Time heals. Sometimes.

Well.

I think it's pretty obvious that I have not kept up with my idea of reviewing books here.  I have kept up with my GoodReads account a bit better than here.  So why am I terrible at writing?  As much as I was a pretty intense little writer when I was younger and always loved writing and creating stories... as we get older, things get in the way.  Life gets in the way.  

About a year ago, my therapist suggested that I create a Vision Board.  I did.  I printed pictures of women writing in journals and typing on computers.  I printed pictures of music notes because I wanted to expand my music library and listen to more music - something that also used to be absolutely fundamental in my life, but over the last couple of years, it has become difficult to listen to, especially at times when I want to keep my mind occupied.  I have always had an emotional connection to music.  I printed pictures of women doing yoga because I wanted to start getting back into shape and wanted to feel physically strong again.  This was the one thing on the vision board that did come to fruition and has been a part of my life for the last year (except for a couple of times where I had needed to take a bit of a break... I'll get to that in a minute).

Writing can be hard.  It can be really difficult to do.  Like everything else in life, it is something that takes practice.  Writing in my journal is private and just for me.  Writing in a blog (even one that likely no one is even really reading) makes my writing accountable to someone else - and that's scary!  What I put out here stays out here.  Every word needs to be chosen carefully.

I lost my first pregnancy last summer, not long after my last review.  As intimate, as personal and as "private" of an experience as this is, it's so incredibly common.  I can't describe how alone I felt when I miscarried.  It was the most devastating, most heart-breaking, most difficult and most painful thing I have ever experienced.  What made it even worse was that I was going through this during the first few months of lockdown and so I couldn't be with any of my family (who I would need to get on a plane for several hours to be with).  It was an experience I would never wish on anyone.  

It took a few months until I started to finally feel like myself again - even though I was still far from being 100%.  I got pregnant again.  I was elated.  I felt complete.  And then at 10 weeks, a few days before Christmas, I found out that I had a blighted ovum - an egg that was fertilized but never started to develop into a baby even though my body went through all of the pregnancy symptoms.  My second deeply wanted pregnancy was over, just like that.

These scars do not heal and disappear, they stay there and they're always a part of you.  I hesitate to even call them scars.  Scars mean that you have healed over and are left with a reminder and really no more pain.  That is not my reality.  I live with grief every day.  Every single day.  Some days are good, some days are horrible.  

I will restart my blog, a new review, with the first book that helped me after my first loss.  I do not want to be silent.  I do not want to hide my story.  There are so many women out there who are grieving their babies and they are feeling alone, they are wondering how this happened to them, they are feeling emptiness and holes in their hearts, like they have been gutted, and they are feeling hopeless.  If you are reading this because you have gone through a pregnancy loss, I am so sorry.  You did not do anything to deserve this and you did not do anything wrong.  You're not alone.