LongLegsBigCity

‘Tis the Season

October 26, 2023 3 Comments

When you think of the saying “tis the season,” you think of Christmas, or the Thanksgiving-Christmas combo. But in my mind, the “season” starts with Halloween.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know that Halloween is a National Holiday (caps-intentional) in my household. For as long as I can remember, I have loved Halloween. There are many photos of me as a young kid in various costumes, from a yellow M&M to a clown, to a gypsy (clearly before we cared about being politically correct). Then as a college student I had multiple costumes a year that bordered on ho-tastic. Thigh high stockings were often involved. As an adult, I came into my Halloween new self, and decided that full-body unitard costumes were my new love. I was a treasure troll (nude unitard), Smurfette (blue unitard), a Hershey Kiss (silver unitard), an Oompa Loompa (hand-dyed unitard), etc etc etc. When I moved to New York, we often had big group friend costumes like Wizard of Oz and Care Bears. Eventually when Chris came into the picture, I folded him into the group costume sometimes, like Winnie the Pooh (he was Christopher Robin) or Ninja Turtles (he was a slice of pizza). Some years it was just Chris and me, like when we were a gumball machine and a quarter, and Blue and Steve from Blues Clues.

My costumes often involved some sort of stomach stuffing or camouflage. As I mentioned last week, my body-dysmorphia contributed to my costume choices, and they often involved stuffing the stomach of my unitard. After many years of stomach-stuffing, it was ironic last year when I was actually pregnant on Halloween and I again wore a unitard but did NOT want to draw attention to my stomach. I hadn’t told any of my local friends yet, and in fact, during our annual traditional Halloween Pub Crawl, I told my first friend in NYC, so she could help be a decoy as I ordered gin and tonics, sans gin.

I remember that day so well. I woke up to put finishing touches on Chris’s and my costumes, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. I googled classic poses so we could do a side-by-side picture with the cartoons. I remember being relieved to find one picture where they were sort of leaned over. It was the perfect pose to hide a stomach and not cause any speculation. We headed down to the pub crawl and I somehow got my friend away from the crowd to tell her our news. She was so happy for us. I spent all day drinking tonic water and pretending to be drunk. At one point, another friend asked me why my drink was in a larger cup than hers, and I had the quick thought to tell her I had ordered a double. I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with that answer on the fly and presenting it in a believable way, but my brain was crystal clear, after all, I was sober and she was not.

I was SO tired, and I didn’t know if it was from being pregnant or from traveling back from Australia, and then to Los Angeles and back the previous week. All of my recent travel gave me a perfectly legitimate excuse to leave the pub crawl early. When I got home I was so relieved that our secret was still safe and I had made it through a day without anyone knowing.

I was already brainstorming costumes for the next year. I figured that I might not be at a pub crawl, but I definitely planned to have a family costume including a 4-month old baby. How exciting to have a new configuration for a group costume! I was researching ideas online of family costumes with babies involved. I had a running list of ideas. How naïve and positive of me to assume at 8 weeks pregnant that I would have a whole alive baby the next year? It seems crazy to think that that same girl now can’t even picture what it would be like to have a child that’s alive.

Thanksgiving brings even worse memories; I was 12 weeks pregnant. As you know, the Macy’s Parade holds a very important space in our family’s traditions. I’ve been attending since I was a baby. Last year, I went to watch with my sister. I was pregnant and she knew, but my parents didn’t know yet. It was 6 am and we were waiting hours for the Parade to start. Usually we stood and played games, but I felt so nauseous. I sat on the ground and munched on a protein bar and tried not to throw up. I was scared to drink water because I knew I would have to pee. I was planning to tell my parents the news the next day and my sister and I were predicting how it would go. I remember saying I thought they’d cry. I remember talking with my sister about how the next year I couldn’t watch the Parade in person because I’d have a 5.5-month old. She said I could definitely bring her, and we talked about how it would work out. Now Thanksgiving is around the corner and the thought of watching the Parade and NOT being nauseous makes me nauseous. Thinking about watching the balloons go by without a baby on my chest is so depressing.

December holidays bring another additional set of depressing thoughts. Chris and I had many conversations about what religion we would raise our kids. We decided we would incorporate both of our religions. The thoughts of a baby’s first Hannukkah and Christmas were so exciting. I thought about the ornament we’d get for our tiny tree. I purchased matching sets of Hannukkah and Christmas pajamas for our little family of three when they were on clearance after Christmas. I was 17 weeks pregnant, I was home free! (Can you see my eye roll through the computer?)

Sisters at the Parade (the Pillsbury dough boy wasn’t the only one with something in his belly!)

When we were in school, seasons were always a sign of change. Summer was time off, vacation, camp, trips to the pool. Then every August/September marked a new year. Leaves fell and we counted the days until Thanksgiving break. Winter in Florida marked a welcome reprieve from humidity, and a trip to the beach on Christmas Day. Once I moved to New York, Christmas was magical. The streets were lit up, the tree went up in Rockefeller Center, and there was always a possibility of snow. Then spring came and we were so relieved to have more light and shed our heavy jackets.

Now, every season sucks. One starts, and it sucks, one ends, and I remember how it sucked. I remember distinctly the week after Labor Day this year, I felt like I was stabbed a million times a day as all of the small talk revolved around the questions, “how was your summer?” and “what did you do this summer?”

I was supposed to be on maternity leave all summer. I was supposed to take care of a baby all summer. My summer was supposed to be magical and the start of a new chapter of my life. Instead, I was working and trying to get through every day one minute at a time.

Here’s what I wanted to hear in September, “Congratulations!” “Welcome back!” “Can I see a picture of your daughter?” I didn’t hear any of those things.

Instead, I don’t really remember the summer. It started with our first wedding anniversary… without the baby we were supposed to have. Then was my due date… without the baby we were supposed to have. Then our meet-iversary without the baby we were supposed to have. Then my nephew’s 1^st birthday, where I was reminded that he was supposed to have a similar-aged-cousin. Then was the trip Chris and I took to try and distract ourselves from the fact that we had no baby.

How was I supposed to say that to well-meaning colleagues asking about my summer? I didn’t say that. I said, “good, how about you?”

I naively assumed that summer would be the hardest season. I thought for sure that summer would be harder than any other season because my expectations for what I thought it would be were so different from what actually happened.

But as autumn begins, I realize that my entire life, all four seasons of every single year, is going to be different from my expectations. What a doozy of a thought. It’s overwhelming.

I saw a post from a grief account on social media recently that talked about the seasons you had with your loved one who died. In my case I got only two seasons with my daughter. And I have innumerable ones left without her. How do I get through them? Every change in seasons is just a reminder that I am still here, the world is still turning, and somehow I continue to wake up. There’s a book called “How Dare the Sun Rise?” While the subject matter of that book is completely different, I think that same phrase often. I wake up almost every day in shock that the world is still existing while I am barely alive.

I’ve been talking a lot in therapy recently about trying to stay in the present. The past is filled with things I can’t change, and the future is completely outside of my control, so the only thing I can do is be in the present, try to find an ounce of gratitude for it, and continue on. But it’s hard to stay in the present when the present is so hard.

There are certain pieces of the holiday season that I will continue to observe, but at least this year, I have decided I need to opt out of some things for my mental health. I cannot fathom creating a DIY costume for just my husband and me, knowing that a crucial part of our group is missing. There’s absolutely no way I can sign up to hand out candy to the kids in my building who will come up to the door in all of their adorableness with their parents, while our house remains empty of little giggles.

I will probably still go to the Macy’s Parade and I will try to channel my gratitude that I only have to rouse myself and not a baby at 5 am to get a good spot. I will also travel to family to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas. But it’s not going to be easy. The constant comparison of what I thought the holidays would be, versus what they are, is on a loop in my mind. The only thing I can do is be honest by telling people I expect it to be difficult, and then try to give myself grace when it is, indeed difficult. At 8 months post-loss, It’s becoming harder for people to understand why I am still so sad, but I hope that reading this blog helps some people understand. I write it for myself, but I also write it as a gift of communication. I have learned over and over again that people can’t read minds, so instead, I have put my thoughts online.

Wishing you all a happy(ish) holiday season.

Grief and Pregnancy Loss

Body Image and Pregnancy Loss

October 23, 2023 No Comments

TW: pregnancy loss and eating disorders and TMI if you’re not comfortable with female bodies

I have been debating for a few months whether or not I should write on the topic of body image and pregnancy, since I didn’t have a full-term pregnancy and my view is different from others. But a few weeks ago, I was on a support group with a fellow loss mom who lamented that her stomach was slowly getting smaller post-loss, whereas she watched other future moms as they continued to get bigger. I realized that while pregnancy and body image are intimately linked, so are pregnancy loss and body image. I can speak from both sides, the before, and the after.

I never understood people who said pregnant bodies were beautiful. I was never the type to look in awe at someone with a baby bump. Honestly, to me they looked uncomfortable. When I started to seriously think about getting pregnant, the thought of my body changing outside of my control was terrifying. For many years I struggled with disordered eating, but for about ten years, I’ve felt good in my own skin and I’ve been a staunch proponent of the body positivity/intuitive eating movement. I enjoy food and I don’t want to count calories. I also enjoy movement and I don’t want to count workouts. I like sweets, and I like lifting weights. I try to balance everything. Since I knew that being pregnant could cause me to change both my eating habits and my movement habits after I was finally in a good place with both, I was very scared.

After we told my parents I was pregnant, I remember talking to my dad on the phone and he asked me if I would take weekly “bump” pictures comparing the baby to a fruit or whatever weird thing the apps say your fetus is the size of (a peanut!). I remember exactly what corner of the sidewalk I was on when I started laughing hysterically. I said, “Daddy have you ever met me!?” I would never do that. The thought of taking maternity photos where I would be capturing my body in its largest and uncontrolled form seemed preposterous to me. Why would I ever want those pictures? I distinctly remember around 15 weeks when my blood pressure was on the cusp of normal and my doctor suggested she may want to induce me at 37-38 weeks “to be safe,” I was so excited because it meant I wouldn’t be so big and uncomfortable.

But let’s rewind. During pregnancy, everyone’s body reacts differently and there are a million things strangers will say about it. Pregnancy is one of the times society has decided that it’s ok to comment publicly about a woman’s shape to her face. Some people will decide you are having a boy or girl depending on if you’re “carrying high or low.” Some say you “pop earlier” if you eat certain foods, or do certain things, or who even knows. Everyone pretty much agrees that you don’t start to show until later if it is your first pregnancy. In my case, I am not a small person. I am 5’11” and I used to describe my body type on my OKCupid profile as “athletic.” Long legs, big city, remember?

More like, long legs, no big belly. Around 12 weeks, I started to get nervous. Why didn’t I have any bump yet? Not that I wanted to have a changing body, but shouldn’t I see something? I started to be a little more conscious of the foods I was eating. After years of “only eating when I was hungry” I started to think about whether or not I was hungry and why. People talk about pregnant women “eating for 2” or being ravenous during their second trimester. I never was. I was just eating the amount I normally ate. I started asking friends for protein shake recommendations so I could make sure I was consuming enough protein, but basically every protein powder said to ask your doctor before consuming it if you’re pregnant, so I nixed that plan.

For my 16-week anatomy scan, I went to a different ultrasound facility because most of them were closed. I happened to be 16 weeks during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Not ideal. My appointment was at 8:30 am. I hadn’t been that hungry, but I figured I should eat something, so I had half of a protein bar in the cab on the way there. Most of the scan went well, but the tech had some issues getting some of the pictures, because she said our baby was staying in the same position, and she needed her to move into a different position. She said sometimes this happens, and I might have to come back the next day. But then she asked me to stand up and walk around the office and she asked what I had eaten that morning. I told the truth (half a protein bar), and she started scolding me. She said, “your baby needs nutrients and you need to feed it what it needs. You need to think about your baby and not you.” I was taken aback. It wasn’t even 9 am two days after Christmas. I had basically rolled out of bed and hopped in a cab. I wanted to do what was best for my baby, but I didn’t want to gorge myself when I wasn’t hungry.

