Here is my story into Motherhood. It is somewhat dark, so I warn it could be triggering for some. I hope to help someone feel understood.
I am that typical story you hear about a girl who grows up always wanting to have children. In-fact that was the biggest thing I prayed about. I never dated in school, never had sex until I was 19. I was that girl that wanted to wait for that perfect boy to share everything with.
When my friends were out partying, I was at home reading, writing and creating art. I never drank alcohol until I turned 18. An alcoholic father deterred me from this popular choice of entertainment. For a long-time I didn’t think I was pretty and that’s why the boys didn’t want to date me. Now looking back, I think boys were just afraid of me from how quite I was from the rest of the girls. As much as I wanted a boyfriend, I wanted love more than all the in-betweens.
Off to College I went. The shyest 18 year old out there. I was a girl who couldn’t voice her opinion on anything, nor make a decision if her life depended on it. Met my roommate in residence and was invited to my first outing as an adult. It was scary and nerve wracking, but my roommate taught me about life and making decisions. She was the greatest influence I could have had in college.
One month into term I met my soon to be boyfriend at a faith based bbq. We talked for hours, exchanged numbers and began to hang-out. The very next weekend he invited me out to the mountains for the night. There was no stranger danger in my brain. There wasn’t a moment where I said: “Look young Jeana, I don’t think you should go to the mountains alone, with the man you just met one week ago.” Nope there was just young me who took a chance and went with my gut feeling that everything would be fine. And it turned out to be more than that. It was the start of a romance that I had never experienced before. The first of everything. He stole every last piece of me and I still don’t regret it. We moved into a house together a year later and tried to start a family. We were young and dumb and had no idea what we wanted in life. Did we really love each other? Were we really ready to be parents? After-all we were only 20 and 24 years old. Our life experience game was pretty weak.
Fast forward to a positive pregnancy test. Neither of us knew what we wanted in life, we were both clinically depressed. He worked night shifts leaving me by myself in a city that was too far away for my family to travel to often. I relied heavily on him for income, transportation – as I couldn’t drive, and a social life. Young and dumb I say. Our relationship at the time was rocky as we both hadn’t grown up enough to understand the hardships to come.
At eight weeks pregnant I began to spot bright red blood. I knew I was miscarrying as we sat in the hospital in his home town, which was over 4 hours away from my hometown. In those hours of pain I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t stand without whimpering and wanting to cry out. I couldn’t talk, just moan and shake my head yes or no. My lower back was on fire, my abdomen felt like daggers were digging through me, and all I wanted was for everything to stop. I just wanted it to stop. The ultrasound tech pressed my abdomen and made my body want to curl up and die. She couldn’t see anything, I had to go let some fluid out so she could get a better look. One trip to the bathroom and I knew I miscarried into the toilet. I knew it logically, but my heart didn’t know it yet. I remember walking back into the room and being 100% fine, relieved that the pain was gone. I said I miscarried and the tech sent me out to the waiting room to see my boyfriend. I told him, sat with him and we moved on to a private room where we began to wait 6 hours to see a doctor. All the while my boyfriend was rather surprised at my chipper mood. I don’t think he fully understood what was to happen to me that very night. I don’t think I fully understood either.
Being in a bed 4 hours from home left me feeling alone already. Seeing my stable mood my boyfriend left me at his moms to fish with his dad. He didn’t realize that even though someone seems ok after a miscarriage, they in-fact are not and will need emotional support once the physical pain and turmoil wears off. I didn’t know it either. That’s when my heart caught up with everything that just happened in the last 12 hours and the tears poured out of my chest and they wouldn’t stop. Everything hurt. My entire being felt lost, confused, sad and angry all at the same time. My mind went through every hope, every moment that I had loved this baby, the future we were going to have together, the moments and memories that were going to be, the chance to grow together as a family, they were all gone. I blinked and within 12 hours I had lost a lifetime of happiness and dreams. Within 12 hours I had lost the biggest piece of my heart I never knew I even had. But I felt like no one understood me. All of those people I had told that I was pregnant, I now had to tell I miscarried. Some people gave me hugs and I felt their love and support. But there were some that just broke my heart and beat me down. They didn’t understand why my heart was so so broken. “But the fetus never actually grew” they would say. “How can you be sad about that. It wasn’t a real baby.” Physically, no the baby never grew. Spiritually and emotionally I connected and bonded, hoped and dreamed a world for that 8 week old baby. The grieving wasn’t of a physical fetus that didn’t grow, the grieving was everything that was supposed to be, that was going to be and it was all taken away from me within moments of one 12 hour period. The world spun and everything that was to be was gone.
