The article was beautifully and sensitively written, and makes me feel much more, well, for lack of better word, sane. My own experience with miscarriage is probably about as far from the norm as it comes, so seeing someone blog about such similar feelings is so incredibly healing to my soul. She mentions she bled for 6 weeks, though some only bleed for two. I was fortunate enough to be among the latter, give or take a few days. She says some women/couples count birthdays, and I know without having to think about it, that Astaria would be nine years old, had she been born as expected. Nine years later, no children to the naked eye, and people are often in shock to see how much it still hurts when I really open up and think/talk about my daughter.
I will always call that "fetus" my daughter, despite the short gestation period and lack of medical care.
I suppose I should start from the beginning. I am 24 years old now, and, if you do the math, that means I was 14 years old when she was conceived. She was not the product of some misguided teenage love, or of myself and my high school sweetheart getting a little too frisky at the junior prom. No, the boy who would have been the biological father of this beautiful little girl was thirteen years old, and I'd never dated him. He took my virginity by force in the backseat of a Ford Fiesta. I was not the last, though I can't be certain if I was the first he raped. I had the choice to prosecute him once my parents understood the full circumstances, but I opted against it- I had a child to consider. I had no intention of ever, ever, EVER giving up my child, in any way, shape or form. I dreamt about a beautiful, blonde, blue eyed little girl from the night it happened until, well, now. I've watched her grow up in my dreams. The dreams are less and less frequent, but they still occur from time to time.
The other twist to this story, and the reason I am without child now, I suppose, is that my fertility was an unfortunate casualty of my mother's Münchhausen-by-proxy disorder, and my own submission to that as a preteen and young adult. After many, many diagnoses, I agreed with one of her many predictions about the very limited life I'd be able to lead later, and agreed to having my tubes tied at 18 years old. It seemed impractical, and not much like my unreliable, extremist, irresponsible self to only get them tied or even clamped in case of future changes, because certainly I would never be able to care for a child in my condition, so I had the doctor tie, cut and burn a large section of my fallopian tubes. My mother was present for every moment I spoke to the doctor, and was there before and after the surgery. I don't suppose I knew enough to question this choice, even had she not been there.
There's always going to be ways to conceive, I know, in vitro, for example. The chance to question to such lengths whether or not now is the time, though, rather than it being a natural, happy experience, is something I'm not sure I can ever completely mourn the loss of. I want children worse than I want oxygen some days. I miss the daughter I never met, and I still think of her. April 4th, what I had figured would be her birthday so many years ago, and Mother's Day are always going to be the two hardest days of the year for me, and I know this. It won't change. As the author of this blog entry says, the best medicine for a miscarriage is a healthy baby. Maybe that's true. I just hope I get the chance to find out.
The one thing that I was ever told that helped me, even a little bit, was by a male friend of mine. He explained that in his faith, and I believe he was LDS, life is a test of one's soul. Some souls, he said, are so pure, and so holy, that they need not make it all the way to this world before God knows He needs them there with Him.
Mommy loves you, Astaria, my angel, and she always will.
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