Hit Me Again

One year ago today, I was sitting on my bathroom floor, crying.  I missed Nelle so badly and was in so much emotional pain.    I was 14 weeks, 1 day pregnant with Iris, with no idea that I had only two weeks left.

Today, I sat in my bathroom again.  11 weeks, 3 days pregnant this time.  I let the water of my bathtub swirl around me, hoping that it would alleviate my headache.  Impossible to ignore my increasing pregnancy shape.  But I didn’t cry.  At times it feels like this surreal, out-of-body experience, where I am going through the motions, reliving a past experience where I already know how it ends.  Counting down the days until the next appointment, where I feel sure that I’ll be told there is no heartbeat.

I used to be a runner.  In 2014, I ran in a dozen 5k races.  Pregnant in early 2015, I gave up on regular running, but still participated in a 5k one warm summer morning in July – the only race I’ve ever done while pregnant.  After losing Nelle, I walked.  Long, solitary walks where I would just cry.  I stopped walking after becoming pregnant again.  After losing Iris, my soul was too heavy to even walk.  I found hot yoga, and that became my outlet.  Now, pregnant again, unable to do hot yoga, I have nothing.

I had a dream last night where I was running.  I had the lean, toned body of a runner, in my favorite running pants and zip-up.  A friend was running beside me and we were talking about my losses.  Then, in my dream, she announced “Oh yeah, by the way, I’m pregnant.”  Like it was nothing.  I started crying and screaming, saying “Why did you say that to me?  Why would you say that to me?”  The dream shook me so much that I woke up.  I thought of the running.  Running alongside someone, as their lives keep moving, while mine is standing still, even when the context of the dream was only a dream.

Now, after thinking through all of this, I’m crying.