Shopping

I walk into Walmart and get a cart from the smiling, happy Door Greeter. I automatically turn to the left...I always go to the pharmacy/beauty supplies section first, and I need to get Charles some knee braces. I then meander over to the food, starting with the produce. I see that apples and pears are on sale...Sweet! You have to be careful about the produce at Walmart, but today they actually look good (ah, the joys of living in a rural area where the only option to grocery shop is Walmart!) I take my time, strolling through the produce where usually I am gung-ho to get the fuck out of the store and back home. I notice some dried fruit...pineapple and mangoes. They sound delicious and possibly something I might get for Alexis...until I look at the nutritional information and see sugar listed as the second ingredient, and that they contain 26 grams of sugar. Uh, I don't think so!

I continue on through the frozen foods, grabbing these mozzarella bite thingies that I have been wanting to try. I select our chicken, grab some thin sliced turkey that is on sale, and compare brands of yogurt to see which has the best nutritional value (I am getting concerned about Elizabeth's diet...just because she has a high metabolism does not mean that she can just eat shit like she seems to think!) All of this is ordinary, nothing too terribly special.

Yet tonight, it is. Today, I just found out that the baby that I thought might be is not. Today, for the 6th time, I had to deal with a medical professional telling me the worst possible news that a person can get, in a very professional and sympathetic voice. I am at the point where I can totally tell when they call what is good news, what is bad, and what is indifferent. Today, when I heard that voice say, "Is this Laura Lambkins?" in their uber-professional voice, today, I knew, with a complete and sinking feeling of dread, exactly what they were going to be telling me:

I am very sorry to tell you that you are not pregnant anymore. Your Hcg level is at an 8. Dr. H wants you to stop the Prometrium, stop everything, and come back in a week to get your levels checked. I am very sorry.

Then I walked home and saw it on my porch. The package from the mail-order pharmacy, the package that has my heparin in it. The heparin that I never took, for a baby that never was. Now don't get me wrong, I am completely 100% pro-choice here. But I CHOSE to get pregnant, I chose to go through this, I made these choices knowing full well that this was a very possibly outcome. And for some reason, it is hitting me very hard this time.

Maybe it is because I still felt pregnant. My other m/c's since my son, I ALWAYS lost the pregnancy symptoms before I lost the pregnancy. This time, I did not. Up until I got that call (and even now, to tell the truth) I FELT pregnant. I had the symptoms. All in my head or no, they were very real.

Maybe because I had some fantasy of beating the odds, that THIS ONE would FINALLY be it. I wrote a post about denial before...maybe I was so there.

Or maybe it is because I am tired of the universe shitting on me, of my body failing me, of it being the wrong combination of my genes and my husband's genes...IDK. Recurrent pregnancy loss sucks in so many ways...

So as I leave the store, with all of my groceries in the cart that I had no desire to purchase, the food that actually made me kinda sick to look at, I look up at the stars and silently curse. I curse that I had to walk through that store and pretend that I was OK when I was not. People, when they looked at me, may have thought that I was just another worn down, tired mother. Maybe a little sad...but they had no idea of what was playing out in my uterus at that very moment. I get to my Jeep and see my hanging file cabinet of papers I use for work. I don't even want to think about work at this moment (my job that I love but that I might be forced out of soon...) so I quickly cover it with bags of groceries. I briefly think that I should one day opt to buy some reusable grocery bags, but the thought flits out of my mind as quickly as it came. I slam the door shut, thinking that it is not fair that I have yet again been put in the position of having to pretend; of having to be the strong one. The few people that I have told are incredulous. Some question if I was even pregnant in the first place; if there is not something wrong with the test, or something that the docs missed. They can't accept that RPL can be unexplained. I sure as hell don't want to.

I push the grocery cart into the corral, perhaps with a bit more force than is warranted, and get in the Jeep to drive home. I fight back the tears that are welling in my eyes, as well as the despair that is in my heart. I have a lot of good things in my life, true. I KNEW that my life would be hard when I chose the path that I did. But just for once, it would be fabulous if it would be a bit easier.