My Other Self

It was two days before Christmas day. I was furious. Filled with anger, resentment. I just had something demonic inside, and it was quite different and bitterer than my normal, good old, sarcastically hysterical self.

It was the holidays and my mum was visiting. My daughter was in a bliss and full of excitement as we were visiting some strange men in Santa costumes at different places literally every day. Especially malls.

But I was furious. With life, with myself, with everyone and everything, and especially with my choices. Why have I come to this country? Why have I chosen my partner? Why have I chosen this job? I was full of self-doubt.

I don't believe in planning. In fact, I think I'm scared of it. Scared of disappointment, scared of losing. That's why I don't plan. Especially about big stuff. I didn't plan my pregnancy or my career. It's not because I'm disorganised or coming from a dysfunctional family background or just plain not interested. It’s none of those things. In fact, reality is quite the opposite. I’m very organized (at least in my mind), and my parents are well educated, reasonably sane people and through the ups and downs, have been good parents.

But I don’t plan. And it’s because I'm scared. Of losing. Yes, I plan what to do for the weekend. But I don't plan for what to do in five years. I barely planned my wedding or my baby shower or my homewarming party. I let it slide, let people and life shape it.

As a result, we weren't trying... to conceive. I was just letting things happen as usual. To see the outcome. To see what the future would bring. To see when my daughter would have a baby sister. I love my husband and enjoy being with him in every aspect of life. So we were sliding but we weren't trying.

I usually take pregnancy tests every month, just to be on the safe side. I'm not sure why but I hadn't done one yet that month. I was having all the symptoms but for some reason I just didn't. I was sure I wasn't pregnant. Just wasn't the right dates.

Now when I look back and think about it, it was probably because I was terrified of being pregnant. First one was so difficult so why would the second one be easier?

There are no words, hence the keyboard cannot help me to express the intense love I have in my whole being for my daughter. But I'm a worrier, I'm a self-diagnosed hypochondriac, that's why I was constantly worried during my first pregnancy. So probably that's why I was never in peace with it. But in the end I was ok. So it was ok. Until that Christmas.

This story which I will tell you now will prove how this state of uneasiness is about to change.

It was two days before Christmas day. I decided to do a test. I'm used to those sticks. Peeing on a stick is as complicated as pregnancy itself. Trying to do one thing and messing everything else. So I was trying hard not to pee on the toilet seat while counting five seconds and at the same time I was holding the stick into my light yellow gush of pee. I was sure that I wasn't pregnant, that’s why I must have left it on the window sill and totally forgot about it.

We were just about to leave the house to continue with the never-ending Christmas shopping, I remembered about the stick. That complicated stick… It was positive. But I wasn't. I took a picture and texted it to my husband. He was at work. He is a calmer version of my other self whom I wish I could be. But it's not me. I'm everything but calm. He wrote back: Oh shit!

I wasn’t feeling too bad during the shopping. Trying to attend to my daughter who was asking me to find and buy a bubble-gum ice cream and a fuchsia coloured space craft at the same time. So I was distracted. My mum was nice, friendly. Always has been. But I didn't have the heart to tell her either.

I will tell you the truth. I never wanted this pregnancy. From the first moment I've seen the double lines till the Middle Eastern doctor at the hospital confirmed that it was a blighted ovum and I would miscarry eventually, I didn't want it.

It was an empty bullet run through my heart when I heard the doctor looking at the empty sac on the ultrasound machine and trying to choose the righteous moment of silence to break the news.

I wanted to write all the depressing, bleak songs and sing them at the same time. The emptiness was filling my whole being. Emptiness which was emptier than the sac inside me.

My other half got upset. But he managed to stay calm.

But my sadness was different. A gush of incrimination, self-pity, depression, and thousands of other feelings were mumbling through my heart. I was full of emotion yet nothing was filling the emptiness inside. Yes, I was definitely emptier than the sac inside of me. In fact, I have become the sac.

I decided to miscarry with medical termination as I didn’t want to wait any longer. I probably cried every day. I might cry today but today I know what happened was actually a good thing. A good thing which is helping me to bring out the good inside of me. Maybe my other self which I long to be.

This is my miscarriage story. It’s a bit like everyone else’s, a bit routine, yet up close and personal. It is sad but it is hopeful at the same time. It taught me a lot. It taught me not to question everything. It taught me to believe. It taught me to accept. It taught me to hope. It taught me to look around and relax (well this is the difficult one).

And it surely helped me understand one thing. That I want to be pregnant again. And this time I can be more like my other self.

For all my fellow women who suffer in silence and never speak about their miscarriage.