With the months to come I would spiral into the darkest and saddest depression. With repetitive words from loved ones and strangers on: “I had an abortion, I know how you feel.” To “at least you don’t have to feel sick anymore.” To “It wasn’t even a real baby, and besides that was months ago.” To my boyfriend dumping me. My heart was shredded into a million pieces that looked impossible to put back together. The thoughts of dying rather than living outweighed every single happy moment in my life. I failed as a mother, I failed as a woman, how on earth could I get my shit together if I couldn’t even grow a baby. How could I continue when my sister just had her baby when we were pregnant at the same time? How can you think of happiness when your world didn’t get the chance to become complete and whole like it should have?
I was happy on the outside to the rest of the world, but once my basement door closed and I sat on my bed, that’s when true darkness began to swallow me whole. My thoughts became fuzzy, filled with deep despair. More darkness than light started to fill my mind and my heart. I knew the feelings I was having weren’t normal, I knew I needed help before the real darkness twisted me into it’s sick hands. In this moment I had been crying a deep heavy chested cry, one that makes your entire being ache for what you have lost. I felt like there was nothing left for me to hold onto. In that moment I felt something I had never felt before. Hope. I felt the love of Jesus wrap around me. That is when this bright warmness enveloped my entire body. My heart, my mind, my soul, everything felt at peace. I was calm, a sense of hope had touched me. A feeling I hadn’t felt in months, the will to live and to love and grow and become more than what the darkness was providing me.
So that’s when life had to move on. There were months of seeing a psychologist, months of meditation and of yoga as well as the force of moving out of my sisters house and starting my own day home. I had to get my own house, start my own business so I could help my sister and help myself. Running a day home was a blessing in disguise. You would think it would make my heart feel more resentment, but instead it brought me hope. Hope for my future and hope to become a mother again.
For every moment, life moved on. People moved on. My Mother and Sisters gifted me a necklace to remember my angel baby. The day I lost the necklace, my heart broke again. An object that made me feel just a small step closer to my angel baby, and it was gone too. Each mothers day came and went and my heart broke some more. The first anniversary of my angel baby growing wings came and went unnoticed by those around me and I just sat at home and cried myself to sleep. I tried so hard to feel ok with it, I knew it was something I had to live with forever, and continue to everyday.
After two break-ups with my boyfriend within a two year period, he proposed and we moved leaving my day home days behind. I landed a job at Chapters where I relied on my boyfriend and my mother to drive me to and from work. Three months into the job I became pregnant. Most people would be over the moon excited to be pregnant, but after miscarrying you are filled with more fear, self-doubt and anxiety than you are happiness. Happy to be pregnant, beyond sick with worry about miscarrying again. With every moment becoming terrifying. I was a literal by the book pregnancy. No caffeine, no exercise other than what my job entailed, lots of water, no junk food etc.
My first ultrasound I was overwhelmed with relief to see a growing fetus and to hear the heart beat. I remember spotting old blood days after the ultrasound. I fell to the ground shaking, crying relentlessly as every moment of my miscarriage flooded back to me. I wouldn’t open the door to let my Fiance in, instead I cried hysterically believing I was miscarrying again. The most terrifying moments. At the gender ultrasound we decided last minute that we wanted to see the gender of our baby, but we were too late and would have to book another ultrasound. I cried so much on the drive back to my sisters that when we got out of the car I was still crying. It was moments that I thought I was never going to experience again, I didn’t want to let them go, and I didn’t want it to be my last moments with this baby not even knowing the gender.
For me my pregnancy went full term and I had my first rainbow baby, and two years later my second rainbow baby.
My heart shatters for every mother that miscarries. No matter what stage of pregnancy. My heart shatters for every mother that has had to endure a still birth, an infant death or the death of a child. These women carry scars all over their heart, ones we can’t see, ones we can’t even feel or begin to feel. My scars are similar yet so different from every mothers. Our love for our children is powerful, beautiful, heartbreaking, yet so so fierce. It’s a feeling that over powers, overwhelms and swallows you whole. It’s in those first steps you take towards the light, towards the warmth of the love that surrounds you, that you start to feel strength and healing. That dull ache of loss never leaves, the anniversaries, the moments you forever miss, those never leave you. It is ok to grieve, it is ok to cry as your heart hurts, it is ok. Healing is in finding your grace, your faith, your love and strength that brought you to yearn for these babies in the first place. These babies, no matter the age, are always imprinted inside of your heart, along with your scars of darker and sadder times. There are no words to make it ok, to heal you faster or to stop the pain. There is only time, and as much as time can hurt, it can heal too.
For me, I hope my story helps someone feel hope and connection. If you ever need to reach out, I am always here: hello@rusticrabbit.ca
Sincerely,
Jeana
2 rainbow babies and one Angel baby <3
