Where I don't fit in

Not long after my miscarriage, KB sent me a link to Res.olve. I already knew about Res.olve, but I've felt wary about joining an infertility support group, either there or through my clinic. There are a number of reasons... but one stands out more than others. It's the same reason I tend to avoid message boards.

I appear to have a different take on early pregnancy than many of the women who are ttc. Or at least many of the women who seek support. It's very hard to explain in words... but some of my feelings since my miscarriage have brought the difference to the forefront.

Since we started trying (during which time many, many friends and family have had babies), I've been thinking about names. While III and I haven't really talked about it, I recently realized that I have a name in my head that I expect I will name my daughter. (Silly, considering III does actually have some say in the matter.) I love the name Leia, and, based on modern Jewish tradition, we would be naming our baby 'after' III's grandmother, who's name began with an L. (The middle name I like is Elise, after my grandma, who had a personality and irreverence I would love to see in a daughter.)

Since finding out that this baby would have been a girl,* I've been having a little bit of a harder time. I actually don't have a preference of what gender our baby is. (I'd really like to have one of each...) I would love to see III with a son, but he'd be mush with a daughter which I also will enjoy, and my mom... well, she really wants a granddaughter.

*Just the way I phrased that... it's not what I usually see on an IF blog.

So those things... I think they have made this whole thing sting a bit more.

In spite of that, I don't feel like I lost a daughter. As I explained last month, it hurts that we've lost the potential of this baby- of this potential daughter.

As I was sitting, reading others' blogs today I started thinking about this lost pregnancy, and this exact thought popped into my head:

"This pregnancy wasn't Leia."

Which is where I differ. This wasn't my baby. It doesn't have a name, I don't think about where it is, I don't wonder who it was (or would have been)... it just isn't.

I feel a little uncomfortable expressing this here- because so many of you feel that the pregnancies you lost are now angels in heaven and lost lives. And I'm not trying to take that away from you or imply that you are wrong.

It's just not how I feel about mine. It is a big part of what keeps me from the support groups and infertility message boards- and sometimes, it makes me feel like I'm on the outside....

Recent thoughts on 'neo.natal loss'

Having become a regular reader of IF blogs, it is interesting to me to see the difference in how people feel about various losses. (Yikes. The way I wrote that sounds cold... but I'm not sure how else to explain it...)

I'm not trying to open the proverbial 'can of worms'... it's just something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

I'll preface this by saying I have been lucky not to have had to experience a loss, such as a "chemical pregnancy", a miscarriage, or a stillbirth. I do have IRL friends who have (including one at around 22 weeks and one at full term), not to mention the blogger contacts who have suffered these losses.

The part that has me thinking is how different people react, and that feeling of "What would I do?" Needless to say, when it does happen, it doesn't matter what you THINK or what others think or what your religion feels- you feel how you feel and that is always going to be valid.

Until I started reading IF blogs, I didn't view a chemical pregnancy on the same level as a miscarriage. I now realize that to many women, it is exactly that. I don't know if I would feel the same way in the same situation. I also wonder how the stage of pregnancy effects a loss. I have had one commenter (who's comment I can't find now) who, sadly, has lost a pregnancy in the 1st trimester and then lost a pregnancy later (I can't remember if it was T2 or T3), and she expressed that for her it was a painful loss regardless of when it was.

Like I said, I can't know how I'd feel because I haven't had the experience myself. I do know how I feel when these things happen to other people. I know that the later in the pregnancy the loss, the sadder I am for the person. Maybe some would see that as wrong, or insensitive to those who have experienced the earlier losses, but, like I said above, that's just how I feel.

I wonder how much of it has to do with religious teachings. I tried to do a little research online. It was difficult to find information about prenatal losses that was not connected to abor.tion.

Wiki.pedia (which I recognize isn't always accurate) had the following info (these are, for the most part, direct quotes from the wiki):

• many Buddhists believe that life begins at conception
• Bahá'í Faith indicate that the human soul appears at conception
• Roman Catholic Church believes that life begins at conception
• Some Hindu theologians believe personhood begins at 3 months and develops through to 5 months of gestation
• Although there are different opinions among Islamic scholars about when life begins and when abor.tion is permissible, most agree that the termination of a pregnancy after four months - the point at which, in Islam, a fetus is thought to become a living soul - is not permissible.

I didn't feel the wiki was clear about what Judaism believes, but I remembered what I was taught- that the head and shoulders must emerge before a baby is considered "alive". (Although, that doesn't explain what happens with a breech birth...) I also remember my parents expressing surprise when a Jewish family they knew named and had a funeral and sat shiva for their stillborn baby- not as a judgment, but just because that is not what is traditionally done. In fact, a Jewish baby isn't technically named until it is eight days old (for a boy, this is when the bris is done).

