On the day I was discharged, I remember walking out past the maternity ward on our way out of the hospital. I didn’t realize our route would take us that way, and it caught me off guard.

The day of the miscarriage was exactly 2 weeks before my first antenatal appointment at that same maternity ward. I didn’t realize that until I was walking right past the ward.

There were 2 pregnant women in the waiting area. I didn’t know them. I paused mid-step, eyes wide. I did a quick check internally - was I okay?

I thought I should find that difficult. That I’d be angry or resentful, maybe. That I’d suddenly burst into tears on seeing them. It certainly made logical sense that I could.

No tears. No anger. I kept walking. I’m not sure Blake or my sister-in-law noticed that I’d paused at all. I didn’t feel anything other than exhaustion and some trepidation about going home. Maybe I was simply too tired to react.

In some ways I’m glad I could scratch that possible trigger off my list, at least for now. In others, it felt like maybe I *should* feel like crap when I saw them? Like, if I’m not triggered by them, how sad am I, really?

I do recognize that this is a fairly garbage way to treat myself, but I also make no apologies for how a grief-stricken, emotionally exhausted brain operates. Grief is a highly individual and personal journey, though, and worrying about what it “should” look like is kinda like hitting yourself when you’re already down. I don’t need more reasons to denigrate myself, after all.

I suspect it’s one of those things that changes day to day. Like, on a good day, I’ll probably be fine seeing multiple pregnant women. On a not-so-good day, maybe I can only handle 1 or 2 before reacting in some way. On a bad day, who knows?

We were given the option of going home on the same day that we had lost our baby. I didn’t feel pressured to leave and the doctors were very clear that they were happy to keep me in for a few more days, but medically I was already fine. I umm’d and ahh’d about this for a little while. On the one hand, staying at hospital meant any need that arose would be seen to, with no washing up required. On the other, being at home meant familiar surroundings and (of course) getting to see Bodhi, who was surely very confused at home about the sudden change in routine. But home also contained lots of memories of our excitement, which scared me.

We hadn’t bought many things for the baby yet, but we did have baby books and a few sets of baby clothes. Without my having to ask, Blake had already gone through the house that morning before coming in and stored most of the obvious things away in a back room. He assures me that he was fine doing this on his own, he just didn’t want me to see them. Even so, though, certain things still get missed or forgotten. We both knew that.

I got home and was prepared for a wave of tears that didn’t come. I went into our bedroom and quickly swept up my maternity clothes and other bits of random baby stuff (a tube of belly butter, a “Baby on Board” sign my mother-in-law got us for my birthday, brochures from the Breastfeeding Association) and put them into a box in the back room. I was okay throughout this process, I just wanted to make sure that I put things away when I could, so that future Viv doesn’t get caught off-guard on a bad day.

That done, I opened our fridge to get something to eat. It hit me then. Right there, front and center, were the leftovers from our dinner just before I went to hospital. It was our last meal with the baby.

Some shit, you just don’t see coming.

When the tears stopped, we debated about throwing the food away. I hated the idea of throwing it away but I didn’t want to eat it. Blake said he would throw it out if I wanted that done, but also said he had no problem eating it if that solved the problem. It did. It was also a good reminder that we will find different things confronting as the days go by, and we can help each other through them.

Funny, the things you can learn from day-old Indian food.