Tries and Losses 1, 3-7, and Hopefully Not 8

 This poem is about miscarriages. 

Click read more to see it as a poem and not a lump of writing.

How do you explain what it's like to sit 

In a cold clinical waiting room

For the 8th time

Waiting to know if the baby inside you 

Is alive or not

How do you stay calm and not stress?

(Which could be bad for the baby)

You remember the first miscarriage

How unprepared you were for it

And alone

And how all they could see

Was debris

How do you explain what it's like 

To have had at least two miscarriages

While teaching, in a room full of students

The feel of the blood running down your leg and into your shoe 

And knowing exactly what was most likely happening

Searching for admin because you know

It's illegal 

To leave your class unattended

Running into a male coworker and bursting into tears

Because you know you need to go to the hospital

But can't just walk out on your class

Being told at the ER that you'll

Have to wait and see how it goes

Whether your HCG is goes up or down

But that you're fine 

To return to work the next day

Only for the same thing to happen again 

Two days later

How do you explain to people to mind their own business

When they say things like, 

"Don't you want him to have a sibling?"

Or  "Better get on it if you want another one"

As if you aren't even trying

But you are trying so hard

It's almost all your life has been about 

For the past three years

What do you say when your MIL corners you 

And demands to know if you are pregnant

When your in-laws repeatedly assure you 

"Everything will be okay"

But you know otherwise

Because you've lived it many times

And when you do 

Have another loss

What is there to say?

Or when you confide you are pregnant

But don't want to talk about it

And then it gets brought up at a family dinner

In front of everyone

And it's on you to repeat that you 

Don't want to talk about it

Or when your family can't wait to tell other people

But you know how it might go

and what it's like to explain a loss

Over and over again

How do you deal with your husband 

Being unable to talk about it

Or to take care of you

Because the other losses have hurt

So badly

That it's easier

Not to acknowledge this

How it feels to take a bunch of meds 

You aren't sure you need

And to be bounced around the medical system

Reassured it'll go one way, 

And then for it not to go that way at all, 

Multiple times

Not even losing a baby, but just seeing a doctor

Being told you won't have to wait 8 weeks to find out

 If it's viable or not

Then having to wait 8 waits to find out if it's viable

Holding your breathe

Each and every time

To have doctors pass you around like a hot potato 

Because no one wants 

To sign your CNESST papers

Because they've "had trouble before"

The blind rage you feel

When your work doesn't submit your papers

That you went through hell to get signed

And makes a decision for you

That a CNESST worker tells you 

Was illegal

What it is like to be injecting yourself 

Alone in your bathroom

How isolating this whole experience really is

How much you want your baby to live

How hard it is to get to a heartbeat

How happy you are when there is one

Only for that heartbeat to be gone a week or two later

To know you have a dead embryo inside of you

To have a D&C and

Go back to work the next day

To have a D&C

And get a week off work

To take misoprostol because D&Cs can cause damage

To take misoprostol twice because it did not work the first time

To be alone through the cramps that causes

To be asked to catch the embryo on the way out 

For analysis

To not want to be alone through that

But also not want to put your partner through it

To have to wait months for the procedure to remove it

When the vaginally inserted pills don't work

Even though you took two doses

But they don't want to give you anything stronger

Because they are worried your c-section scar might burst

From uterine contractions

To need a hysteroscopy 

Because the embryo got caught in your c section scar

How do you explain the jarring repeated change of routine

Of being at work and then off work

And then on and off again

To know some people must be thinking

She should just give up and be happy with what she has

To be told that other people have it worse

(Not saying they don't)

and to be grateful for the leaves

We can get as teachers

But that follow no consistent policy 

And depend entirely on what a doctor is willing to write

And what your power tripping HR department

Has to say about it

And all of the medical advice you get

But didn't ask for

From people who are not 

Doctors or Nurses

And that you do not really want 

To talk about this with in the first place

To have had so many losses

And then to be gaslit when requesting CNESST

because you work in a place where real violence occurs 

But nobody wants you to talk about it

And the HR department is busy

To really really hope that this time is the one

Because you actually can't do this anymore

To be up at 3:30 am writing a poem

Because you don't actually know if there is still a heartbeat

But you hope like hell that there is