Two weeks later, I had a regular appointment with my OB, and I asked my doctor about it. I explained to her that I didn’t want to know what I weighed because I try not to focus on the number, but that I was yelled at by the ultrasound tech, and I wanted to make sure I was gaining “enough” weight to have a healthy baby. Of course, I ended up in tears. I cry every single time I see my OB now, but at the time, I think this was my first time crying in front of her. My doctor apologized profusely for the ultrasound tech and said she was out of line and really should not have said that to me and shouldn’t talk about what to eat. My doctor said I was gaining exactly what I should be for where I was in the pregnancy, and that I should continue to listen to my body about hunger cues. I noticed after that appointment that she added “history of disordered eating” to my chart.

At that same appointment, my doctor checked on our baby and mentioned that due to the placement of the placenta, I probably wouldn’t feel movement until much later in the pregnancy, but not to worry, everything looked perfect. It seemed hard to believe that I was 18 weeks pregnant but looked exactly the same. Throughout the winter I wore the same jeans without a problem. At 20 weeks, we had another anatomy scan, and again, everything looked great, but I still had no visible bump. At 23 weeks, I finally had a tiny visible bump. I noticed it in the mirror when I was just in underwear, but in clothes, it was hard to see. I was going to my friend’s wedding in Florida, so I bought a new dress that would fit well. For the day and night before, I wore my regular clothes, which still fit. I spent the day before the wedding at the pool with my best friend, and she commented about how she couldn’t believe how little I still was. My mom asked me if I bought a maternity swimsuit and I laughed. I just looked like I maybe ate unlimited breadsticks at the Olive Garden.

The next week, at a 24-week growth scan, everything was trending well, our girl looked good, and I still looked… barely pregnant. I was secretly thrilled. As long as our baby looked good, I was totally fine with a baby on the smaller side, easier birth, right? Less stretch marks! But it was still strange. Nobody who walked by me on the street would know I was pregnant, my own friends couldn’t really tell. I was still working out like usual, going to Orangetheory 4 days a week, doing most of the same exercises with the exception of some core work. I kept my ultrasound photos on the fridge as a reminder since there weren’t many external ones.

When I was checked into the hospital the next week, they had a mandatory protocol that they needed to have a fetal heartrate monitor strapped on to me 24 hours a day to monitor the baby. For me, they had trouble getting the monitor to stay in the right place because I barely had any bump. They Macgyvered all sorts of things to try and keep it in place. One nurse folded up a paper towel and put it under one side so the monitor was tilted down. Some nurses were better than others. Every 12 hours during a shift change, one nurse would show the next one what they had come up with to help it stay. But if I shifted even an inch, the monitor would slide or slip and the alarm would go off. I had to lay completely still for days. I had to alert a nurse every time I was going to go to the bathroom because I knew it would trip up the monitor. Reaching for my water cup would move it. The nurses kept apologizing and saying it was just because I wasn’t that far along, so it was difficult to keep in place. Of course, I knew I wasn’t that far along, but having that constant 24-hour reminder, while also being told I needed to deliver my baby within 24 hours was a complete mindf*ck. I hated my body, both the size of it, and the fact that it was failing me from the inside. The two were intimately intertwined.

Now, when I see people on the street with baby bumps, I immediately think, “if they had the baby RIGHT NOW, the baby would probably survive.” The exact bumps I didn’t want, and didn’t think were beautiful, are now the one thing I wish I had. Sure maybe they are 31, 32, 33 weeks, but that’s all I dreamed of, a few more weeks. I see that bump and I think, “survival.” I think, “If only I ever had that.” It’s wild to be so close to the loss that I can remember how I felt before about being that size, but I can also see how much my entire mindset has changed.

The one thing that definitely changed throughout my pregnancy was my boobs. My first indication that I was pregnant was that they were changing. As someone who grew up like Judy Blume, doing the “I must increase my bust” chants, they were finally increasing. I thought it would make me happy, but it made me uncomfortable. I remember one time saying to my friend on the treadmill next to me that my boobs were distracting me! I wasn’t used to even noticing my chest, and all of a sudden, they were right in my face. But then, as quickly as they were new and exciting, they were terrifying. Post pregnancy, I was told that my body would likely start producing milk because my body didn’t know my baby was dead, my body only knew that I had a baby. I was constantly terrified. My body had already completely disappointed me, and now there was this. I felt like everything that was contained inside my skin was broken. My doctor (and the internet) said that the only thing I could do to prevent this from happening was wear my TIGHTEST sports bra, 24 hours a day, and basically bind my chest. I scoured google for how long I would have to do this, but every website said something different. To be safe, I decided on a month. 30 days of wearing the tightest sports bra I owned. I feared warm water, too, another thing the internet warned about. I took cold showers and barely let any water get on the front of my body. I went to sleep praying I wouldn’t wake up with a wet shirt. Every night that first week my sheets were soaked, but it was “just” post-partum hormonal sweating. My body continued to mock me and my childless arms and womb.

And then, after that month of obsessive sports bra wearing, I finally took it off and my boobs looked… the same. Normal. Just like they had “before.”

Did I make it all up? Was I ever really pregnant? How could I wake up with no baby, to a dead silent house (pun intended), and yet I looked exactly the same. I felt like I had lived 100 lives. I felt like I didn’t even know the woman I was the year before, and yet I wore the exact same clothes. I fit into everything. My body failed me over and over and over again, and yet, the mirror said it was the same body. I was the same person.

I’ve always loved to work out, and one of the hardest parts of post-partum with no baby was the bar on exercise. During those first few weeks, I went on hours and hours and hours of walks just to get out of the house and fill the time. I don’t remember them, really, I would just move aimlessly. I couldn’t tell you what I thought about. I was just trying to fill time until I could sleep again. Not being allowed to lift weights, or run, or do anything active like I was used to made me feel even worse. How was it fair that I was not allowed to do the things I liked, and the things that brought me joy, but I also didn’t get a baby? When I finally was allowed to go to the gym again, I remember a friend of mine saying I looked thin. I said “thanks, I lost a baby worth of weight.” He already knew that, of course, but it seemed like the only thing to say. I wasn’t happy I was thin, I was devastated. For the first time in my life, I just wished I was bigger. For the people who didn’t know I had been pregnant, I probably just looked normal. Even for the people who did know, I looked normal. This was the strangest part.

Throughout my entire pregnancy I probably gained 4 pounds. By the day after the hospital, I had lost those 4 plus an extra 5. Some of that was probably from not being allowed to eat for 5 days. Some was from muscle deterioration. Some was from my baby being gone. Some was from blood loss and surgery. None of the lost weight was “good.” Even two weeks ago (7 months post-loss) I went to the doctor the day after going to multiple 10 course tasting menus in Peru, and she asked me if I had lost weight. I told her I didn’t know, because I don’t weigh myself, and she said I looked like I had. Never in my life had a doctor said that to me before, and for SURE never before had it been said with the unspoken words of “are you ok? You don’t look ok.”

Clearly, I’m not ok. I also don’t think I lost weight. But I certainly look sad. Sometimes I think the circles under my eyes and the hollows of my cheeks are simply physical manifestations of my brain. I look in the mirror and I don’t see “thin,” I see “sad.” I see the indents in my collar bones, and where I used to think “oh!” I now think “oh, right, dead baby.” I wish I saw my tired eyes I thought “new mom, no sleep.” But instead I see, “mom of a dead baby, nightmares.”

When I look at my body now, I see nothing but a container. I don’t think anything of it at all. The shape of my body is the least interesting thing about me. I realize now more than ever that the size doesn’t matter. It can look one way, and completely rebel against me. I was at Orangetheory feeling 100% fine, and 4 hours later I was in the hospital feeling 100% fine and they were saying I was going to die. I can look like a supermodel and my body can still try to kill me if it gets pregnant again. I don’t necessarily hate my body, I just am completely disassociated from it.

However, I have a new added fear that people might think I’m pregnant. Most girls always fear this, the “are they or aren’t they?” like Rihanna at the Superbowl. But now, there’s the added issue that if someone asks me, I know I will spontaneously burst into tears. I am especially nervous because I know it’s from a place of love, and people will act hopeful and excited for me. I’ve stopped wearing anything with an empire waist because I don’t want the speculation. There was a photo of me in a swimsuit from the summer that was at an unflattering angle and I immediately edited it. I don’t care how I look, but I don’t want to field any questions.

Back in my post about what not to say, I mention how you should not comment on a person’s body. You can see now, it’s because it’s layered. The fact that my child lived and died within my own body adds a huge layer of complication. It’s the only loss that is completely contained within another person. For men, they don’t have all of these additional complicated feelings, and that adds to the difference in grieving. While I look the same, everything about me has changed. It’s surreal.

I am not sure how this will manifest if I ever become pregnant again. Maybe I will be happy to have a big baby bump, or maybe I will be terrified of that as well, because it’ll be even one more thing I could possibly lose. Maybe I will be happy if strangers recognize me as being pregnant for the first time. Or maybe I will view it as superstitious and wear baggy shirts for fear of not wanting anyone to speak of it. I can’t predict how I will feel in the future, all I know is that it is complicated and while I wish more than anything that I had a baby, I am not looking forward to it.

Travel

Niagara Falls

October 18, 2023 3 Comments

Last weekend I went on a belated birthday trip with Chris to Niagara Falls. This trip was supposed to be a surprise. Back in June, Chris surprised me with a belated birthday trip to Chicago. The main problem with me planning a surprise, though, is that I have no mental capacity for planning or surprises. Also, Chris loves to use credit card points and frequent flyer miles. So, instead of making it a surprise, I said, “do you want to go to Niagara Falls for your birthday two weeks late?” and he said yes, and then he booked us the flights and hotel rooms. Yes, two different hotels, we will get to that later.

Thursday, we had a 7 am flight. This departure time, of course, was thanks to my sweet husband who doesn’t require 8+ hours of sleep like my depressed self does. Despite his favorite hobby, morning-of-trip-packing, we managed to make it to the airport on time and we were even upgraded to first class. The trip was off to a great start. The plane didn’t have TVs, but thankfully it was ungodly early, and the entire flight took 50 minutes so I mostly dozed. We landed and we were at our hotel in Buffalo by 9 am. Unfortunately, since hotels don’t allow check-in that early, we took up residence in the lobby and we asked the front desk to hold our suitcases. Thankfully, the lobby was huge because we both had very full days of work. I know what you are thinking, “this blog sucks, no one wants to hear about you taking an hour-long flight to make zoom calls in a different part of the state.” I agree. Don’t worry, it gets better, but not quite yet.

Finally, our room was ready, so we went upstairs to check it out. We opened the door and found a massive table, a desk, a coffee bar, a fireplace, and a sofa. No bed. There was a conference table that sat 12 people, but no place to sleep. I started laughing hysterically because I truly thought Chris booked us a meeting room instead of a hotel room. It was only then that he remembered that the front desk had said we were in 1501/1502, so we went back into the hallway and sure enough, our keys opened the adjacent room as well, which thankfully had a bed. We later discovered a third door in the hallway that we could close so that we could prop the two rooms open and create a suite. It was a bizarre set-up but it did give us two bathrooms, so I couldn’t complain! We went out to get a late lunch/early dinner, and then, as it happens when you wake up at 5 am, we went to sleep. What a thrilling first day!

