five years ago

Today is Tiggy's birthday.

This fat, furry funball formed part of the family on Saturday, 23 August 2003. A month before, our other kitty cat had been hit by two cars in the middle of our street and we had to put him to sleep.

We went to the pet store where a pet rescue service was adopting out cats and dogs. We saw Tiggy and knew in that instant that He was to be Our New Cat.

I felt a funny feeling that day; I was between twelve and thirteen weeks pregnant and all of a sudden I felt a moisture where I didn't feel I should. I excused myself to go to the car to check on myself.

My panties were soaked with blood.

I panicked and told my husband that I needed to go to doc-in-a-box. So he dropped me off at urgent care, and called She-ra to come and be with me there as he took La Princesita and our new kitty home.

I was checked, told that my cervix was closed and that it could just be a freak thing. I was shaking uncontrollably and scared. Told to go to ER if I started passing clots.

Tigre was a wonderful distraction for most of the afternoon, but then I started to bleed more, so we got Princesita to a friend's house and I got to the hospital. I was a week away from my first midwife appointment.

It was then confirmed that I was miscarrying. I was given instructions to return to the hospital at 7 a.m. on Sunday the 24th for a D&C, but to come earlier if...

I labored through the night. A sleepless, horribly painful night--the worst pain I have ever known as I was laboring for no joyful reason--and Tigre came out of hiding and laid with me, comforting me all night long. He knew I needed him. That was our first bond.

By the time I got to the hospital I was bleeding heavily and, I later learned, was dilated fully. The doctor was not yet there, and I was told to wait in the waiting room. I paced when I could stand, and fell to the floor with blood flowing down my legs when I could no longer stand. I already had made it through one completely pain-medication free labor with my daughter in 21 hours of labor--but this was different. I was losing the baby. I couldn't even make it to the bathroom, and was thus subjected to the most humillating experience of my life, on my knees in the hospital waiting room, leaving a trail of blood, watching a laboring mother pacing and looking at me with such pity...

until finally somebody was called with a wheelchair and got me into prep. I was in a room with at least 10 other people, and they were dead silent as they listened to me cry and mourn over and over again, "My baby...my baby..."

Until they finally came and took me, and drugged me as I begged them to just take my pain away and make this nightmare end.

I awoke, tummy deflated, threw up and it was over.

Called my mother. This was the anniversary of her own mother's death, so of course it was all about her. Refused to fly out because she didn't want to be a part of a "community event." Blamed me for the miscarriage..."it's your fault being so far away from family, it's because of where you live."

My friends...my true friends...came to me and helped me. And I started teaching two days later as classes at the uni. began anew.

Five years have passed, and I still cannot tell that story without sobbing.

A year and one week to the day later, my baby boy was born.

And such is the circle of Life, heartbreak, tears, joy.