Mindfulness after Pregnancy Loss

Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention on the present. When you’re mindful, you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad. Instead of letting your life pass you by, mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to experience.
– via Psychology Today

 

I have always lived in places that attract lots of tourists: London, the south of Spain, Madrid, Paris, New York, and now San Diego. I’ve walked city streets in a hurry and have got increasingly impatient with all the tourists that slow me down. They clutter the pavements, crowd the sidewalks, meander slowly, and I have often paused to let them take the damn photo in that clichéd spot. Their blissfully unaware meandering was exasperating, until I recognised that it was quite exhausting getting so worked up over nothing. Isn’t it better to live each day with fresh eyes, like you’re seeing where you live for the first time?

I have a few IRL friends who are professional photographers. Me, I aspire to take better pictures. Sometimes I get lucky, most of the time… meh. But I enjoy dabbling in photography. Anyway, my photographer friends and I agree that the act of carrying a camera makes us be the lookout for that next photograph, which allows us to notice the tiniest details we might otherwise miss.

Like these gorgeous little bluebirds that flirted in my backyard this afternoon, and kept a watchful eye on me and my dog:

Two days after that first ultrasound, I was thinking about how best to experience the process of miscarriage. Most of my things that usually provide a creative outlet — my piano, my paints, my extensive jewellery-making supplies — are still in storage in New York, so I turned instead to writing.

The act of writing something knowing it will be read by at least one person is very different to writing in a private diary. I have to think about what I want to communicate and whether it will make sense to someone who doesn’t know me. Knowing I will write about most of my miscarriage experience is kind of like an invisible camera. It forces me to pay attention to what’s happening inside my body as it happens. At all moments there is a part of me that, like a reportage journalist, is making notes and taking mental pictures. It isn’t that I’m not fully experiencing the grief — rather, I like to think of it as being curious about it. It’s a form of mindfulness, something I have been experimenting with the last couple of years.

Over the past few days I have noticed that I am quick to hurt, which has led to a burst of anger. I gave my boss an earful (luckily for me, he took it in his stride) and afterwards got so angry that I slammed my bedroom door. I felt my face turn into a demonic snarl as I went for the door, slamming it so hard the whole house shook and my poor sensitive dog crawled, terrified, into the other room.

I’ve noticed an inertia. Despite my best intentions, I have not been able to do a single piece of catching up with my schoolwork this week. The idea was to catch up so that four weeks’ of homework doesn’t become five, and before my fourth class begins next week. Um, FAIL. I read and re-read what is required of me, but it doesn’t go in. I don’t know how to apply it. I can’t read about advanced CSS when I have this foggy mind. I can’t think about designing a hypothetical marketing campaign for Dramamine. But I can draw and work on logos and artwork in Illustrator. DH wisely pointed 0ut that all I do these days is write, and read books, research articles, and blogs written by women like me. He suggested I try something non-verbal. So what if I have to withdraw from a class or two? My goal is to have got caught up on my Illustrator projects by Tuesday morning. We’ll see…

I’ve noticed that I am sleeping more because it’s harder for me to get out of bed because I don’t have anything to look forward to. Not even my birthday, which is in 10 days’ time. I like birthdays — my own, as well as other people’s. Only 6 weeks ago I was wondering what I should do on my birthday, bearing in mind that I thought I would be almost 15 weeks pregnant.

Now, for the first time in my life, I don’t feel like celebrating. Why should I? I will be 35, that awful medical tipping point indicating a sudden sharp decline in egg quality and chances of getting pregnant, a dramatic increase in likelihood of miscarriage, and strong recommendations for amniocentesis, given the greater statistical chance of having a baby with Down syndrome or other more serious conditions. I want to hide and treat it like any other day. This year, my birthday falls on a Tuesday, a day that I have class from 8 – 11am, and it’s an evening where I will have the opportunity to attend my first pregnancy loss support group.

But I’m also noticing that there’s a part of me that does want to celebrate my birthday. I want to be able to say Fuck it, I’m going to have a good time! because I don’t want this experience — truthfully the worst of my life — to get the better of me. Even on my darkest days — and, holy hell, I have had quite a few the past few years– I try to remember to ask myself What can I learn from this? With my miscarriage, I am determined to learn what I can.  I firmly believe that being mindful of my feelings, no matter how difficult they are for me to to handle and others to observe, I will be a better person to myself and others. And one day, I hope, a better mother.

It is still early days but I am catching glimpses of what I think is budding wisdom. So far losing my little bean has shown me more than ever just how precious life is and how amazing it is that any of us were formed well enough to survive. How incredible it is that I have made it to 35. How significant it is that we should all make it to the age we’re at, no matter what shape we’re in! We’re here, like it or not, for so short a time we need to celebrate every day.

♥

To explore Mindfulness, read 10 Tips on Being Mindful Now. If you’re interested in learning more about Mindfulness, I recommend this hour-long talk that Jon Kabat-Zinn gave at Google in October 2011. Kabat-Zinn is Professor of Medicine Emeritus and founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He rocks.