Day two started the same way, with work and emails. Eventually we ate breakfast together and continued with our work day. Around lunch, I went for a walk and explored the Erie basin. I came across the African American Veterans Monument, and multiple Navy ships including the USS Little Rock and USS The Sullivans. I had no idea there would be ships docked in Buffalo, but you learn something new every day. I walked back toward the hotel and came across the McKinley Monument, which I later found out was built because President McKinley was shot in Buffalo when he attended the Pan-American Exposition in 1901. Every time I go somewhere in the United States, I realize how little I learned in high school AP US History.

Back in the hotel I worked some more, and thanks to Chris’s hotel status, in addition to the executive suite we also got a 4 pm checkout. This was when the real adventure began. I decided to shower before we switched hotels, and just as I was getting out of the shower, housekeeping walked into the room. Chris explained, as I was in a towel, that we were checking out in 45 minutes. 10 minutes later, a different housekeeping person walked in. I put on clothes, and 10 minutes later, another random man entered the room with a key, the guy staying there after us. This had never happened to me before. Three people walking in? Including a subsequent guest? While I was in a towel? My husband (a man) did not seem phased by this at all. In fact, he didn’t even mention it when we checked out. A woman would never.

Anyway, we finally checked out and went to continue our adventure on the other side of the US-Canada border. The problem, of course, was that there was an international border. My sweet husband, who I really cannot blame because I did exactly zero research or planning myself, said he checked Reddit and that it would be “no problem” to cross the border. Unfortunately, there was a problem. You couldn’t order an Uber, and the hotel couldn’t guarantee that if they called a cab, they would be able to take us across. We decided to take an Uber as far as we could and figure it out. Chris said we could walk across the bridge. With our bags. I was not pleased. Do not fret, we left our Uber at the border, and a man approached us and asked if we needed a cab. Me, a woman, would have said “no thank you, stranger, I do not want to get into your car.” Chris, a man, said, “that would be great.” Readers, do not worry, I am still alive to tell the tale. Our cab driver ended up being a main character of the weekend. It turned out he used to live in Manhattan and had a store 2 blocks from our apartment. He told us that we could see what we needed to see in Niagara Falls in 4 hours, and then we should go to Toronto HAHA. A true New Yorker. I will admit that made us feel better, since we only had a day and a half there, and I was scared we would miss out.

We went into our hotel room and the view was amazing. We were on the 37^th Floor, and our room overlooked Horseshoe Falls. But the sun was setting quickly, and we wanted to go down and get an up-close view, since it was supposed to rain the entire next day. I assumed the Falls would be impossible to see at night, since they were natural, but I learned quickly that I was wrong, they are lit up by multicolored LEDs from 6 pm – 2 am every night. Anyway, I didn’t know that at the time, so we thought we were on a time crunch. The valet told us that we could walk down to the Falls, or we could take the “incline,” which would get us there in 4 minutes. We opted for the lazy way, and found that the “incline” was just a 30-foot funicular. It was hilarious because we could have easily just walked up the hill, or they could have built a staircase, but they didn’t and instead charged $7 roundtrip. We were on vacation, so we splurged and took the 15-second trolly ride.

This is where we found out cab driver. On the side of the road.

It was worth it. It was truly spectacular. I didn’t know, but “Niagara Falls” is made up of three Falls, the American Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, and Horseshoe, or Canadian Falls. While the first two are all in the United States, 90% of Horseshoe Falls is in Canada (Americans will be quick to tell you that all three are technically in the USA). Despite where they are located, the direction of the Falls is such that they are much better viewed from Canada. From the United States, it’s more like infinity pool vibes and you can’t actually see where the water drops down to. According to their official website, 3,160 tons of water flows over Niagara Falls every second. That is so much water. It’s hard to wrap your brain around.

Chris and I took many photos at the Falls. Of the Falls. Selfies of us at the Falls. Then we had some strangers try to take photos of us at the Falls. We learned quickly that strangers are mostly shorter than us, and while we are fantastically photogenic, if you take photos from below, you will get great pics of us, but you will have exactly zero of the scenery in the background.

I learned a lot of facts about the history and usage of the Falls, but I won’t bore you with all of them. I did find it especially interesting that 50-75% of the water is diverted to hydroelectric power stations depending on the time of day and year, and those stations supply more than one-quarter of all power used in New York State and Ontario. The water is then returned (unpolluted) to the river. This means that the crazy amount of water we saw and experienced was less than half of what it could be. Also interestingly, some people try to go over the Falls. Most of them try to do this in barrels, and most die. But some survive! In fact, the very first to do it successfully was a woman, Annie Edson Taylor, who achieved her daredevil dreams on her 63^rd birthday. She tested her barrel in advance by putting a cat in it (who also survived!). There are now steep fines for people who attempt this, but as our tour guide advised us, you only have to pay if you survive!

Speaking of our tour guide, Saturday was the big day. The one thing I did to plan for this trip was book a tour. I specifically booked a tour that went to both the American and Canadian sides. The universe, which has recently not been working in my favor, had another joke up her sleeve, and decided to forecast for rain the entire day. WOMPWOMP. Good news is, we were planning to get wet anyway. Our tour guide told us that rain is actually great because it reduces your inhibitions of being wet at the Falls, because you’re wet anyway. My therapist loves a good reframe, so I decided to opt into this one, too.

We started the day with a bang: my favorite part, the Maid of the Mist boat ride. We suited up in our ponchos and boarded the double decker boat. It was spectacular. We rode right into the basin of Horseshoe Falls, where it felt like we were in the side wall of a hurricane. The water, wind, mist, and turmoil was all around us, and then the boat did a 360 while we were poured on from the waterfall. It was awesome. In case we weren’t wet enough, our next stop was to the “Cave of the Winds.” Despite the name, this is not an actual cave. It was a cave, and there were tours from 1841 to 1920, but a rock fall collapsed it, and now it’s a series of walkways built into the outside of Falls, which is actually torn down and rebuilt every single year. The walkways bring you right to the base of Bridal Veil Falls, and there’s even a Hurricane Deck, where you are basically inside the Falls. It is very. Very. Very. Very. Wet. My feet were not dry until many hours later when I got back to the hotel.

The rest of our tour took us to a few other amazing views, including Three Sisters Islands, where we could walk little pathways into the middle of the Niagara River, and see where it flowed down to the Falls. Then we headed to the Whirlpool Rapids, which were absolutely stunning with the changing colors of foliage. Again, from their website, “Horseshoe Falls crushes into the narrow Niagara Gorge, creating the whirlpool rapids […] where the gorge abruptly turns counterclockwise. The river’s abrupt change of direction creates one of the world’s most mesmerizing natural phenomena.” Our final stop of the day was the Skylon Tower, where we took a 52-second elevator ride to observation decks 775 feet above the Falls. The views were amazing, but the ride up was my favorite part!

We headed back to the hotel where we took a nap, because we’re old, and then we went to dinner at a nice restaurant in our hotel with a view of the Falls, again lit up for the night.

We had an amazing time, and just like our cab driver said, a day and a half was plenty of time. We saw what some people call, the 8^th natural wonder of the world. Some do not say that, but some do. We spent time together. We slept 8 hours/night. We ate great food. And we were home by 3 pm on a Sunday. That’s what I would call a successful trip.

Selfie with our best tour guide #TeamJessica
Chris loves state parks!
Squint and see which pink ponchos are Chris and me!
Selfie before getting soaked
Actively being rained on by waterfalls
Cute, not yet saturated.
About to be saturated…
Very, very wet.
Such a majestic view.
I was ready to hit Bridal Veil Falls and the Hurricane Deck!
Chris and I soaked.
It’s hard to explain how loud it was here.
Inside Bridal Veil
HURRICANEEEE
Whirlpool Rapids in all of its fall foliage glory
View from Skylon Tower. Breathtaking.

Grief and Pregnancy Loss

The One Where All of Her Friends Were Pregnant

October 11, 2023 2 Comments

TW: Pregnancy Loss

I am 36 years old. That means that if my friends want to have kids it’s now or never. Unfortunately for me, that means a lot of my friends are having kids now. And I am… not.

It’s hard. I think the main theme of this blog post is going to be that it is just plain hard. It’s difficult to navigate friendships when you’re a loss mom and your friends are pregnant. It is difficult to keep friends when they’re pregnant, to communicate with them, to relate to them, to be happy for them, to be around them, and quite honestly, it’s hard to just see them. Let’s start there, with the bare minimum.

How do you keep a friend when literally seeing a picture of them makes you cry? I remember exactly where I was post-loss when I saw the first picture of my friend and her baby bump. It was bad. It set me off for about three full days. It was not a surprise that she was pregnant, I already knew. It was also not a surprise how far along she was, I knew her due date. But to see that physical proof of something she had that I didn’t have, it was brutal. (Side note: I do not fault her at all for posting a photo, in fact I have a whole blog coming about this.)

I saw her body, and my thoughts started to spiral: Was I ever that big? What did people think of me? Did they ever think I was pregnant? What do people say to her when she’s in public? Do people congratulate her? Give up their seat for her? Can her husband feel the kicks? Do they ask her what the sex of the baby is? Does she already have names in mind?

All of these were things that I never got to have, and they were right there in my face. The hardest part was that when that picture was taken, she was exactly the same amount of weeks I was when our daughter died, but every body is different, and my body never looked like that.

One option to deal with these friendships would have been to stop all communication with my pregnant friends, or as my therapist called it, avoidance LOL. I decided this was not what I wanted for a few reasons: 1. I had lost enough, and I didn’t want to lose my friends, too. And 2. My anxiety NEEDED to know that my friends were ok.

One of the worst parts of navigating these relationships was that my emotions were and are unpredictable. I really didn’t know that seeing a photo would be so triggering. But I knew that if a photo sent me down a rabbit hole, seeing a pregnant friend in person would be even worse. For that same friend in the photo, we were going to hang out a month later, but I ended up telling her a week later that I couldn’t. I just didn’t think it would be productive for either of us if I was crying the whole time. Another month later, I changed my mind again and decided that I wanted to see her, so long as she wanted to see me. My feelings and moods kept changing, and there was no way she could have known.

A month ago, I went to coffee with another friend who was 9 months pregnant. I was SO proud of myself for this, especially for giving her a hug when I left. I thought I might spontaneously break into sobs when her baby bump touched my flat(ter) stomach, but I held it together.

Even when we didn’t physically see each other, it was hard to cut off friends from communication when we were used to speaking constantly. As I mentioned in my blog about small talk, conversation felt extremely meaningless when I knew we were just dancing around and avoiding the big stuff. As the loss parent, it was my job, I supposed, to lead the conversation. Most good friends avoided speaking about their pregnancies to me at all. I knew they did this to protect my heart, but sometimes it felt like they were actually just hiding from me and excluding me. When I most recently heard from a friend that she, too, was pregnant, she told me she wouldn’t talk about it at all on the group chat. For some reason, that rubbed me the wrong way. I knew she was doing it so that the chat would be a safe space for me, but instead, it felt like my friends were afraid to talk about their lives in front of me anymore. I was too fragile for them to share with, and they had to walk on eggshells around me. It made me take a step back and think about what I actually would want, if asked, and I realized that I didn’t know! How could my friends possibly know if I didn’t know.

In my specific case, I had the added complication in my loss that I nearly died. When I think of pregnancy, I think of death. I know too much. I know allll of the things that can go wrong. For example, my anxiety and superstition would not let me publish this blog until all of my friends due in September delivered alive-babies, and all of my friends survived and went home from the hospital.

