“I was very sorry to hear about the latest miss.”
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING RANT IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART
“I was very sorry to hear about the latest miss.”
Those are the words that greeted me yesterday in an email from a second cousin who I never liked anyway.
I was and still am rendered mostly speechless by this _______ condolence. I need some help filling in the blank here.
I need a better description than stupid or unbelievably stupid. How about mind-bogglingly f*cking stupid?
I spent 5 days with a dead baby in me and she feels a need to abbreviate miscarriage with “miss.” Is she that short on time or is that what they are calling it back East?
Background information: When I was about 7 weeks pregnant with my living daughter, who I’ll call Troll Girl (TG), I started spotting, naturally, and had a viability check/ultrasound. The technician looked around in my uterus for a while and then went to get the doctor, naturally.
I hate when they go to get the doctor.
At our most recent dead baby ultrasound on June 30, 2006, the doctor, a high-risk perinatalogist, WENT TO GET THE DOCTOR. I responded to the introducing of the second doctor with, “Fucking great.’
Anyway, back to Troll Girl’s pregnancy, the doctor came and said basically that I had a giant blood clot and I would probably lose the baby. Good times.
My parents came to help care for my 2-year-old son so I could rest. I bled for about 10 weeks and had many ultrasounds where my daughter was miraculously still alive each time.
During this ten weeks, every time I did a “how much am I bleeding right now check?” my mother would ask me how the bleeding was. One time when I emerged ashen-faced from the bathroom she looked at me earnestly and uttered the words, “Did you miss?”
I was dumbfounded by the terminology and I still am today.
Now, let’s have some fun, if anybody’s up for it, thinking of things I could say if and when I respond to my hideous cousin’s hideous email. Let’s do:
“Things I’d like to say if I had the balls and didn’t have to deal with any familial fall-out”
“Things that I really could say” or “How to set her straight in some way that doesn’t involve horrifying her with any gory descriptions”
I’ll start.
“I’d like to say “ARE YOU F*CKING JOKING? Did I ‘miss?’
Is that what it’s called when you watch a small-town adorable fourth of f*cking july parade, on your f*cking 7th wedding ANNIVERSARY, WITH Evil Shadow Pregnancy and a thousand other pregnant women) knowing that there is another dead baby inside you that’s been dead FOR A WEEK and that you have to wait YET ANOTHER DAY to have what’s left of the placenta VACUUMED out of you WITH NO SEDATIVE WHATSOEVER, after a 3 a.m. bloody and excruciating toilet delivery of said dead baby WHO I HELD IN MY HAND BEFORE I LAID HIM ON A LITTLE TOILET PAPER BED JUST BEFORE I HAD TO FISH THE REST OF THE PLACENTA OUT OF THE TOILET FROM AMONGST THE SHIT THAT I HAD TAKEN WHILE DELIVERING THE WHOLE MESS.”
Man that felt good. I am smiling here in Crazytown.
I realize that I have set the bar pretty high for “things I’d like to say to my hideous cousin” but why not go for it anyway?
Or alternatively, I am COMPLETELY stumped on things I could actually say to her.
Final thought: I really hope that I am not traumatizing or re-traumatizing any of you with my way-too-much-information-rantings from my chamber of horrors.
“I was very sorry to hear about the latest miss.”
Those are the words that greeted me yesterday in an email from a second cousin who I never liked anyway.
I was and still am rendered mostly speechless by this _______ condolence. I need some help filling in the blank here.
I need a better description than stupid or unbelievably stupid. How about mind-bogglingly f*cking stupid?
I spent 5 days with a dead baby in me and she feels a need to abbreviate miscarriage with “miss.” Is she that short on time or is that what they are calling it back East?
Background information: When I was about 7 weeks pregnant with my living daughter, who I’ll call Troll Girl (TG), I started spotting, naturally, and had a viability check/ultrasound. The technician looked around in my uterus for a while and then went to get the doctor, naturally.
I hate when they go to get the doctor.
At our most recent dead baby ultrasound on June 30, 2006, the doctor, a high-risk perinatalogist, WENT TO GET THE DOCTOR. I responded to the introducing of the second doctor with, “Fucking great.’
Anyway, back to Troll Girl’s pregnancy, the doctor came and said basically that I had a giant blood clot and I would probably lose the baby. Good times.
My parents came to help care for my 2-year-old son so I could rest. I bled for about 10 weeks and had many ultrasounds where my daughter was miraculously still alive each time.
