Sunlight After the Storm

so the last few weeks were pretty rough between robb and me. i was punishing me. and him. and by way of him, me again. i kept wavering between wanting to hurt him and wanting to pull him in to cover me like a blanket. very confusing. and costly. he's extremely tough and can take it for the most part, but it has to wear a body out.

and it's bothered me that the miscarriage impacts him very differently than it has impacted me. where this sort of stopped me in my tracks and wrecked me for a while, he was sad and was worried for me, but seems to have mostly moved on. that's been hard for me to reconcile since i want to be in sync with him on everything, especially such important things. and i think i'm jealous that this...all of it...the trying, the carrying, the failing...doesn't consume him like it does me. it couldn't possibly. it's my body. my cycle. my blood. he's been right there, very supportive and loving, and on occasion unfortunately even having to deal with the messy stuff...but it's different for him. and that's hard for me.

so all this gets gobbed together and the house was a mess since my funny eastern european cleaning lady is on hiatus and...we had one big yelly screamy fight last tuesday. we purged a lot of demons, but it was not much fun.

gratefully, on wednesday we were leaving for a weekend up north, so we had lots of alone time to sift through all of it. in the 4 hrs in the car we debriefed about the fight and put all the issues out there, honest and brutal, and had to work through it. and all weekend it was mostly just the two of us, so we just talked and talked and talked, went bike riding and giggling all over mackinac island, took long walks through the woods, shopped and ate, visited family a little, and slept a lot. and by the end of it, we were us again. which is wonderful.

i don't underestimate the toll infertility and pregnancy loss can have on couples. according to an article in USA Today this April, "For miscarriage...the likelihood of breaking up is 22% higher than for couples who have a successful pregnancy. " this rate goes up to 40% for couples who lived through a stillbirth. it's a good article. i recommend it. talks about how males/females face this loss differently and how it can pull couples apart if not careful.