Recently, I texted another one of my pregnant friends who lives in the same neighborhood as me. I had texted her on her birthday a few months back and she hadn’t replied. I had seen her post a few times on social media, but she never mentioned a pregnancy. I started to get nervous. I texted and asked how she was, her due date, how everything was going. As I suspected, she hadn’t been texting me because she didn’t want to push her pregnancy on me. Once I texted, I opened our communication again, which I was happy for, but then she offered for us to go on a walk. This was one step too far. I couldn’t imagine chit-chatting and walking alongside a 9-month pregnant person. I typically avert my eyes when I see pregnant strangers on the sidewalk! She totally understood when I turned her down for a walk, but I imagine it was confusing for her that I was fine to ask about her due date, but not to see her. I couldn’t explain this discrepancy.

A few months ago, another one of my pregnant friends asked me if I wanted to know when she had the baby. I was adamant that I wanted, nay, NEEDED to know that she had the baby. I explained how I had extreme anxiety keeping me up at night, knowing that so many of my friends were about to go through this mortal and dangerous time in their lives. Of course, my therapist reminded me constantly that many babies (most babies, even) were born fine, and their moms are fine, but all I could remember was what happened with me. My friend told me she hadn’t even thought that I may be thinking about her own safety, but she was so glad she asked me if I wanted to know about the birth, because she was nervous to tell me.

During pregnancy, my friends were uneasy talking to me, but leading up to their due dates, they were even more hesitant. The crazy part was, I had experience with labor and delivery! I used to be someone that people went to for advice, but in this one area, I was cursed. People forgot that I had a kid and she just, unfortunately, died. My friends knew I was pregnant, and they knew I was not anymore, and a lot of them read this blog. But most of them forgot that I was VERY pregnant, that I understood what it was like to be pregnant, that I went through 31 hours of labor, and that I delivered a child. I’ve done it.

I was recently talking with a friend who had an induction date coming up and she was explaining to me a procedure she planned to have to induce labor. She explained it for a minute or two until I interrupted and said, “I know what that is, I had that.” I had it all. They did almost everything to get my baby out of me because she was literally killing me. I had a balloon. I had a membrane sweep. I had multiple (failed) epidurals. I had fentanyl in doses that I thought were reserved for shows like Ozark. I had an emergency operation post-delivery. And then, I was post-partum. I had all of the problems and physical limitations that come along with that. I was doing everything possible to prevent and minimize milk production, I had hormone changes, night sweats, a ban on sex and hot tubs, I just didn’t have a living child. I could relate to my pregnant and post-partum friends (minus the whole “taking care of a living baby” part), but it was uncomfortable to talk about because of the ending. I completely understood that they wouldn’t want to think about my experience because it was scary and horrible, but sometimes it felt like their avoidance invalidated my story.

On the flip side, I couldn’t really bring it up either because who wants to think about possible bad outcomes when they have hope and happiness? While I wanted to text my friends daily and remind them to check their blood pressure at home, I recognized that while I thought I was protecting and looking out for my friends, it could have been viewed as patronizing, not staying in my lane, and projecting my anxiety.

When I first talked with my therapist about my anxiety around my friends’ pregnancies, she asked if a small part of me wanted something to go wrong with their pregnancies so I wouldn’t have to go through this alone. But you know the saying, “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy?” Well, I certainly wouldn’t wish this on my close friends. Not even a tiny little bit. I spent many weeks agonizing over whether to send baby gifts in advance. Even though my friends didn’t send me their registries, I knew where to find them on Amazon or Babylist, I had had them myself! Every time I added things to my cart and went to check out, I imagined them having to return the gifts or send them back, or worse, look at them in their homes and cry. I remembered myself packing our baby stuff on a luggage cart 12 hours after returning from the hospital so my mom could take it all out of our apartment. I thought about my friends having to go through that, and I couldn’t do it. I decided I would wait until all babies were earth-side and I could feel some sense of calm and celebration for everyone. I’m not going to lie, buying items I had looked at for myself, and sending them to someone else, was not easy. At all. But I tried to channel my relief that they didn’t have to go through what I had, and I was able to feel some sense of joy. As a lot of memes say, “happy for you, sad for me.”

It’s hard not to compare. When my first friend mentioned she had a baby at 3 am, I remembered that I had, too. But she was in labor an entire day less than me. How was it fair that she had a living child AND 24 hours less of labor? I thought to myself, “AT LEAST let her go through a tough labor.” But then, a few weeks later, another friend of mine had her baby and her husband talked on Instagram about how strong she was for going through 24 hours of labor. Meanwhile, I went through 31 and no one was singing my praises on the internet. I can’t tell you what it’s like to labor hoping you’ll have your alive baby in your arms soon, but I can tell you what it’s like to labor knowing yours will be dead and I can almost 100% assure you it’s worse. But none of this is fair, and knowing that others went through 4 or 24 hours of labor doesn’t make it any better.

So, PHEW, now they all have living babies and everything is great, right? Wrong. Pregnancy, while temporary, leads to a permanent role change. The best-case scenario of having a pregnant friend, is that they eventually become a parent friend, and they have a living child for the entire rest of their lives. This brings a whole new set of problems I’ll reserve for another post.

A few weeks ago, I was on my way to a baby loss event with Baby Loss Library when I was scrolling through Instagram and saw my third friend who was due in September had her baby. Almost at the same time, she messaged me. She said since it was Sunday, she was planning to “have beer and watch football like a normal person.” I was on my way to an event full of moms with dead babies, and I realized the cold reality that I would quite literally never be a “normal person” again. Yes, I might have my own little family someday and I may also be watching football and drinking a beer, but I’d always have a dead baby. It was impossible in that moment not to compare. I was thankful to spend the day with women who understood, but the contrast of a “normal person” versus me, spending the day talking about dead babies, is my reality now and forever.

When I started writing this, I wanted to give tips. I wanted it to be a “how-to” of navigating friendships while dealing with loss. After free-writing, I realized I can’t give a how-to, because I literally don’t know how to! My main takeaways are for those who are pregnant: You should know that navigating this is hard. While us loss-parents know you are probably scared to bring up your pregnancy, and you are probably scared to even reach out period, please do. It’s a huge burden for the loss mom to constantly reach out. Loss moms are probably anxious, scared, scared to scare you, and lonely. We probably don’t want to bring our bad juju into your space. But we also probably love you and want the best for you. And while we may not be able to be “happy” for you every day because we’re jealous and angry and sad, we also don’t want to lose you. We’ve lost enough. So please, check in. Ask how to be present without showy. Be sensitive but not absent. Ask what we want to hear. What pictures of your babies we want to see. It may change day to day. And hopefully someday, we can all have earthside kids who play together.

My beautiful place setting at the baby loss event, with free books, a bracelet for pregnancy and infant loss awareness month, and of course the dates with the most important spaces in my heart.

Grief and Pregnancy Loss, Travel

Peru Part Dos

October 4, 2023 8 Comments

If you missed Part Uno, start there!

Our first day in Cusco, we had a bumpy start because our flight was nearly two hours delayed. Our scheduled tour was supposed to begin at the Cusco Cathedral, but we wanted to put our bags away, eat some food, and change shoes, so we met up with the tour at stop two. Cusco was the capital of the Incan Empire, so we started at the most important Incan temple, called Coricancha, that is right in the middle of town. We learned about the amazing ways Incas measured time, astronomy, and seasons. We also learned about their ingenious engineering using internal metal joints and trapezoidal shapes to resist seismic waves. Their engineering is why so many of their temples and fortresses are still standing despite the many earthquakes that have hit Peru since the time of the Incas. Unfortunately (or fortunately!) this was the first time we had rain on the trip. While inside Coricancha, we were able to stay under covering until the clouds cleared, and then at our next stop we were blessed with a fabulous rainbow and mostly great weather for the rest of the trip. I “wasted” 5 soles on a disposable poncho, but since that converts to about $1.25, I was ok with it.

Next on our tour we visited a few other Incan ruins, including Sacsayhuamán, an Incan citadel, and we had some time to explore on our own. It’s crazy that so many of these ruins are just massive things standing on semi-public grounds (with ticket entrance) and you can just walk around on them and touch them. We ended the day at a store that specializes in alpaca and baby alpaca scarves. We learned about the world’s most expensive and exclusive wool, made from vicuña, one of the two wild South American camelids, which live in the high altitude areas in the Andes.

We were told by our travel agency to avoid red meat and alcohol while we acclimated to the elevation, and since 11,500 feet in Cusco didn’t seem like enough for us, we booked a last-minute trip to the Palcoyo Mountains for the next day, which stand at a cool 16,076 feet. Most people who have been to Cusco may have heard of Vinicunca, which is a large rainbow mountain about 3.5 hours from Cusco. Many tourists go there, and it is 17,000 feet above sea level. Also, it is 3.5 hours from Cusco, and an hour and a half hike once you get there. For all of those reasons, we searched for alternatives. We were pleasantly surprised to find Palcoyo, which is an hour closer, 1,000 feet lower, only a 30-45 minute hike, AND it has THREE rainbow mountains instead of one. However, since it is less visited, there were no tours and we had to book a private driver and guide. Thankfully, it was only $50/ person for the entire 9-hour day (what!??). Our driver picked us up and along the way, our guide taught us facts about Peru and alpacas (they’re trimmed once annually after winter for fur, and the first shave is most valuable and softest), and the rainbow mountains (they used to be lake beds, and the colors come from sedimentary minerals).

When we got to Palcoyo, the views were breathtaking, literally and figuratively. It was certainly tough to climb stairs and mountains at that elevation, but with periodic breaks, it was doable. The scenery made it all worth it, and at the top, we took photos with alpacas after tipping the local man who brought them there specifically for photo opps. We saw a total of ten people the entire time. It was so nice and peaceful to have the mountains to ourselves. About 700-1000 additional feet up, there was a “stone forest,” and while the other girls opted out of the “encore hike,” I decided I wanted to do it. #YOLO, right? When else was I going to be there? Our private guide walked me up to the stone forest, which I appreciated because it had started sleeting and he kept me steady on the way back down. He also served as an expert photographer. It was stunning. Truly so special. I started to have the same spiraling thoughts I mentioned last week, about how lucky and unlucky I was to be there, witnessing these beautiful sights, but I tried to keep them at bay while I climbed down the slippery mountain back to my friends.

Along the way up the mountain, we had seen various piles of stones and our guide had explained that they were called apachetas, a combination of the words Apu, the name of the Mountain God, and Pachamama, the name of Mother Nature. People made these tiny rock towers as offerings to hope for good luck and blessings, either on their current journey, or in general. On our way back down the mountain, my friend and I decided to make our own and we scoured the mountain for different colored rocks of various sizes. Our guide helped us balance it and as soon as our apacheta was complete, it started sideways sleeting. Our guide said this meant our offering was received, although we couldn’t be sure if it was a good or a bad thing. After an exhausting day, we had dinner in Cusco, and then packed our bags again to get ready for our next day in the Sacred Valley and our journey to Machu Picchu.

We started our day early, cramming our many bags into the van for the day. Our first stop of the day was a lookout point with a breathtaking view of the Sacred Valley. We stopped for a few minutes to take it in, and of course to take some photos, then we headed to Pisaq. We stopped at a silver factory that was more like a small storefront, where we learned all about silver, silver-making, and even got to see some of the local artists making jewelry. There were some aggressive sales tactics, and they worked. I bought a couple things and then we headed to more Incan ruins. While each one of the sites was impressive, I must admit they started to get a bit repetitive. We climbed many, many stairs, and we started to recognize certain architectural patterns, ways the Incas tracked the sun and the stars, and the ways they built their civilizations to face the best sunlight for their crops. In the afternoon, we went to Olantayytambo, another ruins site, with 254 more stairs to climb. We did it! This specific site was interesting because it was overlooked by a mountain with two faces in it – one profile that was natural, and another that was carved by the Incas. It was a fabulous view, and we were blessed with amazing weather.

