I've just submitted ~ for the first time EVER ~ a piece to Mslexia. Under my real name.
I feel a bit sick, actually. But also rather proud of my bravery. Have utterly no belief that it will make it in, but I'm getting back on the submission horsey and starting to send stuff off, as I feel like I've done naff all in writing terms recently. Thats not strictly true, but I've been nowhere near focussed of late, and I need to get back into it.
It's been chaotic, the last few weeks.
The play wot I was in is done and dusted ~ thank Christ. Not a happy experience, overall, for lots & lots of reasons. Audiences loved it, mind you, but the rehearsal process was the most aggravating I've ever endured. I'll blog about it in more details when I've got a bit more perspective on that!
In other news, I've embarked upon a course of acupuncture, for stress relief, primarily, and I may well be addicted.
And I've started counselling, with regard to the miscarriage, as things were
getting harder, not easier, as time went on, and that ain't helping anyone or anything.
I've realised that I don't blog ~ or write ~ enough because I feel like I should have loads to say in order to make it worthwhile. And then I never get round to it.
So from now on snippets are the way forward for me.
Bite by bite.....
Showing posts with label miscarriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miscarriage. Show all posts
Monday, May 12, 2008
Friday, April 04, 2008
Normal service.....
....will be resumed soon, i hope.
It's been an odd time for me, recently. The crappy happenings of a few months back have started to hit hard. Silly me, I assumed that once the initial crying and bleeding was over with it would be onwards and upwards. I am lucky in one respect, as i have had little experience of grief in my life. However this meant that I was blissfully unaware that grief is a sneaky little bastard. It lurks beneath the surface until you think you've got your head above water, and then it grabs you by the ankle, pulling you down before you've had a chance to grab your breath. So these last few months have been like wading through mud.
And yet, whilst part of me is emotionally sapped, I'm doing great in other areas ~ I made the long-list (although not the short-list) of a short story competition that i had forgotten I had entered, which was an unexpected boost.
And I'm writing a lot. The novel is a bit of a fluffy duvet, which I can wrap myself up in and be far far removed from all the cacky mundanity. I have got almost an entire notebook of longhand to type up, and I've added a few new characters. Really pleased with how its going.
Also, I'm back on stage, which is another extremely fluffy duvet to wardoff all the nasty reality. Short version: husband is a professional actor, and we met through the theatre. I used to be involved in a lot of productions both on and back-stage. And, if I may be so bold as to blow my own trumpet, I wasn't too shabby an actress. And then allsorts got in the way ~ working full time & doing a part-time degree, writing, planning the wedding, moving house and so on ~ and so in the last fours years I've only taken one part on stage. And then out of the blue I got offered a part in a new play. A big part. And of the other adults cast, I'm the only non-professional, which I'm taking to be quite a compliment. And it's great. There really is nothing like being someone else for a while to literally take you out of yourself.
So, a mixed bag, this last few months: some bits are up, some bits are down, and I'm just in the middle trying to make some sense of it all.
And I still can't shake the feeling that there's something amazing on the horizon....... :-)
It's been an odd time for me, recently. The crappy happenings of a few months back have started to hit hard. Silly me, I assumed that once the initial crying and bleeding was over with it would be onwards and upwards. I am lucky in one respect, as i have had little experience of grief in my life. However this meant that I was blissfully unaware that grief is a sneaky little bastard. It lurks beneath the surface until you think you've got your head above water, and then it grabs you by the ankle, pulling you down before you've had a chance to grab your breath. So these last few months have been like wading through mud.
And yet, whilst part of me is emotionally sapped, I'm doing great in other areas ~ I made the long-list (although not the short-list) of a short story competition that i had forgotten I had entered, which was an unexpected boost.
And I'm writing a lot. The novel is a bit of a fluffy duvet, which I can wrap myself up in and be far far removed from all the cacky mundanity. I have got almost an entire notebook of longhand to type up, and I've added a few new characters. Really pleased with how its going.
Also, I'm back on stage, which is another extremely fluffy duvet to wardoff all the nasty reality. Short version: husband is a professional actor, and we met through the theatre. I used to be involved in a lot of productions both on and back-stage. And, if I may be so bold as to blow my own trumpet, I wasn't too shabby an actress. And then allsorts got in the way ~ working full time & doing a part-time degree, writing, planning the wedding, moving house and so on ~ and so in the last fours years I've only taken one part on stage. And then out of the blue I got offered a part in a new play. A big part. And of the other adults cast, I'm the only non-professional, which I'm taking to be quite a compliment. And it's great. There really is nothing like being someone else for a while to literally take you out of yourself.
