talking about it

It's been almost three months since the miscarriage, and I'm only now getting to be comfortable talking about it. There's a big part of me that thinks "this is over with, what's the point in bringing it up" but that fact is it's not over. Sure, the physical loss is complete, and I've had enough periods to be sure that my body is back on a normal system again and things are in working order, but it's not over. I'd be kidding myself if I didn't admit that the miscarriage is going to have a huge emotional impact on our reproductive future, and affect how I feel about future pregnancies. Even in my ability to be as supportive as I want to be of my pregnant friends. The emotional process of dealing with this doesn't end so easily.

When we were pregnant, as much as I was really, really excited and wanted to shout things from the rooftops Bunny and I made the decision not to tell our families about things until we were three months along. You know just in case something happened. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would not have been able to handle my mother's reaction if I did have a miscarriage (love her, but she has no ability to respect my emotional boundaries no matter how clearly I set them, and she's made it clear that this was still the case when Bunny's dad died). Not telling my mother made it an easy decision not to tell Bunny's mom, as information flows back and forth pretty quickly through them. It's what I get for marrying the boy next door. Momma Bunny found out that we were an item through my mom (way back when), because within minutes of me telling her she went and told Momma Bunny, so I have a pretty good gauge of how unfiltered that stream of information is.

A little ways back some circumstances changed and for a variety of reasons it made sense to tell a few members of Bunny's family what had gone on for us this summer. I had my first honest and in depth face-to-face conversation with someone about the miscarriage. It felt really, really good. It was freeing. The conversations went on without any tears, but with lots of love and hugs and understanding. I'm still not ready to talk about everything, and I'm still not sure if I'm ever going to get around to telling my own mom, but actually having a discussion about it? So good.

Partly probably because I could see the healing within myself, that this thing that I couldn't even think about without crying could now be the subject of a rational conversation about life and what happens therein. Progress, you know? Baby steps.

Do I expect this to be all easy here on out? No. But as long as there are more forward steps than back steps I'm ok with that.