In between ruins, we ate lunch at a restaurant called Tunupa in Urubamba. The food was buffet-style and it was fine, but the views were out of this world. The restaurant was situated on the Sacred River, and after we ate, we went to the river to put our hands in and gather all of the blessings the river would give us. There were alpacas and llamas on the grass, and there was even live traditional Peruvian music, played with multiple different kinds of flutes.

After many, many stairs, we were ready for a break in the form of a train ride. We were dropped off at the train station, where we were surprised by another dance party, as people in traditional clothes held signs and danced and sang and led us to our train car. The entertainment didn’t stop there. Not only did the train have some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve seen, as we traveled along the Sacred River, but there was also a show. Two of the workers put on a whole love story skit in the middle of the ride. I had no idea what we were in for, and I didn’t understand any of the words, but I got the gist of it. After we dropped our bags at our hotel where we would be only one night, we went out to find food. Not only did we find a restaurant called Machapo that served both guinea pig and alpaca burgers, but we also found the friendliest waiter in all of Peru. We are now Instagram friends. Hi Kevin! Miss you every day!

Sacred River, hoping I got some blessings

The next morning we were up with the sun and ready to hike Machu Picchu. As I mentioned before, we did not do the 4-day Inca trail. Instead, we took a bus to the entrance. This is traveling in your mid-30s. I have no regrets. Of course, the day started for me with many braids. I did 2/3 of my friend’s hair, and I did mine in the bus. Again, this day we had a private guide, which was helpful because we could take as many breaks as we wanted, and we had a built-in photographer. Our guide liked photos a LOT more than we did, and he insisted on many, many, many photo breaks. You should see my camera roll. He wanted individual shots and group shots and selfies. I only included a select few below.

The views from Machu Picchu were truly gorgeous. We had picture-perfect weather, and despite it filling up by noon with people, it felt like we were there alone. There was a moment (after our 100 photoshoots) where we just sat down and took in the view. Again, I was hit by a wave of sadness. It’s really hard to be in such a perfect place and then reflect on my not-so-perfect life. The juxtaposition of the beauty and the hurt seems to highlight itself like a neon sign whenever I realize the vastness of everything. I see ancient ruins and I just think about how small my problems are, but then I realize how BIG they are to me and it just makes me sad. It’s hard to be present when my present is so hard. My thoughts constantly go to my friends with babies, and thinking about how I’m “lucky” to be where I am, but also wish I wasn’t. One of my therapists always encourages me to feel my feelings but also recognize that emotions are fleeting. I try to understand that I’m feeling this way and that it makes sense (because my baby died), but I should also allow myself to move through it and into a less heavy feeling. We started to climb down the many stairs and back to the bus to town, where we had lunch and I started to feel lighter again.

We went back to our hotel, grabbed our bags, and then took a train back to Cusco, where we did some final souvenir shopping and then packed again for our flight back to Lima the next morning. Our final two days in Lima, we mostly ate a lot of food. We also went to see the catacombs under the San Francisco Cathedral (no photos allowed), but we mostly ate.

As I mentioned last week, Lima has established itself as one of the world’s greatest food towns. No city other than Copenhagen also has two restaurants on the current top 10 of the prestigious World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Lima has Central (#4) and Maido (#7), both of which were completely full when we tried to make reservations, since we only booked our trip three weeks in advance. We decided to try our luck and put ourselves on the wait list for Maido, and we got in! I am not exactly sure what we were thinking when we booked a 16-course tasting menu for 9 pm on a day where we had an early flight that morning, but we were excited to try everything. The food was absolutely fantastic. They call it the “Maido Experience” and it was a true experience. However, by midnight, we were falling asleep at the table with 3 courses left to go. I included some of the food photos here, but the pictures cannot do it justice. The cocktails were creative and the dishes were delicious. But don’t worry, by 1 pm the next day, we were ready to eat again and we had a reservation at another highly rated restaurant, Gaston y Astrid. The restaurant is centered around a beautiful courtyard with a huge tree in the middle. We chose to order a la carte this time, and again we had the most amazing food. We left with extremely full stomachs.

The first few days I was in Lima, I had decided I wanted to try paragliding. I hadn’t done anything crazy adventurous since I was in Australia when I had gone scuba diving, sky diving and ziplining in one week. I was ready to try another new thing. But the day I wanted to go, it was extremely cloudy and I was scared I wouldn’t have much visibility. I decided to postpone until we were back in Lima and hope for the best. Sure enough, on the day we landed back in Lima, it was cloudy but better than before, so I decided to go for it. As I waited for my turn to go into the sky on a tiny air boat/go-cart apparatus, I thought for sure that it was the end. My friend recorded a video of my “last words.” I found out that the woman I had booked with via whatsapp was the wife of the pilot, and so I figured she didn’t want us to go down, either. Nevertheless, they did give me a life vest to wear in case we crashed into the ocean. I didn’t tell my husband or my parents I was doing this, why worry them!? While I am not immune from fear, I definitely care a lot less about dying now. Since I wake up every day now and think “ugh this again,” it makes it easier to do riskier things.

After strapping in and putting on a helmet (would that actually help anything?), we took off into the sky. Part of the price of the experience included an HD video, and I must say, this video was hilarious. It captured every single human emotion there is. I started with happiness and elation and you could see me laughing and smiling huge. Then I switched to awe, you could see me taking photos and videos on my phone. Then I started to look at the ocean in its vastness, a place that usually gives me such peace, and I started to cry. You could see tears rolling down my cheeks as I realized all of the amazing things I can do now that our daughter isn’t with us. I always think about her when I’m at the beach, I don’t really know why. A lot of grieving people mention the ocean seems like a safe place because it is the only thing vast enough to hold such huge emotions. I often think about that. As I watched the waves roll in and the sun setting from my perch hundreds of feet above the water, I again realized how small I am in the grand scheme of things. We turned around toward the land zone, and I was hit with another emotion: fear. The pilot started dipping left and right, gliding in extreme angles to descend back to earth, and you can see me saying “oh my god, oh my god” in the video. Then we finally turned around toward landing, and you could see my relief. What an exhausting emotional ride. I knew as soon as I landed that the video would be a trip.

Overall, I feel the same way I did about paragliding as I did about the whole trip to Peru, I am glad I did it. I felt proud of myself for doing something outside of my comfort zone, and I was glad to make new memories. It was not easy, and it was not without its bumps, but it was an overall fun experience that I don’t regret. I had to navigate my own emotions as well as my friends, which I haven’t really done all year since I’ve been living in a bubble. I can’t say when I want to go on another trip, since I’m still mentally recovering, but it’s not out of the question. Where do you think I should go next?

Me in my life vest that was not going to save me from anything.

Grief and Pregnancy Loss, Travel

Peru Part Uno

September 28, 2023 3 Comments

It has been a LONG time since I’ve written a travel blog, so I’m excited to bring you new, world-traveling content this week (and next!). My original plan was to split this blog into two: one where I talked about all of the positives about traveling, getting away with friends, exploring new places, seeing amazing scenery, eating local delicacies, etc., and one where I talked about the difficult co-existing emotions of going on a trip during this #veryhardyear. Then, I was chatting with one of my loss-mom internet friends and she said it was inspiring to see me “finding joy amongst the griefyness,” and that’s why I decided to write this instead as a fully integrated post. The good, the fun, the sad, and the complicated. However, a 2-in-1 post means this one is a pretty lengthy, so strap in. It’ll be posted in two installments, but stay tuned, I included pictures.

Let’s start at the top. Many months ago, my therapist asked me what used to bring me joy so I could try to find it again. I could barely remember, but I told her I guessed it was traveling with friends. She suggested I start small, like a brunch. But I didn’t want to go to brunch, and I didn’t want to see my friends.

In my past life, I traveled in the early autumn every year because I always had extra time off from work. 4 months ago, when I realized I wouldn’t be tied down with a baby this season, and when I realized I’d have three friends having babies in September (blog about this coming soon), I requested a week off from work mid-September. My time-off request was approved. A group of my friends started talking about possible places to go. My therapist was so proud of me. Many, many messages and ideas were sent back and forth. Then in July, I fell off the face of the earth. I deleted my social media and I stopped answering any texts. The trip planning ceased, at least on my end. I couldn’t think in advance even one day, nonetheless a few months ahead, and I couldn’t fathom booking activities when I was just trying to get through the current hour.

Then in August, since I hadn’t been on any group chats, I fired up a group message via text and asked if anyone was still up for going on a trip. I was honest about my lack of planning abilities. I said I’d still be down to travel, but that I just needed someone to tell me where to book a flight and that I’d be mostly useless on planning. Ideal travel buddy, right? Thankfully, my friend stepped up and suggested Peru. It seemed like the ideal location because there were nonstop flights from NY and FL and only a one hour time difference, which was great since we had about 9 days total and didn’t want to deal with jetlag. My friends booked flights. I couldn’t get my act together until the next day, when flights went up $150 but it is what it is. It’s just money #thingsprivilegedpeoplesay.

Anyway, we settled on Peru and we started planning. By “we” I mean, not me. My main contribution was asking other people for Peru recommendations and throwing them in a google doc. The one thing I did was book us an Airbnb for Lima. My friend liaised with a travel group in Cusco and did the extremely heavy lift of coordinating everything with the travel agency. The agency took care of everything from tours, airport pickups, train and hotel reservations, and anything else we could have wanted, like advice on how much to tip drivers. Did I mention this was all done 3 weeks in advance? We had extremely low expectations given that this was a slapdash, last-minute trip, and we were all extremely pleasantly surprised.

Our trip started with three girls (including me) in Lima, and we had zero plans. We had a few lazy days exploring the city. We slept in, left the Airbnb around 11 am, got iced lattes, and went on a few free walking tours. We explored the Huaca Pucllana pre-Incan ruins that are right in the middle of the city. We also did some solo exploring, first at the nearby John F. Kennedy Park. The strangest thing about this park is not that it is named for a US President, but that it houses hundreds of stray cats. One of the friends I was with is obsessed with cats, so of course me made multiple visits to the park. These are not just dirty street bodega cats, thankfully. There is an association, Gatos Parque Kennedy, that cares for, feeds, and provides sterilization for the cats living in the park. There’s even an adoption process in case someone wants to take one home. I don’t think you’re allowed to transport cats across the border, otherwise my friend may have tried to smuggle one home (she did not).

We went on a tour of the historic city including the Gran Hotel Bolívar, the Plaza de Armas, the House of Peruvian Literature, and the Santo Domingo Church. At one point, we passed a woman dressed as a zombie bride holding a dead bloody baby, and she had 3 other bloody babies at her feet. I’m not sure if anyone else on the tour noticed her, but I did. At first, I thought I was making it up so I brought it to my friend’s attention. I said “do you see all those bloody babies?” It was not in my head, they were indeed there, but they were dolls. At another point we went into the Church of San Francisco, where our tour guide said “see all those little toy cars by the statue of Jesus? Each one was put there by a parent for their dead child. Ok! Let’s move on.” He was a fast-moving guide. It took me a few moments to shift gears.

We ended the tour with a Pisco tasting in a souvenir shop, where we tried 8 types of Pisco, and then we were hustled into buying souvenirs (we got adorable pom pom hair ties).

The next day, we went on a free walking tour of Barranco, which started out with a bang because we had to take a local bus there with the tour guide. We were surprised to find out that the buses do not actually stop at stops, but instead just open their doors while moving and expect you to jump out. What an adventure. Thankfully we all survived.

