As far as I can tell, October is a month to recognize baby loss awareness, but it seems to be in the UK more than anywhere else. I've attached a web address for the one in the UK. There is also a facebook group, and that's how I first heard about it.
http://www.babyloss-awareness.org/
For this day, for this cause, I'm going to tell my story. It's one of my stories, but an important one. I'm starting late, so I may not be able to finish it before I need to sleep. It's probably not hard to figure out what this story is about, and I've made no secrets about it. Frankly, I think the topic of miscarriage is more taboo than it should be. It felt to me that people didn't tell me about their experiences until I had lost the baby. While it was good to hear that other people had a shared experience, it was a surprise to me how many had lost a baby.
I've both read and heard about other miscarriage stories. Mine is different. I guess everybody believes that they have different stories. Most of the stories I've heard about married couples who have been trying to have a baby, and they lose it. This seems worse than what I went through. These people had planned to bring a baby into the world to love and care for. I didn't.
I'm not sure where to start with this story. I guess the father. I met him online. I had just moved to my new town, and I didn't know anybody. After being single, for a few years (other than flings), I decided I wanted to be in a relationship. I just didn't know how to meet anybody. It was my first attempt with online dating. Hopefully my last. There weren't a lot of men to pick from. I started sending messages to one particular guy who lived out of town, and had a job that required him to be gone two weeks at a time, back one week, and gone again. It doesn't seem like a desirable pick, but I decided to go for supper with him.
To make a long story short, it wasn't love. I was so focused on trying to make the relationship work that I didn't stop to think that the relationship was going nowhere. I thought he was funny, and I thought his roommates were funny. They were fun, and they loved to drink. Looking back, I only liked him half the time. I thought he was moody, and irritating. His profile was much better than he was. We were together four months. Somebody pointed out after that, it was actually a 6 week relationship since he was gone most of the time.
I'm not very good at taking things slow. I can admit that. I easily jump into situations, relationships, and life. I don't stop to think. I do things too quickly, which is probably why I end up getting hurt. Actually, looking back I can see that's something different in me now. I'm scared of life. I started dating him, and I was not on birth control. We were unsafe. It's not something I like to admit, and it's scary to think how precarious I was with my own life. I told him from the start that I wasn't on birth control, and we needed to use condoms. He didn't always listen, and I didn't always stop him.
I guess, I'm lucky that the only thing that happened was getting pregnant. No STI's, no HIV -just a surprise pregnancy. It wasn't at all an attempt to get pregnant, or a way to 'keep my man'. It was not planned, and a bit of a shock.
I found out the first week of December. The father was at work (so gone). I knew when he'd be back, and was ready to finally tell him. I had already spilled the beans to coworkers. I knew in my head, that it wasn't a good idea (I knew the risks), but I guess I didn't believe anything could really happen. My heart and stomach were nervous and twisting at having to tell the father, and my parents.
When he came back, I had expected him to call. He didn't. I called him -he didn't respond to my messages. I knew that without knowing I was pregnant, he was probably planning to break up with me. I felt it, and believe it or not, I didn't care. At that point, a break up was the least of my worries. He wasn't answering my calls, so I went to his house. He wasn't home, but his suitcase was there, so I knew he'd be there some time. When he got home, he came and sat next to me. I told him we needed to talk. I'm sure he was thinking that I would break up with him. He probably thought that would make his life a lot easier. Instead, I shocked him with the news of my pregnancy. It all felt so wrong. He didn't want to be with me, and I had no idea what I wanted. Instead of manning up and breaking up with me, he slept with me. That -was the most hurtful, horrible way I've ever been treated. In the end, it didn't matter.
I slept over at his place that night. It's important to mention that this was also the last time I ever saw him. In the morning, we didn't speak. Finally, I told him I was leaving. I went to start my car, and came in while waiting for it to warm up. I had a bit of a breakdown. My first of many. I cried. He came to me and apologised for not knowing what to say. We stood in silence. And then I left.
This recap is sounding very matter of fact. My heart was breaking, but not over him. It was breaking over the things that were happening. I wasn't unhappy about the pregnancy, but I wasn't prepared from it. The next day, I saw on facebook that he was 'leaving town, to where, he didn't know'.
He was gone over Christmas, and I never heard from him until I emailed him to ask what he was thinking. I told him in the email that I knew he was planning to break up with me, and I didn't care about that, I just wanted to know what his plans were. He emailed back telling me we'd talk when he came back from work, but he was planning to break up with me, and he didn't believe we should stay together for a baby. He did want to help though. It made me angry because I didn't want to stay together, he just assumed. It was over, and I didn't care, and neither did he. I knew it was over the day I told him I was pregnant. I have a lot of resentment towards him. Towards any man who runs instead of facing what needs to be faced.
I'm glad I got the first bit done. In my next entry, I plan to talk about the pregnancy going to the beginning. So even though, I've skipped bits this time, I just wanted to get the most insignificant part of the story out of the way. I can't write it all in one blog. I thought I could, but all the stories are separate. So Entry One: the un-man who got me pregnant. Entry Two: -the pregnancy.
We'll see how it goes from there.
I'm not sure who is reading this, but please respect what I'm writing about. This is hard for me. I've wanted to write about it for some time, and am taking a major and scary step by publishing it for all to read. (do one thing a day that scares you: pressing Publish Post is it).
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