So, a mixed bag, this last few months: some bits are up, some bits are down, and I'm just in the middle trying to make some sense of it all.
And I still can't shake the feeling that there's something amazing on the horizon....... :-)
Thursday, February 21, 2008
You're not the only one
The deadline for submissions for the charity anthology "You're not the only one" is looming, and i'm toying with submitting this piece (any crits more than welcome :-)) :
You’re not the only one. Happens all the time, quite common, really.
But it doesn’t happen all of the time to me. It’s not that common to me.
And at least now you know that you can conceive.
Thank you. But this was our baby, not a dress rehearsal.
I’m sure that everything will work out fine next time.
Are you? I wish I was. I’ve heard that before, in tones implying that I was a silly little thing, so anxious over a few spots of blood.
Its nature’s way, you know.
Ah, is it? And here’s me thinking I was being punished by some particularly vengeful god.
And at least it wasn’t born with something wrong with it.
We’ll crack open the bubbly.
It was probably for the best.
There have been a lot of ‘bests’ in my life so far. Losing my baby isn’t one of them.
I don’t know what to say.
No-one does. And that's just fine. There are no words that can make a difference. “Sorry” will do just fine
You’re not the only one. Happens all the time, quite common, really.
But it doesn’t happen all of the time to me. It’s not that common to me.
And at least now you know that you can conceive.
Thank you. But this was our baby, not a dress rehearsal.
I’m sure that everything will work out fine next time.
Are you? I wish I was. I’ve heard that before, in tones implying that I was a silly little thing, so anxious over a few spots of blood.
Its nature’s way, you know.
Ah, is it? And here’s me thinking I was being punished by some particularly vengeful god.
And at least it wasn’t born with something wrong with it.
We’ll crack open the bubbly.
It was probably for the best.
There have been a lot of ‘bests’ in my life so far. Losing my baby isn’t one of them.
I don’t know what to say.
No-one does. And that's just fine. There are no words that can make a difference. “Sorry” will do just fine
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Getting there
First and foremeost, heartfelt thanks to everyone who has passed on their kind thoughts following news of the miscarriage. I really do appreciate it.
And thank you to Zinnia for pointing me in the direction of Boob Pencil. So much of Clare's experince mirrors mine, and there's a comfort in reading about someone else going through, and ultimately coming out of the other side of, the same load of shit. "21 Reasons Why a Miscarriage is A Bit Rubbish" made me laugh, a lot, at a time when I didn't think I could manange to twitch the corners of my mouth into any semblance of jollity. The following excerpts were especially welcome [& I hope it's ok to reproduce this here?]:
(11) It goes on forever. I think most people assume (I certainly did) that you collapse in a big pile of blood for a few hours, and then it's all over. But no. It takes days, sometimes weeks, for it all to come out. And modern scanning techniques mean you often know (as we did) it's going to happen before it actually happens. So first you get the waiting. Then the bleeding. Then more waiting. More scans. More bleeding. And so on. It's rather tiresome.
(12) You don't get anything proper to grieve over, so you feel you have to gloss over it all the time. Unfortunately, your hormones don't agree.
(14) Babies and pregnancies and all related matters are fucking everywhere. You will not escape.
(15) It's a very common complaint. It doesn't even make you special. At least if I'd given birth to a half-horse-half-hippopotamous it would have given us something to talk about.
(19) People's faces. Ally said last week he didn't want to go into work cos he couldn't be arsed arranging his face. People are either too sympathetic or not sympathetic enough. I don't want people to act like nothing's happened, but I don't want them fawning all over me either. Sorry folks, you're best avoiding me for a bit. I don't have an Etiquette Guide for this one, and I'll change my mind from one moment to the next.
(20) Sick leave. The pain and the bleeding come and go. The tears come and go. Sometimes I'm fine. I feel crap for taking all this time off work. But I really don't want to go to work. But I still feel guilty.
Number 20 is especially pertinent to me. I took all of last week off work. Coming back on Monday was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Not because I dreaded the sympathetic head tilt and wan smile that I’ve seen a thousand a day since it happened (see number 19 above), but because it marked the end of it all. Back to normality.
