That is the topic up for discussion around our house the last few days. The reason for the debate? Over the weekend, I had what I am 99% sure was a miscarriage. The problem? I didn’t know I was pregnant. We weren’t trying and had no plans to have any more children. I had no missed periods, no strange food cravings or nausea, no symptoms at all. Yet all evidence points to the fact that I have yet lost another pregnancy.
Now I know there was a reason for it and I should be giving thanks for not ending up with an ‘unwanted’ pregnancy (though I would have happily welcomed another and been thankful for it), and I’m not heartbroken like I was the last time it happened (we were trying then). But like last time I am plagued by the what if’s. For me, despite the fact it was unplanned, it was very much real and I’m now left to forever wonder would it have been a boy or a girl? What it would have looked like? Who’s personality would it have taken after? And the big question…if I had known earlier, could I have prevented the miscarriage from happening? I knew last time and couldn’t stop it, but this time could have been different. All my speculation, led to a conversation with my husband which is where the ‘what is real’ discussion come into play.
For my absolutely wonderful and loving husband, something isn’t real unless it’s tangible to him. That is, he has to see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, etc… Because he couldn’t see it, it wasn’t real. I know it’s not that he’s being harsh or unsympathetic, it’s simply how he is. So that led me to the question…what is real? To my friends who have also suffered through similar experiences and to my step-sister who has suffered the same loss just one short week ago, its real. To their spouses, it’s not. Is the answser as simple as emotion vs logic? Or is it more along the lines of genetics, a male/female thing? If something is real for you, is it also real for others, or vice versa?