During this ten weeks, every time I did a “how much am I bleeding right now check?” my mother would ask me how the bleeding was. One time when I emerged ashen-faced from the bathroom she looked at me earnestly and uttered the words, “Did you miss?”
I was dumbfounded by the terminology and I still am today.
Now, let’s have some fun, if anybody’s up for it, thinking of things I could say if and when I respond to my hideous cousin’s hideous email. Let’s do:
“Things I’d like to say if I had the balls and didn’t have to deal with any familial fall-out”
“Things that I really could say” or “How to set her straight in some way that doesn’t involve horrifying her with any gory descriptions”
I’ll start.
“I’d like to say “ARE YOU F*CKING JOKING? Did I ‘miss?’
Is that what it’s called when you watch a small-town adorable fourth of f*cking july parade, on your f*cking 7th wedding ANNIVERSARY, WITH Evil Shadow Pregnancy and a thousand other pregnant women) knowing that there is another dead baby inside you that’s been dead FOR A WEEK and that you have to wait YET ANOTHER DAY to have what’s left of the placenta VACUUMED out of you WITH NO SEDATIVE WHATSOEVER, after a 3 a.m. bloody and excruciating toilet delivery of said dead baby WHO I HELD IN MY HAND BEFORE I LAID HIM ON A LITTLE TOILET PAPER BED JUST BEFORE I HAD TO FISH THE REST OF THE PLACENTA OUT OF THE TOILET FROM AMONGST THE SHIT THAT I HAD TAKEN WHILE DELIVERING THE WHOLE MESS.”
Man that felt good. I am smiling here in Crazytown.
I realize that I have set the bar pretty high for “things I’d like to say to my hideous cousin” but why not go for it anyway?
Or alternatively, I am COMPLETELY stumped on things I could actually say to her.
Final thought: I really hope that I am not traumatizing or re-traumatizing any of you with my way-too-much-information-rantings from my chamber of horrors.
posted by whatthef*ck at 11:13 AM
8 Comments:
Catherine said it first - what CAN you say to someone that stupid?!?
I'm so very sorry.
I live on the east coast and have never heard of it called a 'miss'. Is that like 50's housewife speak for 'mis'carriage where they don't have to actually say the whole word, you know, in public, because it's not proper or something??
Since I'm in a much less raw place than you, what comes to mind for me would be to say something along the lines of... 'please don't call it a miss. I did not miss anything. I did not miss one moment of birthing my dead baby into my hands in my toilet, not one moment of having the remnants of my pregnancy scraped out of my uterus, not one single second. I missed nothing. I know it wasn't your intention, but calling it a 'miss' disregards the life that I held in my body and the death of a child so wanted.'
And I also wanted to say you're welcome, and that I think it's great that you are just laying it all out there. I read some blogs that are all rainbows and sunshine and I just want to puke. I love that you are real and raw and messy and strong. Thank *you* for being brave and standing tall and saying 'it fucking sucks that my babies keep dying and don't call it a 'miss', call it like it is dammit!".
thanks to all of you wonderful women for the feedback. i think it's helping me to get some of the awfulness out. it leaves me with a little less to drag around with me.
I'm with Danielle. It's so refreshing to see some honesty on the internet. Keep it up. And tell your cousin to f*ck the f*ck off.
My god, I just wrote a post on getting an email that pissed me off, but it's nothing compared to yours! I'm with Catherine, I'm sorry if it's inappopriate to laugh at your post, as that's what I did at your response to your cousin.
I suggest, "Thank you so much for your email. I'm sorry to hear you've had a lobot."
Rosepetal made me laugh out load. A "lobot" - Love it! Go with that.
Yes, mindbogglingly stupid.
A miss. So did I have a still? ...(generally, I go with "son"). Sounds like where you make illegal booze.
Keep it coming - there is not point in keeping this kind of crap locked up.
Ack. I am not unraw enough yet to even think of anything good.
But I wanted to welcome you to the blogosphere and say that I am glad you are blogging this.
Do share your other favorite deadbabyblogs. I am always searching for more bitterness.
Does my blog count as deadclumpof cellsblog? What else would you call a failed IVF?
Where east does cousin live? I would be thrilled to hit couside upside the head with something heavy (Like my medical records) for being stupid and giving the East Coast a bad name.
Welcome to the blogosphere.
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