hiss

you'd think that going through this three times, one would have a certain amount of heads-up as to what to expect. i thought i did. i mean look at my post from when i found out that Tummymuffin III was gone. it was comforting then to think i had "better tools" or that i knew what was coming, even if i was "not dismissing the possibility this could be different." well, you know what? f**k that.
i think that what i thought was: "hey, you already know how to mourn your dead babies! you're already good at that!" so here's the curve ball...so far it's not about that this time. dear God, it feels like it would be so easy if i were simply grieving the loss of another child. i can't even see that child right now, she's so buried under all this anger and confusion and dull, depressing greyness. it's like being buried myself.
i'm feeling bitter that i even had to have a conversation with my husband that involved nasty little acronyms like "ART" and "IVF" and phrases like "willing to lose another one" and "open to other possibilities." i don't know who i am or who i'm supposed to be right now. it feels like i'm simply marking time, waiting for..something. a decision? a revelation?
no. i think right now, in this moment, it's about honesty. i'm losing my sense of being a woman, of being female. yeah, it's that basic. when i poke the snake of anger, what it hisses is that it's not f***ing fair, normal women get pregnant and have live healthy babies as easily as it was for me to just type that phrase. don't argue with me, it hisses, you see this with your own eyes and it's lived out in front of you more often than the sh*t card you obviously drew.
it hisses that without being a mother, without that sort of fruitfulness, i will not develop fully into being a woman, and i will forfeit an enormous portion of life experience that i was told i should absolutely expect and hope to have.
it hisses that i will be alone, alone until my final exit. i will say goodbye to my husband, who was never a father, and to whom i never gave a child, and endure how many years of alone before finally leaving. will you rage, asks the snake, bitter and unwilling to let go? or will you just be so exhausted from loneliness that you simply fade? and then that will be all, no more of your line. so sorry, mom and dad. so sorry, future of my name.
it hisses that trust is slippery. it makes me doubt -- do i trust myself & do i really truly want a family? why do i want children anyway? can i trust the God who made my body which is clearly not working very well? can i trust a society that once again puts me on the outside of normal because it's not going as it "was supposed to?"
and here's the strange part. i think the snake isn't something to be killed, or be frightened of, or to scare away. no. i need to pick it up, wrap it around my wrist, and carry it with me. i need to warm it, count its scales, feel its flickering tongue on me without flinching. yes, much of what it hisses is ugly and painful, and has no truth in it -- but ignoring it, or silencing it is not going to make it stop. i'm suspecting that the snake, while disguised as anger, is perhaps really fear -- and shoving fear back into the shadows just makes it more powerful. and i also suspect that i have something to learn out of all that hissing.
i'm fumbling around in the dark, but i know a flashlight is there, somewhere.

*for those of you who may be offended by profanity: i'm very sorry for offending you. i cannot, however, apologise for being honest. i don't swear lightly.