A dash more Pepper

Ha!  That last post was my 100th!  I should have had fireworks or something!  Well, I'll copy my neighbors who take their leftover pyrotechnics, wait till 11:47 PM, go right beside my youngest sleeping child's window, and light 'em off right there and then.  Yayyyy....  I should go buy the ones on clearance, awake at 5, and set them off in front of _their_ house.  Mwa ha ha!  But that would be most un-Christian of me.

Bummer. :)

Today, I'm imbibing a dairy free, clear liquid diet, concluding this around 5 PM with the grand finale: four Dulcolax tablets and a bottle of Miralax in Gatorade.  Yes my friends, it's colonoscopy time!  (I believe there's a Sandra Boynton book by that title...)

This is the last and most annoying of the tests I'm doing as follow-up to my miscarriage.  And it's almost been two years since my last one anyway, and since they found precancerous polyps when I had this test at the ripe old age of 25, I shall be indulging in this experience every two years for my earthly future... until they come up with a nicer way of doing it then a 24 hour cleanse and flexible pipe...

But that's TMI already.  Ah well.  Last bit on that, they're putting me under general this time because--having an absurdly high tolerance for knock-out drugs (including alchohol, actually-- I have been awake for all four of my previous colonoscopies and also awake for an endoscopy (the one that goes down your throat).  Having seen far too much of my insides live on screen during such, as they say, "uncomfortable" procedures, I am now finally going under for real.  I look forward to this. Naptime!! :)

But the last time I went under was for a D&E so.... I'm more emotional about it right now.  Ora pro me.

A note on that: I got a call last week casually informing me that the genetic discrepancy that was hypothesized to cause my pregnancy's demise was now, not "unknown" but "benign."  As in "a-okay, not a problem, shouldn't have bothered you about it, so sorry."  My husband has the same bizarre gain on the same gene. And he's quite alive last time I checked.  

What does this mean?  Now my second trimester miscarriage is back to having an "unknown cause."  Unless they find something wrong with me.  Which they really haven't yet.

Turns out I don't have lupus.  I don't have a clotting disorder.  I don't know why the placenta failed.  I don't know if anything could or could not have been prevented.  After having four healthy children, I may never find out why this one, after getting into the "safe" trimester, suddenly went wrong.

I don't know what happened.  :_(  It has been so hard to get pieces of news, only to have them ripped back up, rearranged, and leaving me to sew the pieces back together in another way that, perhaps, will make more sense...

However it happened, it did happen, and I spent yesterday headstone shopping.  Which you can design online, of course.  And did you know you can get a headstone with free shipping?  Way cool.

And some design options are, frankly, hilarious.  Pine cones.  Horses.  Wide-mouthed bass.  And then you can sort through a variety of little angels.   Some greatly obese, staring stupidly, riding sheep.

After selecting the most reasonable of the bunch, still trying to amuse myself, I started writing off the cuff epitaphs.  Casablanca references.  This blog's address.  Cuz hey, she could have her story out there, and have a website on her marker... I mean, how absurdly modern!  Maybe I could get a QR code etched...

I finally got around to writing her name on the stone.  With her death date, no birth date.  And suddenly I wasn't having such a great time anymore.

Most days are good days, these days.  I'm nervous about my due date in the end of August, when those who have had such losses say you take a real dip.  I can see that.  I'm tombstone shopping when I should be setting up her bassinet.  That just sucks.

And then there's the occasional flashback.  Like the other day when I woke up feeling the doppler wand sliding across my belly, and hearing the occasional gurglings and the squealing sound--like dragging a needle across a spinning record--in the increasingly worried search for a heartbeat I never heard again.  I was right back there, on the table, all my senses engaged, months later.  Flashbacks suck too.

What a strange journey grief is.  Times of joy awkwardly and unexpectedly collide with the sadness, like when I happily jumped in a hot tub only to realize tears were pouring from my eyes, really before I knew they were.  I had such a sense memory of the last time I was in a jacuzzi, just dangling my feet in and splashing only my arms carefully with the hot water.  Trying to protect my baby when, in the end, I couldn't.

On that same getaway, the hotel was completely overrun with little stone angels.  Exactly like the one on her grave.  Yes, at first I kind of swore to myself.  But then later... I liked it.  Seeing a sleeping or harp-strumming angel in every corner.  Looking up to the ceiling with a (very poorly done) fresco of cherubs flying in pairs, pointing to the window where the sun streamed in.

There is a Great Joy beyond what we see.  And she lives inside it, a perfect womb where she swims and breathes this Joy into her being.  Her very existence is delight.

Regret-free, full of bliss, she waits for me.  I strongly feel she wants me to be happy, sharing in her life with God as best I can here.

Perpetua Felicitate

Sounds like I'm nearing a good epitaph, huh?  Or maybe I should go with, "Here's looking at you, kid." :)

"The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: 

to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen." Isaiah 9:2