I Bleed

Yup, I'm having another miscarriage and it's so not fun.  If you read me regularly and know that I desperately want out of my current relationship with C, you're probably wondering how it all happened in the first place.  While I know all about the birds and bees, I was stunned by this pregnancy.  I've pretty much found every excuse to keep him away from me but he's persistent.  I used protection.  Even he didn't think I could be pregnant.

It doesn't matter how or why, I'm now on my third miscarriage.  And I'm really friggin' sick of it.  It was just like the last pregnancy.  I went for my seven-week appointment and there wasn't a heartbeat.  An ultrasound was scheduled for the following week, still no heartbeat.  Nothing could be said for sure so a third ultrasound was set.

I started to bleed the night before so I blew it off.  Didn't call, nothing.  I didn't want to waste what few babysitting hours I can afford on the phone or in the waiting room.  I've been through this before and I know what's going on.  We all knew from that seven week appointment, when the sack measured five weeks, that this was a downhill battle.  

I've been bleeding for over a week.  My first miscarriage was like this--I bled off and on for 10 days.  I remember racing to my doctor sure there was something wrong with me.  The worst of the cramps happened over the weekend and now it's just the inconvenience of blood.  It's inconsistent so that makes it tough to contain.  I don't want to overshare here so I'll just say it's been a mess.  I've had to run the mile from our bathroom (our living room is uselessly, ridiculously gigantic--hate to complain but I hate this apartment.  1,500 square feet of useless space.) into the bedroom to get clean underwear and pants.  I've had to ask C to do this for me when his older kids are here.  

Because I often run into the bathroom quickly, it's hard for me to keep Eliza out.  Once inside the bathroom, she slams my back with the toilet lid despite my pleas to stop hurting Mama.  She stares down into the toilet (even though I beg her not to) and says "It's pinky!"  Today I managed to lock her out and she pounded on the door, screaming.  Her little fingers slid under the crack at the bottom of the door and I really felt like my heart would break.  

I've got a lot going on here right now.  I'm writing for a magazine but unfortunately it's unpaid.  Maybe it'll give me some experience but right now, it's not helping my horrifying financial situation.  I have to interview a celebrity pediatrician today in order to write a profile for the magazine.  Since he's such a big shot, he's calling me between 4-7pm.  I'm going to have to start the dvd the second this guy calls, lock myself in the bathroom and hope for the best.  I don't have anyone close by I can call and ask to hang around my kid for three hours.  

I also have to set up an interview for next week, one that I hope will occur during my precious babysitting time.  Even with a sitter here, it's pretty difficult for me to have an uninterrupted phone conversation.  I'm also working on an article for a class I'm taking that I hope to sell to a magazine.  I have the first interview for that tomorrow. 

I don't have time for all this blood right now.  I guess there was part of me that was grateful for Eliza's presence in the bathroom during the worst of it.  She looked in the toilet, she saw what was left of the baby that wasn't.  In the chaos that's my life right now, it's easy to forget that every time I go to the bathroom, I lose pieces of another life that won't be.  When I hear about other people's pregnancies and spend time with the Moms who now have new babies, I wonder what's wrong with me?  

Three times with blighted ovum means there's a problem.  Hey, I'm 40, I've always considered myself lucky to have a kid in the first place.  The one child I have I had to steal.  I had to settle for a guy I knew could never like me or love me in the way that I want.  I'm not sure he loves me at all.  When I told my grandmother recently of some of the emotional abuse this guy has been giving me over the past few months, she said "How did you get mixed up with such a person?"  I told her the truth, no one else wanted me.

I got the daughter I wanted and I have no regrets.  It's funny, the new baby was a bigger impetus for me to get away from C.  I didn't want another child raised in a home that I share with him.  I was fired up, ready to go.  Eliza would have a sibling with me, closer in age, and the three of us would be a family.  Now, the paranoid, obsessive part of me fears that Eliza will prefer being with her father after we split.  With Poppy, she's got siblings, two healthy grandparents who own a beach house and like to stay active and do fun things.  With me she's got an autistic uncle, three good grandparents who don't like to go out much and a lifetime of poverty because I can't seem to get a job that pays.  

But I'm still getting out and maybe when I do, then I can mourn for all three of my lost little souls, the little children I should have had, but didn't.