Barranco is known as the artsy neighborhood of Lima filled with murals, street art, and lots of great local food. In Barranco, you can also find the famous Bridge of Sighs, where legend has it, if you’re able to walk across the bridge while holding your breath, your wish will come true. I won’t tell you my wish, but I bet you can guess.

Throughout my trip to Peru, you’ll see that eating was a main theme. Lima has become a bit of a food destination, and it’s often called South America’s culinary capital. While we didn’t do any of our fancy eating until the last few days of the trip (stay tuned!), we did a good amount of eating throughout the trip. On the front end of the trip, we ate a lot of street food. I was thrilled to be traveling with fellow adventurous eaters, so we tried and shared a lot of Peruvian delicacies, starting with antichuchos (beef heart). We also tried a classic dessert called picarones, aniseed-flavoured doughnuts with mashed squash. We bought a caramel-filled churro from the street, as well as an ice-cream-looking cone, but it was more like marshmallow fluff? Later in Cusco, we tried alpaca and guinea pig (I’ll save you the pictures). Alpaca tasted like bison, guinea pig was a little bit like rabbit. We knew we had to try the classic rotisserie chicken, but since we like to go big or go home, we went to a chicken place and got chicken three different ways. All three were amazing. We also sampled Inca Cola, which I hated, but I don’t like soda so I wasn’t surprised.

In between our eating, we got our steps in by exploring the city. We walked to the shoreline along El Malecon, a cliffside walking path. There’s a mall there as well, called Larcomar. We walked around and chatted while we sat on a bench and were approached by many locals who wanted to practice their English (and ask us for money). It was beautiful and peaceful. There was also a “Love Park,” which was dedicated on Valentine’s Day. It features a massive sculpture of two people embracing, and it’s surrounded by mosaics with romantic lines from Peruvian poems.

On our final day in Lima we decided to book an excursion to the Palomino Islands. According to TripAdvisor, they promised we would see Humboldt penguins and sea lions, and that we’d get wet suits and have the opportunity hop in and swim with them. The reviews were less stellar. Most of the recent reviews said that the sea lions were extremely stinky, and that the water was too cold and the sea lions wouldn’t get in. We decided it was worth a try anyway. I don’t know why, but I expected we’d see maybe 10-15 sea lions. I am not exaggerating when I say there were THOUSANDS. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. We donned our wetsuits and were told to put our feet up in front of us to show the sea lions we were not aggressive. Soon enough, the sea lions were hopping into the water off the rocks and swimming all around us. It was absolutely breathtaking, and not just because they were smelly (they were). Our guide had goggles he passed around, and when I looked under water, they were all around us. Hundreds of them were swimming below and alongside us. It was insane. Truly one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had. In theory, sea lions sometimes come up to you and kiss/lick your feet, but none of them did this to me. I was a little disappointed but also relieved because they are HUGE up close and intimidating. It was a real adrenaline rush.

In our $2 Uber back to our Airbnb to shower off the sea lion smell, I couldn’t stop thinking about how amazing the experience was, and I started getting soooo sad. My thought process went like this: “wow that was the coolest experience ever. I can’t believe I got to do that. I wish I hadn’t been able to do that. No, that’s not true, I’m really glad I got to do that. I had so much fun. I wish I hadn’t had fun. No that’s not true. I’m glad I had fun. But I wish I had a living child instead. If I had a baby, I wouldn’t have been able to do that. I’d rather have a baby. But I don’t get to choose. I wish I could choose. Why don’t I get to choose? Everything is so unfair. Why am I upset every time I’m happy? Why am I like this? Why can’t I just be happy? I hate who I am now. I don’t want this life.” Etc. etc. in circles. It’s really frustrating to be mad at myself every time I’m happy. Some may call this survivor’s guilt, but it isn’t really guilt. It’s more like a consolation prize. I’m happy I got a prize, but it pales in comparison to the real prize, the one I really wanted. And if I had a choice, I’d give up the consolation prize in a split second for the real prize. But I don’t get to choose, and that just fucking sucks. This was the first of many times during this trip that these spiraling thoughts happened to me.

There were many nights where I cried myself to sleep, but I am a pretty quiet crier, and I think mostly no one noticed even though I was sharing a room. Mornings used to be hard, back when I’d first wake up and realize my life wasn’t all a bad dream. But now, nights are the hardest, especially when I’m away from Chris, the one person who I feel truly understands what we have been through. Even he doesn’t always understand how I feel, but he understands best.

As we prepared to go to Cusco, which is approximately 11,500 feet above sea level, we were told to buy altitude sickness medication from a pharmacy and to start taking it one day before arrival. Since Manhattan is about 250 feet above sea level, I thought it would be smart to be prepared. However, as I googled the side effects, I realized that there may be some contraindications with my blood pressure medications I’ve been on since my pregnancy. I scrambled to message two of my doctors and hoped they would write me back. Thankfully they both did, but one of them recommended I down-dose my other meds, depending on what my blood pressure was reading at high altitude. I probably should have brought a monitor, but I didn’t. I spent the next 4 days worried I’d pass out in the street and end up in a Peruvian hospital. Thankfully, that did not happen, but the constant low-grade anxiety was not ideal. These are all just fun continuing repercussions of having a dead daughter, I guess.

The next morning, after taking two doses of altitude meds, we headed to the Lima airport to take a short, 80-minute flight to Cusco, where we would meet our fourth friend and begin our hiking adventures. Don’t get it twisted, we did not do the Inca Trail 4-day hike, we took a train to Machu Picchu. But we did do a good amount of walking and stairs over the next few days. We saw some of the most amazing landscapes I’ve seen in my life. I don’t usually go for blog post cliffhangers, but this one is already long, so get ready for Cusco and Sacred Valley adventures next week!

Can you see how many sea lions are behind us?

Miscellaneous

Burning Man Braids

September 13, 2023 5 Comments

I’ve taken up a lot of new hobbies recently, like eating pounds of gummy bears, making friendship bracelets, and re-watching Modern Family 90 times. But on top of those hobbies, I’ve also been keeping up with my hobby-turned-side-hustle: braiding hair! I first talked about braiding in July 2018, more than 5 years ago. When I look back at that post now and see the quality of my hairstyles, I cringe. But that is good, because it means I’ve been continuously improving.

When I first created an Instagram account just for hair, I followed 30 people. Now I have more than 4,000 followers myself! I haven’t talked about braiding on here since November 2021, when I braided 21 people for the NYC Marathon, but I’ve been quietly continuing my passion business, and I actually braided 20 people last year for the 2022 NYC Marathon. I’ve written before about how I randomly fell in with the running community, and it’s been so interesting to watch my business take off in ways I never predicted. I wasn’t sure if braids were just “having a moment,” but five years later, it seems like they are here to stay, at least for certain things.

Running braids have continued to be a big source of business for me, and I already have 11 clients booked for the NYC Marathon this upcoming November. But it’s not just running, people have found me for all sorts of reasons. So far this year I have had 32 separate clients, including 4 birthday parties, a 1:1 braiding lesson, hair for a family photoshoot, girls for school field days and before going to sleepaway camp, and of course a few people for the NYC Half Marathon. Somehow, despite having the most traumatic year of my life, my side business has been thriving. I’m not going to lie, the administration side of the business has been a challenge, since I mentioned that my cognitive functioning has been less than ideal. I accidentally double booked someone two weeks ago and had a minor freakout, but I tried to give myself grace and ultimately, I was able to reschedule everyone successfully.

You may be wondering why I decided to post now, during a random September week, about braiding again, and that’s because what happened three weeks ago was brand new: BURNER BRAIDS. If you haven’t heard of Burning Man before, you’re not alone. The event this year got more press than normal, so you may know about it now, but I knew very little until three weeks ago. It is an annual, week-long festival in the middle of the Black Rock Desert outside Reno, Nevada, where 35,000-70,000 people congregate and create their own temporary city. According to Wikipedia, where I got most of my information before talking to actual Burners (that’s what the participants are called), the event is guided by ten principles: radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, and immediacy.

You can either “open camp” or bring an RV. Once there, you mostly ride bikes around to other camps, and you aren’t allowed to have a car unless it’s a piece of art. You also cannot transfer any money, so everything is gifted between people. Each camp has their own unique gift, whether it is experiences, like a “human car wash,” or food, or a sangria bar. Everything you might need is provided by others. The desert area where people congregate is called “the playa” and people often say, “the playa will provide,” but what they really mean is, other Burners will help you out.

So, what does any of this have to do with braids? Well, first of all, the event is in the desert and showers are hard to come by. People who choose to come in RVs may have them, but it’s still complicated because you can’t dump used water in the desert and you aren’t allowed to leave a trace, so this makes hair-washing complicated. More importantly than the lack of showers, there is an abundance of sand. Specifically, the sand in Black Rock is not actually sand, it’s the alkaline remnants of an old lakebed. This means it sticks to everything including skin and hair. Burners are advised to bring vinegar to spray on themselves because it’s the only way to get it off. Between the wind and alkaline residue, long hair gets matted and often need to be cut before being detangled upon “reintegration” into the “default world.” Most Burners try to avoid this, therefore, braids. There are many threads on reddit dedicated to “long hair ideas” for Burning Man and almost all of them suggest braids.

Friends who braid together, stay together!

Between 2019 and 2022, I braided about two people per year for festivals, but this year it seems I went viral! I ended up braiding 13 people for Burning Man, and that was on top of my “real” full-time job! I was exhausted. In fact, I started turning people away a few weeks before because I knew I couldn’t handle any more. People often ask me if my hands hurt from braiding, but it’s not my hands, it’s my back! First of all, being on my feet is taxing. While I usually believe in a no-shoe apartment, I make an exception for braiding. When I’m leaning left to right, left to right, left to right, trying to get those stitches JUST RIGHT, it creates a lot of torque on my back, and shoes with good support help slightly. Laying on the floor also helps. Some days during the last month, I laid on the carpet before clients, and then again after.

Here’s me, laying on the floor pre-client.

I took so many amazing photos and videos of people’s hairstyles, and at first, I was trying to hold back from posting content on Instagram because I wanted to wait for photos from the actual event. But I couldn’t resist and I ended up posting three styles (here’s one!) that couldn’t wait. Also, I wasn’t sure if waiting made sense, since I couldn’t be sure if there would be any photos from my clients. The alkaline sand is not only bad for hair, but also bad for phones and cameras, and since there isn’t any cell phone service in the desert anyway, not all people choose to take pictures. However, sometimes people put together amazing outfits, and I wanted to see the hair together with the whole look!

The final weekend of Burning Man, as I was waiting not-so-patiently for my clients to come back, I was braiding two girls for Electric Zoo, another festival in New York, and they told me there was tragedy at Burning Man, with monsoon storms completely saturating the entire camp, and stranding tens of thousands of people in the desert due to road flooding. My first thought was, I hope they have enough food and water! My second thought was, I hope the braids hold up! As more news and videos came out, I was even more nervous. I heard they were told to conserve food and water, and that they did not know when people would be able to leave.

I waited and hoped, and posted on my Instagram stories to see if people were ok. About one week after, I sent direct messages to everyone to see if they were ok, and I was relieved to find that most said the news was far worse than the real situation. Everyone said that while it was extremely muddy, they all helped each other out and got home safely. I heard from a few people that they were extremely glad to have braids because once they were told to conserve water, hair washing was out of the question! Remember when I told you that I had a double-booking issue? My favorite story of the week was that two friends who came to my house to have their hair done, met another girl who was here at the same time because I was running a bit behind. They were talking together for a while, and they ended up meeting up in the desert despite not having any cell service! They took photos together and they looked so happy and awesome with their braids. It warmed my heart!

