342,78,341,343,344,96,340,73,299],"class_list":["post-3172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-baby","tag-baby-loss","tag-blood","tag-death","tag-emotionally","tag-grief","tag-loss","tag-miscarriage-2","tag-physical"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1GpYg-Pa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3172"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4610,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3172\/revisions\/4610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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