I should begin this entry with an apology…something along the lines of ‘I know this is supposed to be a gardening blog BUT (insert weird thing that happened which has caused me to vere off course) – but I’m not going to, because this is me…and the weird thing that’s happened is a part of my life…and this is my blog, and I’m going to write about it…..
SO:
Early on Sunday morning I had a miscarriage. I was four months pregnant with my second child and so thrilled and excited that I'd told everyone at twelve weeks.
I’m going to keep it short but let’s just say that miscarriage at sixteen weeks is like something out of a horror movie but you don’t get to walk out of the cinema and forget about it. My poor husband just had to stand there, unable to help me. Then everything went pear-shaped and I lost too much blood and had to be resuscitated and cleaned out and given a blood transfusion and basically I feel like a pile of excrement and my little baby is gone …BUT….
Here’s the thing…I was finally discharged this afternoon and I came home to my angel daughter – magical and laughing but a bit confused and needing me…and we went out into the garden and there was my first snowdrop (one of three that I had transplanted from a pot when we got here early last year and had forgotten about, and all the sadness just seemed to lift – not evaporate…it’s still there, but it’s just not so very heavy as when I was alone there in that hospital bed.
It’s not what I’ve lost that’s humungous any more…it’s what I already have that’s vast and joyful – my family, my husband, my daughter and my garden. I’m deeply lucky; I’m acutely aware that I wouldn’t be so quick to see this without the miracle of my comparatively uneventful first pregnancy and resulting bundle of yumminess. Strange to feel so very sad and yet so very happy all at once, and I think I am finally beginning to grasp how complex and rich life is when you love people, and that the histories we weave are always in flux and ever-changing, and that things aren’t black and white…not ever.
....That life is so very much like a garden.
There…I’m going to press ‘play’ on this quickly, before I start agonising about it…because perhaps one day I’ll regret letting these very private things out into the sky…but perhaps not. Possibly it’s too soon, and I should wait until I can be less emotional about it…but the writing of it helps me, so perhaps the reading of it will help someone else…I don’t know.