I can’t finish my blog without mentioning the necessary tie-in to last week’s post on small talk. In addition to hurting my back, the other thing that usually exhausts me from braiding is the constant chit-chat. I have an incredible amount of respect for full-time stylists who need to talk all day, it’s tiring! Add that to the fact that I no longer exceed in small-talk, and it’s especially grueling. One of the reasons I learned so much about Burning Man this year is because I employed my favorite tactic from last week’s blog: asking many questions so as not to have the conversation fall back to the topic of me. Braiding hair now carries an additional complication, especially when I am braiding for birthday parties, because the topic of children and how good I am with them tends to come up. When I did a family’s hair for their annual photos, it came up. I am always doing mental calculus about what to share and how to skirt the topic of family, but when I’m braiding in my apartment that I share with my husband, family inevitably comes up sometimes. I remember braiding clients in January with my ultrasound photos on the fridge in the back of my time lapse videos! This past month, thankfully I was only asked once about kids when we were talking about our relationships. I am never sure whether to be fully honest, but in this case, it was just the two of us, and I acknowledged that I had a daughter, but that she died. I kept it moving and immediately asked another question about how long she had been in her relationship. The moment passed, and I felt relieved and happy that I didn’t lie. It’s complicated because I want to be honest, but I try not to kill the mood. It’s not a secret that I lost a daughter and it’s pretty visible if you follow me on Instagram or watch my stories, so I try to strike a balance. I hope that with more time, I find it easier to talk about her in casual conversation.

Braiding for festivals this year was a blast and an exciting change of pace. When I braid for a race, I’m on a tight schedule with so many clients that I can’t try anything new. For the festivals, I have a chance to be creative and I try new styles I have never done. Each client came with their own inspiration, and I was able to bring the styles to life. I loved the freedom and creativity that went along with working with colored extensions and having more flexible time. I am not sure how many more clients I’ll be able to take for the rest of the year besides for the NYC Marathon, since I am traveling almost every week this season, but I’ll keep you posted. If you don’t already follow my hair account on Instagram, check me out @BraidInManhattan or look at my website, I even made a new section for Festival Hair!

Grief and Pregnancy Loss

Big Talk About Small Talk

September 5, 2023 No Comments

I used to be the queen of small talk. Also, I used to think everyone could small talk. That is, until I met my dear, beloved husband. He was the first person who pointed out to me that it is a skill, and not a skill everyone has. He, in fact, does not possess it. Don’t get me wrong, he’s extremely friendly, but he really doesn’t know how to talk about nothing. If you get him going on something he loves or has a passion about, say, the newest Apple product, or international politics, or police brutality, he can wax poetic and it’s difficult to get him to stop. But ask him how his day was? He will say “good.” End of conversation.

This blog isn’t about my sweet husband, though, it’s about me, and I have seemingly lost this important gift. I mentioned that Chris was the first person to tell me I was talented at small talk, but many other people have said similar things in different ways to me before. My best friend always used to say, “it’s so easy to take you places because I never have to worry about you, you make friends everywhere!” This is also why I make a great wing-woman. It isn’t really making friends, though, it’s just mindless chat, and finding little things in common with people so you can fill the time with a drink in your hand. I honestly never gave it a second thought, it’s just something I did with ease.

That is, until 6 months ago, when all of that changed. Small talk is hard now because it’s small. And what has happened in my life recently is HUGE. I can’t possibly think about the weather because I’m thinking about my dead daughter. I can’t think about someone else’s work drama because I almost died. I can’t think about how frustrating it is to deal with airline customer service, because all of my friends are pregnant and I am not even allowed to try to be.

I remember two events specifically where I realized I had lost the gift of small talk. The first one happened a few weeks after I left the hospital. I agreed to go on a walk in Central Park to see the cherry blossoms with a few friends. I was pretty nervous about it. It was the first time I was going to see a group of people, and the first time I was going to see a lot of these people post-baby. Walking there, I figured out a strategy: I didn’t want to talk about what happened with me, so I would ask a million questions about them. That’s exactly what I did. And the truth of small talk is that really only one side needs to talk, and the other side can just listen and ask a lot of questions. The main problem with this is that the question-asker is supposed to care about the answers, and I simply did not. For almost two hours around the reservoir in Central Park I heard about my friends’ dating woes, their job interviews, their vacation plans, all of the little things in life. But they were all just that: little. Meanwhile, all I heard in my head was the BIG thing in life. My empty uterus.

The issue is, when you don’t care about little things, but you don’t want to talk about big things, it makes socialization really difficult. The second event I remember, again I was in a group of people. We had planned a low-key short walk through a street fair and gelato outing. But it turned into a multi-hour affair. I didn’t want to talk about “the big thing” but I realllly didn’t care about everyone’s small things. All I wanted to do was go home and cry. And sleep. It was so exhausting feigning interest while also being constantly on edge that something about me might come up. I danced around it to try and remain engaged. I remember one person talking about their extremely high medical bills and I chimed in to mention that I had already hit by $5750 out of pocket max for the year. Besides that, I don’t remember any of the details of the conversations, since I was mostly thinking about going home, but not knowing how to remove myself from the situation.

When I leave events like that, and I realize I’ve basically blacked out my friends’ conversations and details about their lives, it makes me feel like a horrible friend. But the reality is, I just don’t care. In the grand scheme of things, all of the small things just feel so small! My therapist always chides me for my newfound social isolation, but it feels like a lose-lose situation when I’m around people. The cycle goes like this: I ask questions, I try to care, I fail at caring, and I feel like a shit friend.

I have noticed that this phenomenon is even more magnified when I speak to my pregnant friends. I, unfortunately, have 3 pregnant friends. Four before last weekend, but now I have three pregnant and one with a newborn. I could write a whole blog (or series) about how I am navigating these friendships, but for now, let’s just say, small talk is EXTREMELY difficult. For them, the main thing in their lives is being pregnant, having a baby soon, and the complete role-adjustment of becoming a parent. For me, the main thing in my life is not being pregnant, having a dead baby, and the complete role-adjustment of being an almost-parent, to being an empty, baren, not sure if I’ll ever be the parent of a living child. My pregnant friends don’t want to talk about their big things because they don’t want to upset me, and I don’t want to talk about my big thing because I don’t want to terrify them with my story. So, what does that leave for conversation? Small talk. Dumb work drama. Photos of their pets. Weather. Memes. It all feels extremely meaningless.

I actually pointed this out a while ago to my pregnant friend. Last November, she had gone through a pregnancy loss, and I was still pregnant. I planned not to talk about my pregnancy at all when we had dinner, but she kept asking questions, so I followed her lead and answered them as tersely as possible. When we saw each other in July, she was pregnant again, and I was not, and I was asking her questions. She said she hadn’t been talking to me about it because she didn’t want to upset me, but I explained that I had no interest in talking about the weather and I wanted to know how she was really feeling. This is all extremely complicated to navigate, and as the loss mom, I know I have to drive the conversation since I am the one whose feelings are being protected.

As for my non-pregnant friends, I have been trying as hard as I can to come back to my friendships and care about their lives. That sounds bad in writing. I find myself more and more like Chris, trying to get into deeper conversations that feel meaningful. Surface-level conversations now feel empty to me, so I have been working to have more one-on-one time with friends where we can actually talk about the real stuff. I’m seeking out spaces where I feel comfortable laughing, but also feel ok if I shed a tear. Maybe I don’t care that their Instacart order delivered the wrong milk, but I do care that their egg freezing cycle wasn’t as successful as they had hoped. Maybe I will zone out if they tell me that their husband left his socks on the floor 5 days in a row, but I will try hard to listen and relate if they tell me that their in-laws are driving them insane because they haven’t visited enough. I don’t want my friends to shy away from talking about their problems because they know my problem is HUGE. I may not be the queen of small talk anymore, but I am working toward being the queen of empathetic listening.

I am going on my first girls trip in 10 days. If I told you I was excited and not anxious about it at all, I’d be lying. It’s a huge step for me to hang out with multiple people for multiple days, with many many hours of conversation. As I move forward, I am trying to cultivate time and space with friends who can be there for both ups and downs. I know that all of my friends have their own struggles, and that we can hold space for both complaining about a long hike, and talking about grief and loneliness, all in the same sentence. For that, I’m grateful.

Grief and Pregnancy Loss

Say Something. But Not the Wrong Thing.

August 30, 2023 8 Comments

After we lost our baby, we heard from a lot of friends and family. We received calls, texts, emails, flowers, Instagram DMs, you name it. Some things that were said were great, and some were… not so great. I’ve been waiting for a while to write this post so I could base this on my own experience of things I heard, instead of the usual list. I’m almost 6 months post loss, and I have heard it all. That said, I have to shoutout to my absolute favorite podcast ever, As Long As I’m Living. They did an episode called “I Can’t Imagine,” which goes over a more general list of do’s and don’ts, and in general, I agree with everything they said. There’s one place I differ but I’ll get to that later.

This post requires a very important preamble. I want to thank EVERYONE who reached out to me. I know it is far easier to say nothing than to say anything. If you read this and you identify yourself as someone who said the “wrong” thing, do not fret. Death and mourning and grief are complicated and we, as a culture, do not talk about it openly. It is uncomfortable and it is hard to know what to say. But you know what’s worse than putting your foot in your mouth? Not acknowledging the loss at all. It means so much to a grieving person to hear from friends and family. And sometimes when I heard from a friend on a particular day, absolutely nothing felt like the right thing to my ears, but a week, a month, or 6 months later, I do remember each person who texted to check in, commented on my Facebook post, or sent me a 5-pound bag of gummy bears.

I am not writing this post to chastise people who put themselves out there and tried to console me. I also know that unfortunately, I am not the only person you will meet in your lives who will go through a loss, whether it is a child, parent, sibling, or close friend. I am writing this as a first-hand account of what felt best to me, so you can take this advice and use it in the future. I want this to be a practical and useful tool.

I will be the first to admit that before this happened to me, I had NO idea what to say. I look back at the way I acted when I had friends lose parents and I cringe. I did not understand. I said the wrong things, or I said nothing at all. I forgot important dates. I didn’t acknowledge how hard Father’s Day must be for them. Etc. etc. etc. I hope that my own experience can deepen my empathy for others and help me react in kinder ways in the future to help my friends and family.

I am not an “expert.” But I can tell you what made me feel slightly better, and what made me feel slightly worse.

What not to say:

For starters, PLEASE do not call. If you are very close family, I understand calling, but anyone else, please text. In the early days, I was fielding so many calls from unknown numbers: doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, social workers, support groups, peer counselors etc. I felt that I needed to answer my phone no matter what, and I was often not in the mindset to be screening the calls. It put me in an extremely awkward position when I picked up and all I wanted to do was hang up. I once had a call from a distant family member who called from her work number. Her work, unfortunately, shared a word with the place where our daughter was being buried. I saw the caller ID and I picked up thinking it was a call about the details of burial. I was stuck on the phone for 5 minutes. Eventually, since I was mostly answering in one-word answers, she understood and ended the call, but it was excruciating.

Now on to the actual words you may say. Let’s start with the worst and most common mistake of all. DO NOT SAY “AT LEAST.” There is no “at least.” At least nothing. My child died. I almost died. I find that people start off strong with “I’m so sorry” or “This is horrible,” then they go on to the “at leasts.” As my favorite podcast hosts Judith and Alina say, don’t say anything that could end with “…so don’t be so sad.”

At least you didn’t die! … so don’t be so sad.

At least you can go on vacation now! … so don’t be so sad.

At least you have a partner who loves you! … so don’t be so sad.

At least you’re young! … so don’t be so sad.

At least you know you can get pregnant! … so don’t be so sad.

At least you have more time to save money! … so don’t be so sad.

At least you won’t be super pregnant in the summertime! … so don’t be so sad.

