i'm still here.

It's been a long time. Many, many years at this point, which surprises me. Does anyone still even read this blog?

If I were to delve a little more deeply into why I haven't been writing, I'm sure that the usual answers would come up: I'm actually happy. I've been internalizing too much. I've been leaving my feelings at arms length, or ignoring them completely. How do I catch you up? What do I even write about right now?

My mother. It all comes back to my mother, and where we are now. Which is the same place we were. She is still off meds, still stalking me online, still a shadow in my life that comes and goes. This period of time after my wedding has been new and wonderful and heartbreaking in so many ways. Because after marriage, you start to want children. I've always wanted children, but now there's an urgency. I'm 37. I'm not getting any younger.

Exactly one year ago, I was pregnant. It was Mother's Day 2019. We had practically just found out, and the immediate family knew. Everyone wished me a happy Mother's Day, which made me insane because I'm Jewish. You don't do that... it's bad luck.

I couldn't believe it had finally happened - we had been trying for over a year. A year of heartbreak every single fucking month. If anyone out there has struggled with pregnancy, you know exactly what I mean. We had gotten to the point that my doctor had sent us off to a fertility doctor, and we had found out exactly how much money it was going to cost us to have a baby. My weight was a huge concern, along with my age, and the tests that they had done made us concerned about it actually happening without an egg donor. At literally the last possible second, we conceived naturally. It was a miracle. It was crazy.

It was too good to last. We lost the baby at the end of June.

So how does this all tie back to my mother? Well, I didn't know what a miscarriage really meant. I didn't get the full picture. The details and the business of losing a baby at 9 weeks are emotionally draining, but it was the physical affects that left me speechless. And I wanted my mother. I wanted to know if she had been as afraid as I had been that whole time. I wanted someone to take care of me. My husband and his mother were amazing. They held me up the entire time, and put me back together again. It was a messy, horrible and painful time, and once again I was reminded how lucky I was to be married to my husband.

My father also somehow stepped up and into my recovery. He moved near us a few months before that, and it's been incredible to have him so close. He came over almost every day while I lay on the couch trying to not fall apart again. He tried to remember my mother's health history with pregnancy. He did his best.

And I healed. Physically. I tried again. And miracle of miracles, we got pregnant again. I'm now 2 months away from meeting my child during a fucking pandemic. There are so many other feelings to unpack but I think I'll leave it for another day.

My mother's absence from the most painful experience of my life was harsh. But the older I get, the more I realize that there are other people in my life that absolutely stepped in and held me together. If I can get through a miscarriage without her, I know sure as shit I can get through a birth without her.

I feel my strength every day lately.