In memoriam, Part II

I miscarried this past week.

I had debated posting news of my pregnancy here, not only because of what "could" happen, but also because I never really had a good feeling about it. Not like with my son, even during the two weeks I waited to find out whether he was "viable" after failing to hear his heartbeat using a Doppler device. (It turned out he was four weeks younger than we thought.)

Ultimately I posted because I figured if something did go wrong, I could still write something about it and hope it reached someone else in pain. Miscarriage is one of those events no one likes to talk about, even as common as it is. Many women feel it's too private to go into with strangers. Others refrain from talking about for fear of offending people. I think it's too common not to talk about.

And yet, I find myself unable to write out my deepest thoughts and fears and anger: my grief. Because I know people who know me, but don't know miscarriage, are reading this blog. And I hate, hate, sharing parts of myself with people who don't understand. I didn't even like talking pregnancy with women who had never been pregnant. To write something out and thus make someone believe they can understand my pain - or worse, someone else's close to them - would be the grossest insult to me and to anyone else who has ever miscarried and then had to deal with secondary pain from insensitive people. I know, the purpose of writing is to share one's perspective on the human condition with strangers. But y'know what? That's for my fiction.

So, I miscarried. I said it, and publicly, that's all I'll say about it. But I welcome anyone else who's grieving to get in touch. You can respond through comments, or email me through my website. For the rest of you, I encourage you to spend time - real time, not just a spare thought - appreciating what you have. I sure have.

Still more changes

I know I've been silent for the last couple of weeks, but it hasn't been for lack of subject matter. Instead, I've once again found my business in flux: I found out I'm expecting another baby in early June.

I've been thinking a lot about work and pregnancy with my son, wondering if it will be similar this time around or not. Most significantly, then, I had no brain to speak of. I was forgetting how to spell and how to read. It was a terrible state of affairs for a writer, and it didn't help that one of my editors told me she'd written the best story of her life in her second trimester. (It did help that her boss, also pregnant at the time, had the same problem I did.)

This time around - although it's still early - the main symptom appears to be "energy swings." These are sort of like mood swings, except they involve not emotions, but cycles of extreme fatigue swinging to extreme frenzy. During the former I'm napping before dinner. During the latter I'm up till 1 a.m. and only go to bed because I force myself. This state of affairs isn't so bad for the creative spark. It probably all evens out in the end.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to continue posting at least once a week, even though I asked for more work. In fact, I need to think up questions for the first of my cyber book tour moms (sorry it's taking so long, Melanie!). One line of questioning, however, is certain: How do you write successfully with two in the house?!