Life After Cricket

After Cricket was gone, Mrs. Unexpected spent a lot of time crying, a lot of time not sleeping, a lot of time not eating, and all of the rest of her time plodding through her life in a fog thinking, "How can all these people be going about their normal lives, making jokes and smiling and laughing, WHEN MY BABY IS DEAD?!?!?"

When Mrs. Unexpected made it to the point in her recovery where her friends and family (and even Mr. Unexpected!!!) had stopped asking how she was doing and no longer acknowledged that Cricket had existed (and how could that have happened after less than 1 month?!?!), her grief turned to rage.  

When her mother said unthinkingly, "It doesn't matter if you and Mr. Unexpected are here on Christmas morning this year because it's not like there are any babies involved," Mrs. Unexpected decided that the Unexpecteds would stay home for Thanksgiving and avoid their families.  

When Mr. Unexpected FORGOT about her post-D&C follow-up appointment and left her to sit alone in the exam room, listening through the wall to a baby's heart beating in another woman's pregnant belly, she didn't talk to him for days.  And when they finally started talking again and Mr. Unexpected said it was a WASTE OF MONEY to save gifts that had been meant for Cricket as keepsakes and that they should just give CRICKET'S things to their next baby, Mrs. Unexpected stormed out of the house and disappeared for hours.

But time kept passing, and when Mrs. Unexpected realized in November that she was finally ovulating, 9 weeks after her D&C, she and Mr. Unexpected decided to go ahead and TTC.  And with that small step forward, not away from Cricket, but toward her next baby and her future, Mrs. Unexpected started to feel like she was healing.  She would never be the same carefree person she had been before Cricket, but she felt like she could survive.