Notre Dame and Celine Dion — My Pillars of Strength Through My Miscarriage
I’ve been in pajamas for three days. I haven’t washed my hair. Sometimes, in those really, really dark times, like three in the morning when the only voices that talk back are somewhere behind the walls, I contemplate the benefits of alcoholism. Both my grandfathers were fantastic, funny, well-liked drunks. But that’s another blog post and I’m pretty sure they would have told me to wash my hair even if I was suffering through my second miscarriage this year.
Just in case you think this post won’t be uplifting, I want you to know that I’ve set a deadline for the sadness. I texted my sister (because that’s like a contract right?) and I promised her I’d allow myself to be sad for three days. She suggested it was a reasonable amount of time. She’s my authority on all these matters as she’s suffered through IVF and a few failed pregnancies herself. Then today I found a viral video on how to make a baby stop crying. This friendly pediatrician, this tall, teddy bear of a guy, with black rimmed glasses and big comforting hands picked up a crying newborn. He cradled his soft neck, face-down with his opened palm and swayed him in front of his parents. He shook his butt a bit with his other hand. The baby stopped crying. The parents made cooing noises and cute faces at their son. I imagined taking my crying baby to that pediatrician and then realized, there ain’t no baby here girlfriend. There’s a fetus that stopped growing five days ago and you are still bleeding.
I started contemplating adding four more days of mourning. I deserved it, the world would understand. Then a friend called. I’ve found after these things happen my women tend to call. There is something in the blood we share as birthers that is like a siren calling out above all the other noises we surround ourselves with everyday. One old coworker who I hadn’t seen in decades reached out via Facebook after my first miscarriage to say she’d been thinking of me constantly for days and wanted to say hello, to see if I was ok. I was not. Another friend who’d been through every shot and ultrasound beside me while her wife went through IUI texted me while I was groggy in the hospital from my D&C to say, “Hey, is everything ok? Wanted to see if everything was ok.” It was not.
Then today while I was on the couch in my pjs crying about not having a crying baby to bring to the pediatrician on You-Tube, another friend sent one of those mysterious how-did-she-know texts. Just wanted to catch up, she texted. I told her the news. Fuck, she texted back. It was what I needed. I’d said it a few times myself. We talked for an hour. I told her that I was ok, I’d given myself three days to be sad. “Too long,” she said. “Too long. Think of Notre Dame and Celine Dion.”
This is where I need to tell you that this friend is tall and strong and no-nonsense and wore heels everyday and even sometimes ran in them around the office we shared. She’s made of that strong Eastern European stock that can survive frigid temperatures naked and painful surgeries without anesthesia or something like that. She’s just stronger than what I imagine myself to ever be. “Too long!” she said again.
I doubted what she was about to tell me but she handed out the advice like an assignment. “Celine Dion went through SIX rounds of IVF! SIX! Her twins were actually triplets and one died inside of her and she still went on to birth healthy babies at 45!” My friend talks like every word has an exclamation mark at the end. I saw where she was going with this. I mean I’ve always liked Celine Dion and her melodic, throttle love songs. And if I’m really honest I thoroughly enjoyed that R-Kelly collaboration in 98.
“Yeah, ok but Notre Dame?” I asked, still unsure.
“The coach at Notre Dame says his players can only celebrate for 24 hours if they win and mope for 24 hours if they lose. You need to do the same.” she said. “You need to do the same.”
I’m no football fan. I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about Notre Dame other than that story about that guy with a bad case of scoliosis. Did he play? Kidding. Anyway, all of this made sense in the moment. IVF is like taking a new way to school or work one day. You think you know how things will go, how the road will be laid out before you, but then something happens along the way — some bad traffic, a blocked road. You take this detour and there are all these stoplights and potholes and these really awful sharp turns that take your breath away with how quickly they sneak up on you. Why not take note of the beautiful scenery along the way? Why not marvel at a cloud or a really awesome maple tree? Why stop and grab a cup of coffee? You’re already late. This is all so cheesy but I don’t have a football analogy and the real point is that my friend’s advice made sense, more sense then I expected it to.
Before my friend and I hung up, we complained about shots and about doctors and IVF costs. She talked to me about her swollen ovaries and I told her I was fat. But then we started talking about our dreams for our kids.
“Full ride to college,” I said to her.
“Football scholarship to Notre Dame,” she said back at me, “Of course, it will be a boy.” We promised to see each other through to the pregnancies we knew were right around the corner.
Didn’t I promise this would be uplifting?
