back in december, we were pregnant.
and then we weren’t.
miscarriage.
that scary word no one can say without stuttering through it in a whisper.
a moment that causes unspeakable pain but can also give new strength. an experience that can bond two people so deeply if they open their hearts up to it. …it’s something you won’t ever forget, but you can heal from it. i know this because i did. and trust me, i don’t heal from anything easily. i have grown up with the bad habit of holding onto my pain, and have only recently in the last few years recognized that i’ve been held hostage to so many things that i should have just let go of and forgiven. it was because of the miscarriage that i recognized my own strength. i allowed myself the time to grieve deeply and to feel everything. i worked from the couch on my laptop, wearing the same clothes for days in a row. i didn’t shower. i didn’t take any photos. i didn’t throw the ball outside with fiona. i bought a pack of smokes. and i cried more than i ever have in my whole life. i remember waking up one morning and immediately felt my heart shatter when i no longer felt pregnant. the tenderness and flutters vanished and immediately i was consumed by darkness. it was over. it was really really over. whatever hope i was clinging to disappeared. the pregnancy test i carried around in my purse for weeks flashing “PREGNANT” no longer said anything, as if it knew. it was a blank reminder that what once was, was no longer.

i remember looking into the mirror about three days later and not even being able to recognize myself. it was like staring at a complete stranger, a ghost of who i once was. i stared and stared and stared. trying desperately to find any part of me that was familiar, but it was gone. and i quickly became afraid that this would harden my heart and that i would become bitter, and i just couldn’t allow myself to make space in my heart for that. our hearts are our bodies most valuable real estate, and bitterness + anger + doubt + shame have no place there.

shame.
that was probably the most difficult feeling to sort through + battle.
my story isn’t perfect now, and it never has been. and on top of all the things i carry around with me that make me feel broken, not being able to give us a baby was added to the pile of imperfections. i’m the girl who got into bad relationships. i’m the girl with the divorced parents. i’m the girl who barely graduated high school. i’m the girl who dropped out of college twice. i’m the girl who overthinks. i’m the girl who breaks out in stress hives. and now i’m the girl who had a miscarriage.

but then i woke up one day and decided that there was nothing i wanted more than to be a mother, and i knew that it was time to stitch my heart back up and get dressed. and shower. i couldn’t pretend to be a mermaid to my niece if my hair was dirty and unbrushed. so i did. i got dressed, curled my hair, put some makeup on and decided to be grateful.

grateful that my body knew something wasn’t right.
grateful that we were shown that we could get pregnant.
grateful for more time to savor our quiet little life.
grateful to be shown once again that marty + i can get through anything.

its taken me months to be able to write about this. i was overwhelmed with the fear that our journey to parenthood would become this sad story if people knew we miscarried. and sometimes that fear becomes reality when i mention i want to have babies and people respond with something like “awwww, when the time is right…”

the time was right, the time started being right the moment we decided to start trying. what wasn’t right was out of our control, and nothing else. we aren’t sad anymore. we aren’t impatient and we are having fun trying. we aren’t pressuring ourselves and i haven’t started checking my body temperature everyday. we aren’t fearful that we won’t be able to have children. we are just simply doing what the rest of the world does when they want to have a baby, we are just waiting for our turn. i can’t wait to wake up one morning from that same gut feeling that made me pee on a stick the first time. i can’t wait to run up the stairs at 7am and wake marty out of a deep sleep to tell him we’re having a baby. i can’t wait to lay down in bed after a long day and rub my not-showing-at-all belly. i can’t wait to see our parents faces when we tell them we’re having a baby again. i can’t wait to start dreaming again about who our baby will be. and weirdly enough, i can’t wait for my boobs to hurt again.

my heart is healed, and we are happily back on the baby making road. and even though i feel like the britt i was before the miscarriage has gone away, i have fallen in love with the me that has risen from the agony of loss.

one of the best things i did for myself after the miscarriage was get in front of the camera of two talented ladies, Megan Saul + the queen of self-love, Cheyenne Gil. megan was first, and she came to my childhood home which happened to be empty. the loss was fresh and raw and while i tried to let myself be vulnerable to my emotions it was extremely hard for me to let myself feel what was eating me up inside. a few weeks later, and fresh off of a seriously wonderful vacation to the mountains, i stepped in front of cheyenne’s camera, and that’s when i realized that the bandaids were ready to come off. i was healed, and it felt good to laugh, and it felt good to feel beautiful and womanly again. i’m forever grateful to these women for being a part of helping me get through one of those dark hours with their talent + love.

i am grateful for our baby who will never be for bursting my heart wide open and for letting me be a mama, even just for a little while.

cheyenne