Miscarriage Tattoo

I was confident the whole way there, even texting with a friend that this was the absolute best decision. I got out of the car and went in to sit on a stool to wait for my appointment.  Then I started to look around.  Thoughts filled my head.  "Look at all these people with tons of tattoos going down their arms.  My arms, legs, back, wherever, were still white and untouched.  I'm not a biker."  This is permanent.  The thought crossed my mind that I could stand up right then and walk out, I don't have to do this.  No one was forcing me to be there.

The guy doing my tattoo came over and showed me the drawing he did from the photos I brought in last week.  Prefect!  I did have it sized a little smaller.

We put the sketch on the stomach but it wasn't in the correct place so I had it moved over a bit.  I then climbed up on the bed.

When I think of getting a tattoo I didn't think of the pain that accompanies.  Look at all the medical things I've had done, pain doesn't seem to phase me.  But I feared the fact it's irreversible.  I reminded myself I just didn't decide today to be spontaneous and get a tattoo.  Or just walk in and look through the binder of ideas like I saw others do.  I've had this idea for over six months now.  It's not a silly tattoo you regret later in life when you grow up.  It's not in a location where I need to cover it up on a daily basis to work.  And if all else fails it is pretty small so for whatever reason it need to be removed someday it will not take much.

The tattoo needle was more painful than I expected.  But not enough to make him stop.  Some areas of my skin (lower part of the tattoo) were more sensitive than others.  After laying there for awhile the pain became less, or I just got used to it.  The tattoo took much less time than I thought to complete, only 30 minutes.

I was done and then told to hop up and check it out in the mirror.  This was it.  What had I done?  What if it looks horrible?

I love it!

I was told how to take care of it.  Clean it, don't wrap it, put A&D on it, etc.  So far it has been fine.  The area still hurts from the needles but not too bad.

This needed to be everlasting.  I did the balloon release.  I thought of planting a tree or garden but that's not for me.  I looked at miscarriage jewelry on Etsy, although very nice it still didn't seem like enough.

A few people in the past have asked me why my miscarriage or miscarriages in general happen.  Some people have alluded it to something the mother might have done to cause such a thing.  Though true some of the time, but not always.  One person mentioned a month or so ago that they knew someone who miscarried because they ate a lot of junk food.  Well I don't know if anyone realized this for not but most pregnancy craving are not for salads.  I used to eat the pretzels and cheese at the Target Cafe several times a week.  They were amazing, even though I completely ignored them the first six months working near there, and never ate another one after my D&E.  I know many women who eat tons of junk food and fast food and still have healthy babies.  And then there is the all organic, anti-feta cheese, anti-deli meat, anti-a bunch of other BS, group that loses their baby.

I like to think of it as the lottery system.  I'm not sure the percentage of pregnancies that end is miscarriage.  It kind of depends of several factors.  But I've seen 15-40%.  Let's use 25% today.  So God (or the Narwals, or whatever you believe in) takes 100 women.  He doesn't give a fuck if they got pregnant from a one-night stand at a bar with no idea the father's name, or have been doing fertility treatment for years.  He doesn't care if this is your miracle baby or if you have an appointment at Planned Parenthood next week for an abortion.  Out of these 100 embryos he needs to kill 25 of them.  Unfortunately your number comes up and your miracle baby is no longer a miracle.   Better luck next time.  There are problems that do cause repeat miscarriages and need to be addressed, but for the most part it is just bad luck.

I wish I could blame my baby's death on something.  But I know it's not all the pretzels I ate to work.  I could go into great detail about chromosomal abnormalities but that will put some to sleep.  But the simple explanation:  I had a miscarriage due to bad luck.

-Selbe