I found this site that explained:

The traditional Jewish belief, also based on the Bible, is that full personhood is attained when the fetus is half-emerged from the mother's body. The fetus has great value because it is potentially a human life. It gains "full human status at birth only."

I also found information on several sites, including this one, that traditionally in Orthodox Judaism mourning rituals are not observed for a baby who is less than 30 days old."We do not mourn for fetuses (nefalim), and anything which does not live for 30 days, we do not mourn for it." Maim.onides, Mish.neh Torah, Hilk.hot Avei.lut 1:6

(That site also goes on to explain that in modern days, this is not really practiced. "Today the opposite is true. The tremendous sense of loss and the overwhelming need to grieve felt by the parents of an infant who dies before the thirty-day benchmark does not go away just because the halakhah prevents the mourning rituals from taking place. The medical profession has now recognized that parents experiencing a baby's death must face the loss, and protocols to enable them to mourn have been developed within recent years.")

My views on abor.tion have partially been formed by the Jewish law, even though I am no longer really practicing. Or maybe my views on abor.tion have been validated by that law. Either way, that information and knowledge has come into play differently now that I am trying to have a baby, and spending so much time talking to and reading about others who have the same goal.

You've gotta have faith...

One of the differences that always strike me during a visit with the in-laws is the religious and faith based differences we have.

When B-dog got sick, I was concerned that III's mom would be pissed about the amount of money we were spending on her treatment. Last year, their dog was having some sort of kidney problem. It was speculated she may need surgery to fix it, and MIL told me "Which we wouldn't do because a dog doesn't have a soul, so it wouldn't be fair to the dog."**

This visit, we were in the car discussing their Saturday afternoon trip to one of the local Cath.olic churches. The ILs and III were discussing how OLD everyone was at the service (Well... it was a Saturday at 4pm...). FIL says "The only religion that attracts young people nowadays is Mus.lims and then they brainwash them into blowing people up." Oh, geez. So I make the mistake of piping in: "There are quite a few young families at my school that belong to Uni.tarian churches." FIL questions what Uni.tarians believe and MIL explains, "Oh, they don't believe in anything. That's why young people like it. Uni.tarians don't have any rules." Double geez.

There, it seems, is the difference between my ILs and me. They see religion as a bunch of rules God gives you to follow. I see religion as how one feels spiritually. While Uni.tarian churches don't have a specific teaching in terms of rules and telling you what to believe, I do respect that they teach kids (at least the ones that my students attend) that religion is very personal and it is important to believe what you believe while respecting what others believe.

I was raised Jewish. Growing up, my family belonged to a reform synagogue. My dad was raised Jewish and my mom converted before I was born. I went to religious school every Sunday for 10 years and Hebrew school every Wednesday for five. My parents both taught religious school at our synagogue. I assisted in the younger religious school classes when in school myself, and I taught religious school for 3 years when I was in college. I had a bat mitzvah. I was super active in my temple youth group (which included a lot of social action). I traveled to Israel where I was in a school program for 2 months.

My college boyfriend was not Jewish, and neither is my husband. Throughout the years, I've had a lot of ups and downs regarding my beliefs. I am very rational minded and like to have proof of things. I loved when I was in Israel and it was explained that there is actually archaeological proof of an earthquake at around the same time that the story of Joshua and Jericho supposedly happened. But I definitely have a spiritual side too. I really appreciate that, in Judaism, you are allowed- even encouraged- to question and I love how that allows me (especially in reform Judaism) to continue to feel spiritually confused and even ambiguous, but still identify myself as a Jew.

One place where I have really struggled is around death. I envy those who believe in a specific life-after-death. I would think it would be comforting to really believe something. My therapist asked me "Can't you just decide to believe something?" but my brain just doesn't work that way. Judaism doesn't have a super specific life-after-death theory like Christianity does. I've always thought, as someone who loses people, that I like the idea that they are somewhere watching over me. However, as someone who will die, I like the thought of reincarnation...

I started out reading a few different novels that I had heard about which had different takes on life after death. Else.where is a YA book that paints the afterlife as kind of a combination of what my two ideals are. Then I read The Brief His.tory of the Dead which is apparently based on the quote from James Loe.wen, Lies My T.eacher Told Me, “Many African societies divide humans in to three categories: those still alive on the earth, the sa.sha, and the zam.ani. The recently departed whose time on earth overlapped with people still here are the sa.sha, the living-dead. They are not wholly dead, for they still live in the memories of the living, who can call them to mind, create their likenesses in art, and bring them to life in anecdote. When the last person to know an ancestor dies, the ancestor leaves the sa.sha for the zam.ani, the dead…. Many… can be recalled by name. But they are not the living dead. There is a difference.” This was an interesting theory to me too.

