I started moving before the doctors were even ready to let me go, but I was so restless it was impossible for me to be contained. Even my sweet husband couldn’t convince me to sit still so finally at two o’clock in the morning, I signed myself out Against Medical Advice – AMA, this is a thing that exists which I know about thanks to a very helpful nurse who guided the operation to break me out of the ICU.

Intensive Care, because a complication had arisen with the anesthesia. The surgery had otherwise gone very well.

But the moving. That began as soon as the anesthesia wore off. Actually, it began during anesthesia but I don’t have all the details so we’ll leave it at that.

In the two weeks that have passed since coming home from the hospital, I have made a valid effort to use my body on purpose. For a very long time, this was common practice in my daily life, but I’ve grown horrifyingly sedentary as compared to my previous self and goodness gracious I am so out of shape.

To be fair, I wouldn’t say that I have the healthiest standards. As the child of a ballerina slash beauty queen and a Hollywood Entertainment Executive, I come by every single one of my body issues honestly. Thankfully, I reveled in strength and endurance more than size or appearance, so when I say I’m out of shape, I mean that riding my bike uphill is much more difficult than it used to be. I can still get up the damn hill, but just barely.

My point in all of this is that moving is an extremely important part of how I care for myself. It has become far too easy for me to ignore the fact that taking the time to raise my heart rate and warm my muscles actually helps me to function more optimally. I’m much less tense after a good workout, this has always been true for me, it’s probably true for everyone.

I’ve noticed that a lot of what I’ve been doing without really meaning to has been about cultivating better habits. Bringing mindfulness where before there were just motions, action where before only thought.

Today as I was pushing Roux in the stroller, I realized I’m no longer restless. Now I’m just productive.

I’m at my best when I’m being productive.

One of the things I like best about having a very clean and organized house is that I have no choice but to sit and be creative. Or to be adventurous, which I’ve yet to do because it is so unbelievably hot. I can’t be expected to be outside in weather like this, I will actually melt.

I’ve been weaving constantly since last weekend and I’ve made a couple pieces of which I’m rather proud. Like I’ve reached a new place with my design process, refining my inspiration and presentation.

It’s been very cathartic, all this cleaning and creating. Long before I lost the baby, probably even before I was pregnant, I began to feel a restlessness related to my approaching birthday in that I will be one year away from 35.

35!

For whatever reason this birthday feels like a monumental opportunity for reflection and refocusing. My sweet husband is whisking me away for the night, a romantic and relaxing local retreat which is exactly what I need. I’m looking forward to soaking poolside in the (shady) sun, setting clear intentions for the upcoming year, and releasing the things that no longer serve me.

Physiologically, I’m in a funk. My week long inability to sleep has given way to complete exhaustion, and now twice in a row I’ve missed sitting down at the end of the day to write out a few thoughts, a part of processing this journey I absolutely do not want to forsake. But getting through the past couple of days has been like wading through molasses, not even cleaning has helped to speed the time along. And the truth is I haven’t been very still, I’ve used my body more in the last ten days than in the last ten months, and I’ve got quite the ordered home to show for all this buzzing about.

Have you ever avoided something because it seemed insurmountable? That’s how I’ve felt about organizing our house for almost as long as we’ve lived here. It just seemed an arduous and pointless task, having grown accustomed to moving before ever having any time to really settle into a living space. Months turned into years, I used one excuse after another, and finally after little more than a week, our entire home is moved into, organized, usable, clean.

We’ve created a lot of space by sorting through and purging our belongings, letting go of things that no longer served us. My daughter, always one for detail oriented work, took to overhauling a severely neglected closet and was beaming with pride as she showed me her hard earned accomplishment. That’s how I feel about our whole house, proud.

The truth is, a lot of hard work goes into our living in San Diego. This is an expensive place to call home, no doubt about it. But somehow we’ve managed to stay in the same spot for close to three years and I’m pretty sure we’ll always look back fondly upon the time we lived in this house. Even more fondly as in its current condition, this place is about as put together as any place we’ve ever lived.

And we have lived a lot of places!

I honestly can’t remember the last time I made it to the same yoga class two weeks in a row, that’s how long it’s been. Last Sunday, my first full day home from the hospital, I had no idea what to do with myself but I knew I needed to do something. So I took myself to the first yoga class I’ve been to in close to a year, and I haven’t stopped moving since.

I’ve been to the gym nearly every day, I’ve rearranged an entire room in my house all by myself, I’ve made three complete weavings with a fourth in progress on the loom, I’ve run every errand, done every chore, and then some. I’ve also taken better care of myself than I ever have, joking with my husband that I’ll never be a high-maintenance lady but I’m pretty certain I’ve become a medium-maintenance lady. I’ve worn tinted lip balm and perfume every single day and yes, those things actually do make me feel better.

I’m still sad, there are still tears left to be cried, and a lot more of this story to tell, but I want to acknowledge the fact that I am getting through it, and I’m growing in the process. I’m pretty certain the person I will be on the other side of all this is someone I’ll like even better than who I was before.

I sure am trying.

