Things I love about not being pregnant

This list has been running through my head for awhile now. I loved being pregnant, and not being pregnant has opened me up to enjoying things I never thought much about before.

Taking the stairs not the escalator

rediscovering the waist belt on my backpack

walking between tables in a crowded restaurant

tackling small children/picking them up/general rough-housing

eating spicy food and then lying down right away without heartburn. In fact, tomorrow I think I'll eat some spicy food WHILE lying down.

standing on a crowded train without hating every able-bodied looking person sitting in one of those seats that are supposedly reserved for the disabled, aged... and pregnant.

Smelling fumes/Standing near a microwave/feeling angry without a feeling of dread that I'm ruining my offspring

Demim

Hugging people without having to reach over myself to get at them

Sleeping/Reading on my stomach

Not talking to strangers about my condition (although, admittedly, I missed this for the first few weeks)

Tying my shoes with nary a care in the world (although my pregnant shoe-tying skills are very helpful when I'm carrying Simon in the Moby)

Not having to ask Zak for help with really silly things

Urdva Danurasana (Although with my rotator cuff issues, that was a short-lived love affair... but that's another post entirely.)

Riding my bicycle FAST and without being a spectacle.

Moments That Are Suddenly New Again

Part of being pregnant is discovering all sorts of new things about your body.
Part of miscarrying is rediscovering all the old things about your body and everything else. An abbreviated list of things that have made me catch my breath...

Catching my reflection in profile
Fitting into clothes I'd put away in a box last week because they didn't fit
the onesey a friend gave me in the bottom of my underwear drawer
Not needing to stop at Felipe's for a tostada after work to tide me over until dinner
A kid in my class asking me this morning "Kendra, do you have any kids at your house?" "Why not?"
Hearing about a friend's ultrasound (Not bitter! Not jealous even, just surprised to find that I'm not going to have another one.)
Taking herbs and teas I wasn't allowed to
Being offered brie and having no internal conflict (and wine and beer)
Realizing that this was my last conversation with my midwife until my next "first" conversation with her.

The closest I can come to this feeling was the feeling I had during the first two weeks of my sophomore year at college when I suddenly realized that I'd have to drop out. There's this constant sense of editing... suddenly reworking plans, dreams and assumptions. I've been practicing meditation and yoga for years now in an effort to undo my conditioning, wake up, and let go of all my plans, dreams, assumptions and habitual thoughts. I wouldn't have guessed that a miscarriage would impact my awareness so much more effectively than any think I've done on purpose! I'm grateful for all these moments when I wake up.

Tough News

I've already posted this on Facebook, and emailed it to my nears and dears. (I'm sorry if I left you out of the loop nears and dears, it was an email error, not a statement.) But a blog is, after all, a log.

Here's the message to our friends that Z eloquently composed. http://zipl.org/toughnews.html

When we discovered I was pregnant I wrote so many blog entries in my mind... about feeling sick and about not feeling sick, about swallowing whole books on pregnancy and childbirth... about the excitement of getting to know Z as a father as well as an amazing person, and partner, a competent, clever, funny person... about the fun of having pregnant friends. About a million things. I told myself to write them, but was too disappointed about having to have a secret, too distracted by experiencing all these crazy things to sit down and write about it in any disciplined way.

It's strange that I kept this big secret for all that time, only to tell everyone right before it was all over. Very strange.

This was in every way a fantastic practice for the baby to someday come. We got to find out how our midwives are in a crisis (very supportive, compassionate and present) and how we are. (Z is everything a person could ask for.) I learned about how my body deals with pregnancy, and to a lesser extent how it is with labor. We know what a fantastic and loving community we're in. I'm grateful for all of this.