Then KB recommended that I read "M.any L.ives, M.any M.asters". I did a little research and found that, while she had read it quite a while ago, it had recently been in the media again, thanks to O.prah. I read it and part of what drew me to it was that it was a sort of "proof". Yes, it was based on the word of one man, but supposedly he was recounting his experiences as a therapist and a hypnotist. Then I read "O.nly Love is R.eal" and liked that even better- it gave answers to a lot of my questions about, not only death, but relationships and connections. It suggested to me that KB is my soulmate and gave me hope that, after we died, I'd see her again, and that I'd see III again.**

Do I believe this 100%? No. But it's as close as I can get to my therapists suggestion. This is what I'd choose to believe. And these experiences of others give me just enough "proof" that I feel comfortable putting it on my lists of possibilities.

This is already quite long, but some other things that often confound me are the suggestion that things are "meant to be", and that "everything happens for a reason" and those sorts of religion based suggestions. I don't believe that everything happens for a reason. But meeting III has led me to realize that good things can come out of bad.

Finally, "O.nly Love is R.eal" touches on pregnancy, miscarriage, and abortion. It is an explanation I probably can't do justice, but suggests that, while a soul is chooses (or actually, chooses) a certain body, it is not "affixed" until around or just after birth. My explanation is probably not at all helpful to anyone reading, but his explanation comforted me a bit about the process, even though I have yet to be pregnant and therefore have never had a miscarriage (or abortion). But it leaves open the possibility, though my rational mind's tendency is to pooh-pooh it, that my child has just not chosen me or chosen this time to be born yet.*

*It's a very small part of the book, but I really wish I could explain this better. I have not read his other books, so it's possible they also go into that in more depth...
**I hope to see my dog again too... she's definitely, as a friend described it, my "doggy soulmate". Also why I loved this postcard.

Three brighter thoughts

I apologize to my small number of followers that I'm so cranky so often... I think I'm definitely going through one of those shitty periods right now, and I'm definitely taking advantage of the outlet an anonymous blog gives me....

But to change it up a bit...

I have a new resolution to do the dishes. Actually, two resolutions- do the dishes and walk the dogs. The last two days I discovered that III is in an infinitely better mood if he comes home and finds I've done the dishes. I hate doing the dishes, but really it's such a small thing for some shalom bayit. I think we've both been in a funk lately, and if my spending 10-15 minutes when I first come home to do the dishes makes it so that III and I are able to just enjoy being together in the evenings, that is definitely something I can do.

My other resolution is to walk the dogs after school- I'm having a really hard time getting into a fitness routine, so this is a start. Of course, I know I'm an excuse maker so to head off those excuses, I put in some restrictions. I will walk the dogs right after school (before the dishes) every day that it is above 30 degrees, it is not precipitating, and it is not yet dark. The last four days has been at least one of the three each day, so it hasn't kicked in yet... ;)

That brings me to my second brighter thought... I'm a big fan of postsecret. Actually, since this is an anonymous blog I can admit that I actually sent in a postsecret once... maybe I'll save that for another post since it no longer applies. (My wish came true!) This week's post secret had this postcard which I, obviously, loved.

I keep meaning to post about some of my spiritual stuff- I've recently done some reading on reincarnation, which really appeals to me (even if I'm not 100% sure I believe in it) and I always wonder where my sweet pups fit into it. So I loved that card- if it was by some chance true it would make those first moments 'after' perfect...

Finally, this is what is making me happy this week:

I fully admit to being completely disorganized when it comes to my space. I can be extremely organized when I'm planning a trip or teaching someone else how to do something new... but for some reason my desk, my car, my closet... it's a nightmare. I'm very right brained, so the mess often makes sense to me. But it can be frustrating to anyone who has to live/work in the same space as I do. III is very 'type A'. His tolerance for 'mess' is MUCH lower than mine. (I'll refer you back to the dishes resolution...) In general, he deals with my disorganization pretty well- he's well able to balance my good points with my bad. :)

My closet was looking rough for a while. I had one of those plastic drawers where I was keeping my underwear, bras and socks. It had 4 drawers, one for bras, 2 for underwear (organized by type- bikini and hipsters vs. thong), and one for socks. The sock drawer was overflowing-I had to find a new solution.

Enter Bed Bath & Beyond. I spent quite a while there and finally settled on this solution. So far it's working perfectly. I get a little thrill every time I head in to pull out a pair of undies or socks. LOL. Sometimes, it's the little things. :)