At a bridal shower I went to this afternoon, two well meaning mamas whose children are in my son’s class wished me congratulations on the baby, they’d heard I was expecting from their kids as Emet had announced the news to his classmates on the last day of school. The first of these encounters came at the very beginning of the party, the last as I was about to leave. And what struck me as most surprising about having to share the news that I was no longer expecting with each of these women was that they both had suffered miscarriages and this was the first time I was hearing about their respective losses.

Miscarriage is strangely, hopelessly quiet.

I’ve learned firsthand that miscarriage is a silent grief, one for which there is not a lot of readily available support. Of course, medically speaking, I didn’t have a miscarriage. I had a missed abortion, which almost makes it worse. I was pregnant for two whole weeks with a baby that wasn’t alive. My body did nothing to alert me of this loss other than not throw up two days in a row, which of course I took as a sign that something was wrong but was assured that I was being silly, a worry wort, a hypochondriac.

I was relieved when I threw up that third morning. And even though I couldn’t feel any movement from the baby, I allowed myself to believe that everything was fine. I trusted both my doctor and my therapist when they reassured me that it’s unusual to sense fetal movement in the sixteenth week, that lack of fetal movement isn’t even a concern until after the twentieth week. These were the last words my OB said as she placed the ultrasound wand on my belly only to find a tiny heart that wasn’t beating.

On my way to North County today, I drove past the hospital at which I was due to deliver and starting weeping uncontrollably a full three freeway exits before it appeared. Yesterday, at the doctors’ offices, I made it all the way off the elevator but not quite to registration before the tears started streaming down my face. The grief comes in waves, I do my best to ride them with grace and acceptance. Staying busy is my best defense, so for now that is the plan. Run all the errands, clean all the things.

I started seeing a therapist a couple weeks before I learned the baby had died. More than likely, the baby had already died before our first appointment together, but the purpose of our sessions was for me to undergo EMDR treatments to address the PTSD that still lingers as a result of Roux’s delivery. While that is still something I intend to pursue, the context of our relationship has changed dramatically. I’m no longer preparing for birth, I’m healing from loss.

Her office is located within the same office where I first saw images of my baby without a beating heart, where the last time I was within those walls, I underwent one of the most physically painful preoperative procedures I’ve ever experienced. Not to mention the place is spilling over with Pregnant Women, the demographic most likely to turn my stomach and bring me to tears at this particular moment.

To say I’m nervous about going is a wild understatement, but go I shall because I’m all about doing the work. Any work I can find, even if it’s hard or painful, I’m determined to come through this.

I will not be lost along with the baby.

I’ll be honest, getting ready for the day has never been something I’ve ever been really any good at doing. My thirtyfourth birthday is swiftly approaching and more than anything all I want is to feel like a grownup. And for whatever reason, part of being a grownup in my mind has always included a solid self-care regimen.

Surprisingly, in the days since being home from the hospital, I’ve taken better care of myself than I ever have. Showering upon waking, massaging cream and healing ointments into my skin, tending to my delicate and temperamental complexion, drinking lemon water throughout the day, braiding my hair before bed, even stretching before I sleep. It seems odd to say, but the truth is I haven’t felt this well in a long while.

It’s no secret that pregnancy has always been a tremendously difficult experience for me and this pregnancy was no different. As a matter of fact, I was so overcome with hyperemesis gravidarum that I wound up in the hospital needing IV fluids on two different occasions. It’s easy to live in sweats when most of the day is spent puking. These days I’m dressed almost before anyone else wakes up.

I’m sure it has something to do with self-preservation, an instinctual need to tend to my own well being in a time of great personal loss, almost as if to say that I myself am not lost. That I’m worth the few minutes it takes to wash and moisturize my face. There is gratitude in the simple act of caring for oneself, and I’m grateful to this body of mine for all that it has done, all that it has endured, and all that it will carry me through for all the rest of my days.

Sleep. I just can’t, it seems. I’m so uncomfortable, I’ve yet to find a position I’m able to maintain for any duration of time. Tossing and turning, moving from bed to couch and back again half a dozen times, and every morning rising with the dawn, unable to bear the thought of “resting” for one more second.

I have to keep myself busy, it’s the only way I can manage to get through the day. Running every errand, doing every chore, making and writing and cooking and eating, all the things to keep from doing the one thing I can’t which is think.

My mind, it is such a complicated place. We’re friends, my brain and me, but it’s not a relationship without its sordid history. It’s far too easy for me to run a rather morbid narrative in my mind, the past several days have been as dark as they come. Being still is not an option.

But how can one sleep without stillness?

I met a girlfriend for drinks tonight. I think the last time I did something like that it was 2009. These days are so strange, trying desperately to identify with my new role as newly un-pregnant. I wonder how I appear to people.

This morning I woke before the sun, well before anyone else was awake in my house. I made myself a quiet cup of coffee, my favorite kind of coffee, and sat and read and readied myself for the day. I took a pilates class at the gym. I put on makeup after I showered. These things aren’t things I used to do, but I’m pretty sure they are things I do now.

I can’t for one second sit still. I must always be going, doing, making, moving. There is no idle time. There is only time to go, do, make, move. My house hasn’t been this clean in ages!