I wish I had known that having a miscarriage would feel equivalent to losing a limb, or like traveling to a long awaited tropical destination only to realize once you arrived that you lost your glasses. The blurry Parthenon, the tower you won’t be sure leans at all, the gondolier who’s face you’ll never remember. The beauty and adventure won’t be as you always pictured, the once in a lifetime journey will be lost because of your loss.
I wish I’d known that this feeling would be like grief after death, that nothing around me would feel the same. I wish I’d known I’d feel like an impostor in my own body, the reflection in the mirror only looking eerily similar to who I was before.
I wish I known that even the idea of carrying another child would bring on feelings of guilt, as though the soul I will never meet might feel as though they’ve been replaced, forgotten.
Yet I wish I’d known they would never have been forgotten, and that the memory would haunt me and never be connected to anything resembling beauty.
I wish I had known that this loss would affect all my days, every movement, all my relationships, my entire perspective.
I wish I’d known that it would change my heart.
I wish I’d known that nothing was ever going to be the same again.
