Day 5 of #captureyourgrief coincides with my undue date for Mizuko Bean.
Bean showed up with two bold pink lines, but with my fucked up DNA he never stood a chance: he stopped growing at 6 weeks but I didn’t miscarry. (You can read my letter to him, Dear Little Mizuko Bean, here.)
Curiously, my grief for Bean is now tied up in not having a genetic link to my daughter. I had a few chemical pregnancies after Bean, but I count him as the only genetic child I ever had. Genes aren’t important for parenting and bonding, but not passing on DNA means there’s an extra layer to parenting that most other parents simply don’t have to think about. I am raising my daughter open-heartedly: this means she is growing up knowing her conception story; and it also means the people in our lives also know. And I have had to do quite a bit of educating! Thankfully, all but one person have been incredibly supportive and open-minded.
And curiouser, I think of Bean’s spirit as my daughter now. She is Bean. It’s like the little soul that tried to manifest couldn’t do so in the first earthly body it was given, so it returned a year later to the day in the form of my girl.
Though my current grief is more infertility PTSD, I’ll never forget how my world was split open by miscarriage. My chemical pregnancy in May brought its own time-warp hell—a cruel loop that I’m currently trapped in. In some ways, it’s easier this time, having V. In other ways, it’s much, much harder.
But in my more confident moments, I am able to trust that the little spirit who flourished briefly in May will be returned to me next year.
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