Snapshot #1: I just responded to a book review written by a friend of mine on his blog. I was attending a conference based on this book during my "one week wait," that is, the last seven days before you either get your period or figure out you're pregnant. It's a strange window of time for those of us trying to conceive. You try to figure out if you feel any signs of being pregnant, and then even if you think you do, you have to figure out if they might simply be PMS symptoms that you hadn't thought to notice before. It was during my days at this conference that I started feeling strange things that led me to believe that I might be pregnant. I remember my time at the conference being clouded by my preoccupation with every twinge, pain, or cramp, trying to piece together any preemptive evidence that might give me a clear picture of whether or not I was pregnant. The conference took place on a Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday...and it was Sunday at the end of that week when I got that positive pregnancy test.
Snapshot #2: Right now, I'm eating trail mix either as breakfast or as a mid-morning snack, depending on whether you think 10:53am is still breakfast time or whether it is too late in the morning for breakfast. I bought this bag of trail mix on my way over to church on my first workday that I knew I was pregnant. I found out on a Sunday, and then stopped at Trader Joe's on my way in on Monday, stocking up on preemptive snacks for whenever pregnancy made me hungry or nauseous...or both. I bought string cheese, yogurt, trail mix, and candied ginger.
Those early (and short-lived) days of being pregnant are pretty much a blur at this point. It's hard to know how to talk about them. Because in the moment, of course I believed I was pregnant. Positive test, feeling a first handful of pregnancy symptoms. Hormonally, my body was acting like it was pregnant - and rightfully so.
But the truth is that I was never really pregnant. Because it wasn't ever viable. And so, looking back on those short few weeks, and now knowing that I wasn't actually pregnant, at least not in a sustainable way, I question whether I'm allowed to think about myself as having been pregnant - for real - or not. Ectopics aren't like regular miscarriages.
With my previous loss, it was a real pregnancy, in a real, regular place in my body, that had real potential to become a baby. With that loss, I was definitely pregnant, and then lost the pregnancy.
But with an ectopic, there is no hope and not potential for it to become a baby. The loss doesn't feel like a miscarriage because that little embryo would never have turned into a baby. And if there was never the possibility of a baby, I wonder whether it counts as a pregnancy. Was I really pregnant during those couple weeks? Or was I really just a shadow of artificial pregnancy hormones?
I don't question that this is a loss. I don't question that it is a pregnancy loss. I just question whether I count myself as really having been pregnant or not. It is strange to flash back to days when I had no reason to believe otherwise. And it is strange to process how I deal with those memories now knowing the truth.
Snapshot #2: Right now, I'm eating trail mix either as breakfast or as a mid-morning snack, depending on whether you think 10:53am is still breakfast time or whether it is too late in the morning for breakfast. I bought this bag of trail mix on my way over to church on my first workday that I knew I was pregnant. I found out on a Sunday, and then stopped at Trader Joe's on my way in on Monday, stocking up on preemptive snacks for whenever pregnancy made me hungry or nauseous...or both. I bought string cheese, yogurt, trail mix, and candied ginger.
Those early (and short-lived) days of being pregnant are pretty much a blur at this point. It's hard to know how to talk about them. Because in the moment, of course I believed I was pregnant. Positive test, feeling a first handful of pregnancy symptoms. Hormonally, my body was acting like it was pregnant - and rightfully so.
But the truth is that I was never really pregnant. Because it wasn't ever viable. And so, looking back on those short few weeks, and now knowing that I wasn't actually pregnant, at least not in a sustainable way, I question whether I'm allowed to think about myself as having been pregnant - for real - or not. Ectopics aren't like regular miscarriages.
With my previous loss, it was a real pregnancy, in a real, regular place in my body, that had real potential to become a baby. With that loss, I was definitely pregnant, and then lost the pregnancy.
But with an ectopic, there is no hope and not potential for it to become a baby. The loss doesn't feel like a miscarriage because that little embryo would never have turned into a baby. And if there was never the possibility of a baby, I wonder whether it counts as a pregnancy. Was I really pregnant during those couple weeks? Or was I really just a shadow of artificial pregnancy hormones?
I don't question that this is a loss. I don't question that it is a pregnancy loss. I just question whether I count myself as really having been pregnant or not. It is strange to flash back to days when I had no reason to believe otherwise. And it is strange to process how I deal with those memories now knowing the truth.
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