A New Year and its Shadow

From my heart to yours, no filter.

My dear humans:

I keep trying to write about the new year, but all I want to write about is the shadow I’m carrying.

It’s been fifteen weeks since I found out I was pregnant; ten since they told us they couldn’t find a heartbeat.

It’s been nine weeks since they prescribed the first dose of Misoprostol, the dose that didn’t quite work, the dose that just made me bleed for six weeks straight.

And it’s been three weeks since the second dose, and the followup D&C.

It happened so fast, I still don’t know what I felt, or exactly what I feel now.

We were so excited.

And then, we were so disappointed.

There wasn’t time to be fully sad, because we had things to do. Plus, it happens all the time, they say - at least 1 in 5. And anyway, it was barely the size of a lentil, and it didn’t have a heartbeat, so was it even alive? Technically, maybe not? But also, maybe technically yes.

For me, it’s still alive.

We talked about taking time off, about putting everything on pause, and just resting. I have wanted to rest for so long.

But I couldn’t do it. I had to keep working, or at least, trying. I didn’t know what else to do - stop everything and cry? And for how long? Should I cry alone? Or with my sweet and caring husband? Or with a friend who has carried the same thing? All of the above?

I wanted to write, but I didn’t know where to start, and it felt odd to start with the end: “Dear reader: You didn’t know I was pregnant, but I just wanted you to know that I’m not anymore. So, nothing has changed, except that it has.”

On second thought, maybe it’s not weird to start with the end. Maybe all stories are circular.

And here’s the strangest thing: Right now, I feel the most loved, the most supported, the most nourished I’ve felt in a long time.

Right now, I actually feel really good. 

And, when I pause, I also feel really sad.

When I put my hands on my heart, I feel generations of hurting, and generations of loving. When I close my eyes, I feel that resonance grow louder. If I stay here, I feel where the loving meets the hurting, which is what I call healing. I feel the connections between things, and the connections inside things. When I stay here, I feel buoyed and whole.

Last night, I visited my friend and her six-day-old baby. According to the Gregorian calendar, her baby was born on New Year’s Eve. But to my friend, and to her baby, New Year’s Eve was not the Eve at all - it was the New Year. They did not need to wait another 24 hours; life had already begun again.

As I held her baby, I felt nothing but awe: the little hands and littler fingernails, the wispy hair and the crinkly ears, the sweet tiny nose that he held smushed against my friends chest as he ate. Everything this baby did was adorable, was perfect. This baby was not thinking ahead, and neither was my friend; for a moment, neither was I.

When I think about the baby that will not be, I feel everything: the grief, the hope, the emptiness, the expansion, the confusion, the peace… I glimpse the ananda that comes when the cycling stops.

I feel the same things when I look at the baby that is. At the baby that was born on the Eve. At the baby that is now smushed, so perfectly, against my friend’s chest.

It is hard to look at the calendar and not imagine six months, nine months, a year into the future. It’s hard to stay here, in the uncertainty, in the in-between, in the cycling and the spinning. But here I am, in the middle, at the end, and at the beginning, all at once. Present and planning, living and dying, holding this baby as I also hold his shadow.

Thank God we’re here, together.

♥️

---

Winter/ Spring Events w/ Abby

• Mexico Retreat // Feb 24-Mar 2

• Community Kirtan // Fri, Mar 22, 7:30-9pm

• Friday Community Practice // Live-streamed every Friday, 7:15-8:45am