When I was pregnant I loved having this tiny little secret that I carried wth me everywhere. And even following the miscarriage everything in my life was still all about the baby and the pregnancy, albeit the loss thereof. I enjoyed (as far as possible, given the circumstances) my week of coccooned protection from reality. Things were still going on outside my four walls, but they didn’t touch me. I was safe, removed from it all. It was all still "special”, somehow. But starting the week on Monday was like someone had hit rewind, and I’d gone back in time two months, to the days before the wee one existed at all. And I hated that part of it, the sense of erasure. Things aren’t special anymore. My breasts don’t hurt, I don’t feel sick, I’m not exhausted. And I can’t talk to him in my head anymore, which I miss, because I used to do that all of the time.
But on the plus side I have thrown myself into reading (such an escapist pursuit) and writing (ditto), and I’ve been running again. In fact, on saturday I went running in my gorgeous local park. I was really enjoying the catharsis, until I bumped (not quite literally, but almost) into the lady from the hospital who peerformed my scans and had the unenviable job of telling me that there was no heartbeat. I ran away pretty fast, not least in case she told me off for runing 8 days aftr a miscarriage, but it shook me up quite considerably.
But I'm much much better now. I'll never be totally over it, but I'm getting as close to "over it" as I can.
And thank you to Zinnia for pointing me in the direction of Boob Pencil. So much of Clare's experince mirrors mine, and there's a comfort in reading about someone else going through, and ultimately coming out of the other side of, the same load of shit. "21 Reasons Why a Miscarriage is A Bit Rubbish" made me laugh, a lot, at a time when I didn't think I could manange to twitch the corners of my mouth into any semblance of jollity. The following excerpts were especially welcome [& I hope it's ok to reproduce this here?]:
(11) It goes on forever. I think most people assume (I certainly did) that you collapse in a big pile of blood for a few hours, and then it's all over. But no. It takes days, sometimes weeks, for it all to come out. And modern scanning techniques mean you often know (as we did) it's going to happen before it actually happens. So first you get the waiting. Then the bleeding. Then more waiting. More scans. More bleeding. And so on. It's rather tiresome.
(12) You don't get anything proper to grieve over, so you feel you have to gloss over it all the time. Unfortunately, your hormones don't agree.
(14) Babies and pregnancies and all related matters are fucking everywhere. You will not escape.
(15) It's a very common complaint. It doesn't even make you special. At least if I'd given birth to a half-horse-half-hippopotamous it would have given us something to talk about.
(19) People's faces. Ally said last week he didn't want to go into work cos he couldn't be arsed arranging his face. People are either too sympathetic or not sympathetic enough. I don't want people to act like nothing's happened, but I don't want them fawning all over me either. Sorry folks, you're best avoiding me for a bit. I don't have an Etiquette Guide for this one, and I'll change my mind from one moment to the next.
(20) Sick leave. The pain and the bleeding come and go. The tears come and go. Sometimes I'm fine. I feel crap for taking all this time off work. But I really don't want to go to work. But I still feel guilty.
Number 20 is especially pertinent to me. I took all of last week off work. Coming back on Monday was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Not because I dreaded the sympathetic head tilt and wan smile that I’ve seen a thousand a day since it happened (see number 19 above), but because it marked the end of it all. Back to normality.
When I was pregnant I loved having this tiny little secret that I carried wth me everywhere. And even following the miscarriage everything in my life was still all about the baby and the pregnancy, albeit the loss thereof. I enjoyed (as far as possible, given the circumstances) my week of coccooned protection from reality. Things were still going on outside my four walls, but they didn’t touch me. I was safe, removed from it all. It was all still "special”, somehow. But starting the week on Monday was like someone had hit rewind, and I’d gone back in time two months, to the days before the wee one existed at all. And I hated that part of it, the sense of erasure. Things aren’t special anymore. My breasts don’t hurt, I don’t feel sick, I’m not exhausted. And I can’t talk to him in my head anymore, which I miss, because I used to do that all of the time.
But on the plus side I have thrown myself into reading (such an escapist pursuit) and writing (ditto), and I’ve been running again. In fact, on saturday I went running in my gorgeous local park. I was really enjoying the catharsis, until I bumped (not quite literally, but almost) into the lady from the hospital who peerformed my scans and had the unenviable job of telling me that there was no heartbeat. I ran away pretty fast, not least in case she told me off for runing 8 days aftr a miscarriage, but it shook me up quite considerably.
But I'm much much better now. I'll never be totally over it, but I'm getting as close to "over it" as I can.
