Last May, sometime after Mother's Day and an insane week at work (I was a Florist, enough said) I went in to the doctor to find out why I was having an extremely long and heavy menstrual cycle. I had blood drawn and was sent on my way to await the results. When the nurse called, I was afraid I already knew what was wrong. She told me that I had been pregnant....but I had an early term miscarriage. The bleeding was my body naturally expelling the....well, she used a lot of big words and basically told me that it was likely a genetic fluke my body knew to get rid of. Happens fairly often, especially when the parents are of different blood types; and there shouldn't be a need for any medical procedures. I thanked her, hung up, and collapsed on the floor sobbing. It hurt, it still hurts when I think, that by now I could be holding a wiggly, breathing, miniature combination of my husband and I in my arms right this minute......
I think what makes this situation even sadder, is the fact that this was not my first miscarriage. I would have a 9-year-old daughter, 10 this December, if not for a tragedy very different from this one. Did you do the math? Yup…I was 15…nearly 16 actually, when I was first pregnant. I’d rather not get into the nasty details of her conception, just understand I had no way of preventing it. I was in an incredibly abusive, and manipulative relationship with a young “man” (for lack of a better word) two years my senior and it was a truly hellish time for me. I hid the pregnancy from my family and friends. I went to a free clinic downtown (lots of deception involved there and I’d rather not get into it). At first, I made plans to abort, I did NOT want to bring his child into the world. But as I sat there, waiting for my termination appointment, I saw a woman holding an infant, cooing and smiling. When I looked at that baby….I had a vision of what my own child might look like. Before I even realized what I was doing, I had gotten up and was rushing out the door as fast as I could go. A few weeks later I saw her for the first time on the sonogram, and I fell in true love. I made plans, I saved every penny I earned, and I worked on what I was going to say to my parents when I finally told them. But this story has a tragic ending as you already know. I made a mistake, trusted the wrong people who thought I needed to talk with my estranged boyfriend. They felt I was being unfair, avoiding him like I had been, and that all we needed was a gentle push to make amends. They didn’t know what he was, or that I was planning on never being alone with him again. I stupidly told them that I was leaving for Georgia very soon, and they told him. Tricks were played and I was alone with him. I will spare you the details, but I will say this: the moment I felt the blow that killed my beautiful daughter inside me….part of me died with her.
Her name is Lily Jean Carpenter, and now she has a sibling who I call Angel Walker.
I don’t think there will ever be a time in my life that I don’t think of my angel babies, they are very much a part of my life and my heart. They’ve been on my mind so much more these days; probably because my husband and I have been trying for a baby, we both want so badly to be parents. It’s been getting harder and harder to read/hear about other people discovering they are expecting their own bundle of joy. I am happy for them, sure, but jealous and my heart aches. That I think, is part of what brought on my epiphany, what made me realize I needed to start this journey. My body is not ready to have a baby. I need to lose weight, be in better shape, in order to have a healthy pregnancy. Not only that, but I need to learn how to love myself again, be truly happy and content with just being ME. I am a good wife, and I know I will be a wonderful mother, but before I can take on the greatest role of my life, I need to figure out the rest of who I am.
I do know this much however: I want to live the rest of my days as the person my children can smile down on from Heaven, point out to the Goddess and all their friends and say “I am so happy and proud to call that woman my Mommy”.