Necklace.
Memory.
Child.
Do you know about IVF shoes? They're not the shoes that you wear into the retrieval room, but the shoes you buy yourself as a prize for bearing all those damned needles. I'm not even a shoe whore, and I had IVF shoes.
The first clinic I went to was right around the corner from a Taryn Rose shoe store. Daily trips past the window, and one day I just had to go in and buy an expensive pair of sweet black heels with a teensy strap across the instep. In point of fact, they weren't even IVF shoes, they were IUI shoes - that was the sticking-the-toes-in-the-water cycle. No baby. Just shoes.
The next cycle, the first IVF cycle, resulted in a necklace. It was something I'd been eyeballing, coveting even, for quite a while. I can't now remember when we bought the necklace - whether it was during the cycle, or the wait, or after we found out that I was pregnant. It seemed to me a perfect necklace for a mother-to-be, two similar stones, one a little bigger than the other.And then we lost the baby.
Probably out of some vague superstition - another necklace, another miscarriage? - we told almost no one about the second IVF cycle, and it garnered no trinkets. It lives on, but just in memory, mine mostly, and on some scraps of paper with cryptic notes as to E2 and lining and units.
The third IVF has a very tangible aide memoire in that raucous, tiger-loving, clothes-horse who climbs into my bed for a snuggle every morning.
Back to the necklace. After the miscarriage, the necklace became my memory. It's all that remains of that pregnancy and the two rocks now represent my two children, the big one getting bigger, the small one never to be.
I was thinking about this the other day - Niobe is doing a babylost memorial walk this weekend and offered to remember the "baby or babies that you hold only in your heart" if you send her the names and dates. There is no name, there is no date, there's only what's in my heart - and the necklace.
(PS - That's not my necklace, but mine's the same style. It's made by one Terri Logan, who makes sterling settings for found river stones.)
I'm touched by this post beyond words, with tears in my eyes.
ReplyDeleteThis post and that necklace are beautiful.
ReplyDeleteAfter my 1st miscarriage last year, I bought an elephant for M. It is my reminder. After the second miscarriage, I had planned to buy a bracelet for myself but I never managed to do so. I often think about how there is that absence of a physical object to commemorate.
What I will say is: in a drawer in the upstairs bathroom there is still a stick that has 2 pink lines. I simply cannot bring myself to throw it out.
Maybe it's high time I exchanged it for a bracelet.
Oh the memories this brings back to me. The coping skills and talismans make us stronger. I'm sure of it. Happy Mother's Day week to you, with much warmth and light.
ReplyDeleteNice. For many of us, there are no names and no dates.
ReplyDeleteThat is a beautiful necklace.
I've been bad about getting around the blogosphere, but something drew me here, to you, today. I have been thinking about getting a tatoo for my children, and I want to find a way to do something for the three I lost to miscarriage. This post made me sad and happy at the same time. Sweetie, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. What a beautiful necklace. What a beautiful woman you are.
ReplyDeleteI bought myself all sorts of superstitious trinkets when we were going through IUI. I carried around pink quartz and bought an African Fertility Goddess necklace. I also took up knitting to relieve stress.
ReplyDeleteNo one understands how demeaning and soul crushing and nerve racking the whole experience is until they've lived it. I still have a hard time finding words to describe it.
Thanks for writing this.
What a beautiful thing she is doing and what a moving post.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I read posts like this I think of my two easily achieved relatively easy (aside from the bedrest thing late in the second) pregnancies and my two beautiful healthy daughters and know how lucky I am.
ReplyDeleteAnd how I cheer on all the mom want to bes and admire what they have to go through to get there too!
I completely relate - I have a "I am not pregnant" necklace from pre-intervention days, and one failed cycle led me to buy a spendy anthropologie sweater I'd been coveting.
ReplyDeleteI am a collector anyway, so even when I didn't buy gifts I picked up little items - three acorns for the three frozen embryos that thawed well but didn't survive implantation. They sit on my family shrine, along with the beads from friends in celebration of the babies that are coming soon.
I appreciate that the meaning of your necklace has changed over time, to include the happiness of your daughter as well as the loss. We are shaped by the good and bad, right?
Such a simplistically written, yet touching post, and a meaningful necklace. I'm glad you have the necklace and I'm really glad you have your clothes horse : )
ReplyDeletep.s. I love the necklace. I'm going to check out the link. I just love natural stones like that.
ReplyDeletethat's a cool necklace, going to check out her site.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I only have the memories.
Really beautiful post.
ReplyDeleteYour mind works in wonderful ways.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember if I had any post-IUI sprees, but I had lots of post-BFN debauchery. Because, like, what the hell?
Thank you for this beautiful post.
I bought a necklace after our loss in January. I love that I know what it means, but no one else has to unless I feel up for talking about it.
ReplyDeletePS the one you have is just beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThis brought me to tears.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful post, beautiful necklace.
what a stunningly beautiful post, magpie.
ReplyDeleteand a gorgeous necklace too. i like how you look at it today..."the big one getting bigger, the smaller one never to be..." wow.
the perspective is just....wow.
I'm glad you have something real, smooth and substantial to hold onto. I would want something to touch, to know, to remember. Thinking good thoughts for you~
ReplyDeleteSuch a beautifully written post.
ReplyDeleteI have a remembering angel, perched on the shelf in my family room.
What a really lovely post.
ReplyDelete(o)
ReplyDeleteYou seem to have really touched a common nerve among many of your readers. Well done, and that necklace is exquisite.
ReplyDeleteOh, Magpie. This was so poignant.
ReplyDeleteThe necklace is such a beautiful memento.
oh.
ReplyDeletei feel like i have so many friends going through this right now, and this post just really spoke to me about what they're gong through. thank you.
That's so strange. I just posted about my miscarriages.
ReplyDeleteThis made me cry.
ReplyDeleteThis was very beautiful, Magpie.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, I never knew you lost a baby. The necklace you own sounds like a really beautiful remembrance.
ReplyDeleteand my love for you grows...
ReplyDeletesweet post M-pie.
ReplyDeleteI have "follicle stimulating" earrings that I've since passed on to those who needed them. xoh
That's something to hold . . . to see . . . something that represents the tangible that you will always hold deep within.
ReplyDeleteI have no poetry. Only a simple "so sorry" because loss just . . . hurts.
You've got all of our hearts welling up for you. Absolutely touching, to the core.
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing this.
ReplyDeleteDuring my first pregnancy, someone gave me a figure from the Willow Tree collection - one with a beautiful baby belly. I lost that baby, but kept the figure.
Then, during my second pregnancy, a very good friend gave me another figure. A child holding a star. She included a note letting me know that she remembered that first baby too.
Finally, after Bird was born, I received a mother and child figure. They all three sit together in my bedroom.
There is nothing for the pregnancies I've lost since then, and I'm thinking now, that there should be. Two more star babies should join them.
Sigh. What a lovely, heartbreaking image.
ReplyDeleteI love how the meaning of the necklace has evolved for you. Beautiful post.
ReplyDeleteWhat an amazing post. I went through IVF too and have memories that are only mine to hold. I am a puddle and am so moved by your words. Thank you.
ReplyDelete(I'm commenting a second time because my first didn't seem to take. Hoping I'm not messing up!)