Very Cliche'd Post about Beaten Paths, Etc.

Friday evening, Don and I had the same idea; it happens sometimes. Idea = get out and do something/ go somewhere instead of sitting quietly at home contemplating things. I wanted to do something extravagant, useless, girly. Something nice for myself that didn't involve calories. I felt icky, heavy and unfeminine... I think any woman that's been pregnant knows that womanly feeling that comes with it; the new-found joy in curves, the rediscovery of their purpose, the slight innocent smugness of easy fertility. Losing a pregnancy reverses that feeling with crashing gears. For me at least, it makes me feel un-womanly, incapable and defunct...as in, what kind of woman can't hold on to a pregnancy? OK, from what I've learned recently, a great big percentage of us. Apparently everyone I know and their mothers too have miscarried. But that doesn't help a lot psychologically, I still feel kind of broken and useless.

So I asked my girly-girl coworker friend (who is always made up, manicured, and dressed) about a manicure and was directed to one of these all-purpose waxing/mani-pedi places. I had my nails done, my first manicure in almost two years. I wanted a bright, cheerful, defiantly happy color, something that declared, "Maybe I lost my baby but I am still a woman, and I will have another. And I can be girly if I want to, so THERE. If I want to act like the girl from Legally Blond, that's my business." Obviously the declaration is just from myself to myself but it is a statement nonetheless. Unfortunately, the color is now driving me crazy because I accidentally picked out Barbie pink, almost fluorescent. Not exactly 'me', even a me that's trying not to be me for a bit. I guess they're cute, and the paint is keeping me from biting my nails, but eesh... Barbie.

I also had my eyebrows waxed. Is it stating the obvious to point out that I've never done that before? I didn't know that they go back over with tweezers and clean up the results, so after the waxing bit was done I thought, "well that wasn't too bad!" and then almost cried during the constant pluck-pluck-pluck of the tweezers. They look good though. I felt refreshed and renewed upon leaving the shop. The nurse called with the blood-test results right afterwards; they exactly confirm what the ultrasound showed, so that's all tied up together. Nothing to do but wait for the inevitable.

Don's idea was to treat ourselves to a nice night out, something better than Chili's or Friday's or pizza, so we went downtown. I'm sure I've described the downtown area before, but it's basically just one street about 8 blocks long, blocked off from car traffic and lined with restaurants, bars, art galleries, and etc. Very expensive, for the most part. We've thoroughly explored the street and have either tried, wait-listed or eliminated every restaurant there. So when the place where we were going to eat was closed, we ended up turning down a side-street that was rather dark and unpromising... and yet has a wonderful restaurant that we had never seen before. A nicely crowded bar with a jazz pianist, warm atmosphere, and fantastic steaming bowls of pasta that were as good as the Italian place that we originally had in mind.

It is an interesting alchemy that sometimes it is easier to be alone together in a crowded place than in an otherwise empty apartment. Sitting on bar chairs on either side of a tiny tall table, leaning forward to hear each other over the ambient conversation and live music, drinking wine instead of just water, I felt warm and happy and relaxed for the first time since Tuesday. We didn't avoid the subjects at hand-- actually we got into a rather heated discussion about placentas, of all things. Don's confidence that this will all work out, that we'll be pregnant again in no time, that the next one will stick, is comforting. Part of me is screaming, "but that's what you thought this time and look what happened!" and yet his attitude is contagious nonetheless. The happy feeling isn't permanent, of course. It only lasted for the evening and was much assisted by the Chardonnay. But for right now, it's enough to know that it's possible.