At least you never got so big or got stretch marks! … so don’t be so sad.

I could sit here and go down that list individually and tell you why NONE of those were “at leasts” in my mind, but as a general rule just don’t say it.

Don’t say, “you’re so strong.” This one is my personal pet-peeve. I absolutely despise this. DESPISE. If you take one thing away from this blog, please, please don’t say this. One griever to another can say this but a normal person to a griever cannot. I heard this so much, and I started to get so upset that I started saying in response, “what’s the alternative?” I was always met by crickets. This is my life now. My reality. I wake up every day and this is what I am faced with. Is that a choice? Am I strong for waking up? I guess that means the alternative would be… not waking up. It doesn’t seem like I am “strong” when you put it in that light. When someone says that I am strong, it feels as if being strong is a choice. You choose to go to the gym, you choose to lift weights, you want to be strong. Well, I didn’t choose this. In fact, I’d choose anything BUT this. Don’t say this.

Unless you are very close with me, don’t cry. If you are family or a best, best friend, it’s ok, we can grieve this loss together. It is a loss for both of us. If we are not that close, please don’t cry. It puts me in an awkward position where I become the consoler. Where I have to say, “it’s ok,” and it’s not ok. Also, it makes me feel like I should be crying. Don’t get me wrong, I cry a lot. But in a moment where I am not crying, where I am maybe relaying the news to the 300^th person, it feels strange to have the other person cry without me.

Here’s another one reserved for only close family or friends. Do not say, “call me if you need me.” I won’t. Why would I? It’s strange to say, “I’m always a phone call away” if I have not called you in 10-14 years since I was charged per text message. There’s a big exception here if you have gone through a similar loss. I want to leave interpretation up to you on what “similar” means; if you had a great grandmother die at the ripe age of 92, that is not similar. But if you had a nearly 3^rd trimester pregnancy loss? Even if we aren’t too close, I may very well take you up on the offer to chat.

I feel like this goes without saying, but I heard it a few times, so I will say it: do not comment on appearance or body shape. It is irrelevant and likely hurtful. I know people may mean well when they say I look thin, but all it reminds me of is how I should be bigger. I am aware I have been subsisting on gummy bears and naps, but there is no need to mention it. I have no baby bump, no “mommy pouch,” no external reminders about what happened. That is hard. And even if I did have those things, it would be hard, too! Would I rather look like I was pregnant and not have a baby? Or would I rather look like I wasn’t pregnant and not have a baby? Neither! I’d rather have a baby. Even saying, “you look great” carries huge emotional baggage. Should I look worse? What does a person who loses a daughter look like? Am I not sad enough? There’s no reason to talk about appearance.

Here are a couple quick things not to say, ripped from the headlines a.k.a. things people actually said to me. Do not ask what happened in a public forum. I will tell you if I want. I certainly will not tell you if you comment on a public Facebook post. If I wanted to talk about it there, I would have put it in the caption. Do not ask me if it was a difficult pregnancy. My baby is dead. That feels like the most difficult pregnancy around, no? If you are asking me if I barfed every day, I can tell you, I’d rather barf and have an alive-baby. Do not say congratulations. Read the caption, y’all. If I was announcing a living child, I would have said that. I had one person who commented this, realized her mistake later, and messaged me directly to apologize. Of course, I knew she had written it in error, but I still appreciated her private message when she realized her mistake. The other three people who wrote it probably still think I’m at home with a newborn.

This seems obvious, but for the sake of comprehensiveness, I’ll remind you that platitudes are annoying, pointless and hurtful. I’m not going to waste any time here explaining why you should never say “she’s in a better place” or “everything happens for a reason,” or “God needed another angel.” My eyes could not roll higher into my head. Do not say any of those things.

I’ll close with the only thing I disagreed with Judith and Alina on. They say not to say, “I can’t imagine” or “I can imagine.” Personally, I’m fine with “I can’t imagine,” because truly, you cannot. As bad as you think you imagine it is to be hopeful and excited one moment and then be devastated and almost dying the next, it’s worse. Saying “I can’t imagine what you’re going through” is a fine thing to say. I’d say, “yeah, I hope you never have to.” You cannot imagine, nor do I want you to!

So, if you aren’t supposed to say any of those things, what can you say? I’m so glad you asked. I have thoughts.

What to say:

If you text or email, don’t expect a reply. I saw all of the messages in those first few weeks and I “hearted” or replied when I could. Every text that came in would set me off crying again, and sometimes I just needed to hide my phone under a pillow until I could handle it. Include the words “no need to reply” in your text. It gives an easy out. And if I feel like replying, I will.

Another related piece: it’s never too late to reach out. A lot of people will text in the first few weeks, but a grieving person will be grieving literally forever. For as long as they live and their person isn’t living, they will be grieving. Don’t feel like you missed the window. It is never too late to check in and say, “I have been thinking about you.”

Do say, “I’m so sorry.” This is an easy one if you are uncomfortable with loss. It’s a full sentence. Do not follow it up with anything else. Just “I’m so sorry.” I will probably say, “thank you.” The end.

Another great easy one, “this is so terrible/horrible/painful.” Acknowledge how bad it is. It’s bad. There’s no way around it. Having someone recognize how bad it is helps. For me, hearing someone say this helped me take a step back and be like, “Yea you know what? This IS fucking horrific. I am totally justified in becoming one with the couch and going through a whole box of tissues in a day.”

Related… curse. Yep, I said it, use those expletives. Maybe this one is more me-specific, but the one Facebook comment that made me laugh out loud and then be like “YESSS!!” was when someone wrote “FUCK Emily I am so so so sorry.” I was like “THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I FEEL. FUCKKKK!!!”

Do mention the person’s name who died. I haven’t shared our daughter’s name yet on the blog, but I will eventually. I have a whole post coming about how and why we decided to name our daughter. For most people who lose someone, you will know their name. Use it! I remember the first time I heard my daughter’s name come out of a friend’s mouth, it made me cry happy tears. I was so thankful that she was acknowledged as existing. Sometimes it feels like this whole pregnancy and loss happened in my mind, so to hear her name, and know that she truly existed, it meant the world.

Finally, ask me if I want to talk about it. Most times, people tiptoe around the subject. They don’t know if I want to talk about it, or if I want a completely baby-loss-free coffee date. But trust me, if you’re awkward, I can sense it. The easiest thing to do is just ask. “Do you want to talk about it?” The answer may be different on one day than it is on another. My moods fluctuate and sometimes I want a “normal” happy hour, but sometimes all I can think about is my daughter and all I want to do is talk about her. If a grieving person does choose to talk about it, thank them for sharing. It takes extreme vulnerability to talk about loss (cough cough, like this blog), so to know a friend is listening and wants to hear more, and recognizes your bravery in talking about it, it’s meaningful.

I hope this post was helpful not just for talking to me, but for talking to anyone else in your life going through a loss. Three rules of thumb to take away:

Don’t call! Text 😊
Saying something is better than saying nothing
In conversations, let the griever lead, and listen

Travel

Brigantine Beach Girls’ Week

August 23, 2023 3 Comments

I have a fun blog this week because I went on a vaycay with the girls! I was going to say our last name like “the Smith girls,” since “the girls” are my mom and my sister, but then I realized we all have different last names. And I wouldn’t want to share them here on the blog. ANYWAY, we went to Brigantine Beach last week just outside of Atlantic City and we had a blast.

This was actually our second annual trip to Brigantine, but this one seemed much more fun because we were well-prepared.

First of all, seagulls. I know, that isn’t a full sentence, but trust me, it is. As the kids say, IYKYK. If you don’t know, the seagulls near Atlantic City are infamous. They will literally steal food out of your hand. Last year, my poor sister attempted to eat a pretzel and a seagull swooped down and nipped her arm! This year, we knew better. We brought food for hotel room consumption ONLY. Also, we knew to eat before heading to the beach or pool so we weren’t hungry.

Also, this year we knew who of us loves sitting in a chair, and who loves laying on a blanket on her stomach like a beached whale (me). We had two chairs and 5 sunscreens ready for long days in the sun. We also had games, lots of them. Throughout the 3 days, we played Uno, Taboo, and Scattergories. We also drank, but not nearly as much as we thought we would. We make this mistake every year and overestimate our love of inebriation.

The reason we love this hotel and went back to the same one is because it is a 5-minute walk to the beach, but it also has a rooftop pool. I love the beach, especially the smell of the ocean and the sound of the waves, but sometimes I just want to be close to a bathroom, and not covered in sand. Also, there’s an added benefit of putting your feet in the water while you read. This year, my mom and I decided to read the exact same book at the same time. She was slightly ahead of me, but it was fun to talk about it. I also took a few long solo walks on the beach while I listened to some podcasts. It was so nice to have my feet in the sand, and to hear the crash of waves over my earbuds.

It’s a little hard to believe that I’ve made it 6 paragraphs into a post about the Jersey shore without mentioning Wawa, but do not fret. We stayed in Brigantine for three nights, and we went to Wawa 3 times. As one should. I got my fix of hoagies and iced coffees for at least another 2 weeks.

The one downside of the trip this year was that we had stormy weather every single night. Thankfully, though, it was gorgeous all day every day and we made the most of our rainy nights. One night we stayed in and played games. One night we went out to get amazing ice cream. And the other night, a true highlight: I finally saw the Barbie movie! I felt so left out of the conversation. After the first week of release, everyone had seen it, and no one would go with me. That is not entirely true, many people offered to see it with me a second time, but I felt like it just wasn’t the same if I was seeing it for the first time. However, of course it turned out that my mom and sister had both already seen it, too, because everyone had. Alas, it was still a great rainy activity, and they were both happy to see it again. We rummaged through our suitcases for any pieces of pink we could find and headed out. I ate far too much popcorn, which is exactly the right amount.

We had unintentionally amazing timing, since the Atlantic City Air Show was happening the final day, we were there. For the few days leading up, we got to see very cool (and LOUD) plane formations practicing, and on the final day after we checked out of the hotel, we headed down to the AC Boardwalk and caught the show up close and personal. We saw massive cargo planes, rescue helicopters, and the coolest part was the aerobatics. We watched planes take terrifying nosedives and barrel rolls. I was holding my breath (and my camera… see photographic evidence below) the whole time. It was extremely hot on the boardwalk without getting in the water, so we stayed just long enough to watch the show and buy some fudge.

Overall, I felt it was such a relaxing trip and I had fun, truly. I know my mom will read this and wonder if I was faking it, but I was not! Grief is strange, you can have an amazing few days, and then something can hit you like a ton of bricks. For example, on our final day there, we walked into a souvenir shop on the boardwalk for a quick respite from the heat. I looked at all of the t-shirts and tchotchkes and of course my eyes were drawn immediately to the tiny onesies. I remembered the last time I was in a shop like that on Fort Lauderdale beach for my close friend’s wedding in February. I was 23.5 weeks pregnant. I almost bought an adorable two-piece get-up for our baby-to-be. But I didn’t. And who knows if I ever will. Being in that store immediately cut me. But the way I know I’m healing is, I was able to move through that feeling and on to other feelings.

We dropped my sister off at the train station, and then my mom and I went back to my parents’ house. We went to a garden dedication for her friend where 5 of my mom’s friends asked if I had gotten taller. I’m not sure if they are shrinking or if I’m getting taller, but I’m wondering if I should measure myself just to be sure. Later that night, we saw Sutton Foster in concert at Longwood Gardens. Her song choice was meh, but her voice was amazing. I felt so lucky to see her and spend more time with my momma! I stayed at my parents’ house for the night and got to spend more time with them and a friend the next day going on walks around the neighborhood.

We had such a stress-free and great bonding week. Our hope is to make this an annual thing and do it again next year!