January 2008

It doesn’t feel like bravery.

A few people have told me that they were surprised that I was able to write in such detail about my miscarriage, only a few hours after it happened. Yvonne said I was brave. I’m not sure that’s what it is though. I kind of surprised myself by writing about it so soon. But I was already starting to forget details, and I really wanted to remember the details. And, I guess, by posting them here, I wanted other people to be able to know what it was really like to go through a miscarriage at almost 12 weeks. And honestly, writing about it was cathartic. I cried a lot while typing, but I felt a little better afterwards. I don’t want to hide what happened. Before this, I thought that a miscarriage was something that usually happened at home, and was not a big deal physically and was over quickly. And maybe if you’re not as far along as I was, that is closer to the truth. I was just so shocked at how physically traumatic it was. I thought I was dying. I have never seen Doc look so frightened. I was bleeding so much and it didn’t seem like it was going to stop. I just wish I’d known ahead of time that miscarriages at this point in a pregnancy are very very scary and painful and you generally end up in the hospital. Even now, Googling “what does a miscarriage feel like” gets you very vague results. Why does nobody talk about this? I hope that nobody was upset by the detail that I went into. I know it seems very personal — and it is. It’s extremely personal, but it’s not something I’m ashamed of. I really truly hope that if anyone reads my account […]

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Cat bath!

All three of our cats are normally very fastidious with their bathroom habits. Loki and Neko never ever go outside the litterbox. However, Martini is a little pickier and she does not like using a box that one of the other two cats has recently used… and if it’s not to her liking, she poops on the rug instead. This is a little irritating but totally manageable. Poop is easy to pick up and get rid of, and a spritz of Lysol and a light scrub brushing over the area takes care of the problem. Pee, however, is another story. Only once before has Martini ever peed outside the litterbox, and that was about eight years ago when we switched the cat litter to the crystal style granules — which we loved but the cats hated, and Martini let us know in no uncertain terms by squatting on the rug next to the box while I was scooping it out and peeing right in front of me. Yes ma’am, message received, we’re switching back to clay litter. A few nights ago she decided again that she didn’t want to use the litterbox that one of her siblings had recently used, but this time instead of just pooping on the rug, she peed on a piece of plastic sheeting that we had accidentally left lying on the rug. Cardinal rule #1 for cat owners: Don’t ever leave plastic sheeting lying around; it is an irrestistible cat pee magnet. Oopsie. Luckily for us, the pee was contained within a little pool on the plastic and did not make its way to the rug. We were actually downstairs watching television at the time this happened, and only discovered it when Martini waltzed by and we caught the distinct odor of cat pee. It […]

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