It's Ok.

I'm a little rusty in writing. it's really hard to sit down and write. There's always something popping up. But because I want to remember this day, I will write. Just like my daughter said, before 'the memories escape my mind like sand running through my fingers'. I would want to save it, and come back to it, on good days and on bad days.. 

Every picture tells a story. There is always a reason why you take a picture. Maybe it's beautiful, maybe you'd want to share it, maybe you'd want to look at it one day and remember that moment when you took the picture. 

I have always loved taking pictures. Even before the smartphone era. I have boxes of pictures at my parents' place and I would try to recall the memories in those picture. My biggest fear is losing my memory.. so I write and document things..  

This picture tells an unforgettable memory. I still remember the moment I took this photo three years ago. We were waiting for LL to finish her ballet class. I had just had a nasty arguement with Aq. He was at a difficult age. It was hard to wean him off from breastfeeding and we were all just adjusting with the new routine. LL in first grade, him going full time kindy. 

It was a Monday, the weather was beautiful for October.. a t-shirt kind of weather and the sun was shining gloriously. The leaves looked golden, and I thought, this is nice. After that argument with my son, I decided to not stress myself about it. Nothing good would come out of it.

After her ballet class, we went to the doctor, had myself checked and I bought Chinese food for dinner. The doctor said everything was okay, of course it is. The weather is perfect. InshaAllah Allah knows best. Whatever it is, we will deal with it.

We got home and I served dinner for everyone but then the bleeding got worse. There was something wrong and I just knew it. I decided have a shower. Maybe I would feel better. I stood in the shower and felt the water run through my body as I was bleeding everywhere... This can't be good.. I cried the whole time, hoping it would stop..  This isn't right, I kept saying to myself.. the doctor said everything is fine.. 

I had my dinner alone and my husband came to me while I was eating.. he assured me that everything will be fine. But everything wasn't. I just knew it. I said to him, 'dia dah takde.. I just know it' .. it was painful to listen as much as it was saying it. he hugged me and asked me to rest after.. 

I laid in bed with the kids and waited for them to sleep till it was 8:30 while bleeding got heavier. I couldn't walk but I needed to go to the toilet.. my husband fell asleep in the room so I walked as fast as I could to the toilet.. I remember feeling a weird uncomfortable feeling. And that was when I felt it... the contraction was heavy and then it just happened.. my natural miscarriage.. 

I couldn't believe it.. I was holding her in my palms.. so tiny.. i looked at her tiny formed eyes, those eyes I would never see again.. the pain was unbearable, not just my body but everything.. I was numb and dazed and there were so much blood..I froze trying to fathom what had happened.. I tried to remember those internet pictures of a 9 week old fetus. There I was holding mine in my bare hands.. I put her in a white cloth and cleaned myself up.. still shocked I walked to my husband who was still asleep on the bed.. I looked at him trying to formulate the words before waking him up slowly.. he saw that I was crying. I knew that he knew.. so I told him.. 

'I gugur.. dia dah takde.. ' 

He cried and said what a believer would say, 'Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi rojiun..'

I followed, still shocked with what had just happened.. 

We walked to the toilet and he looked at her.. we both cried..  

What happened after was something I would like to keep for myself. Something that I hope I would never forget.. that night I cried till I fell asleep. And so I went through the stages of grief..

I didn't believe what had happened. I was a healthy woman, was not in my 40s yet, and I have had two successful pregnancies. This was all just a nightmare (Denial) 

I asked the doctor before leaving, what was the cause of my miscarriage? She said, no cause. Sometimes it just happens. It’s not your fault. She said it so casually as though reading a meal on a menu. I held my tears before leaving the consultation room. I could give her a handful of reasons. The unpasteurized milk I accidentally drank, the bottles of coke I chugged while trying to manage my morning sickness, the cutting board that I probably should have scrubbed thoroughly. The old lady I helped pushed in the rain because I thought if I helped someone , one day someone will help me, even though I was bleeding heavily and thought everything would be okay. I blamed myself for everything that had happened. (anger) 

maybe if I wasn't so stressed about everything, I would still have her. Maybe if I hadn't carried those heavy stuff, I would still be pregnant.. (bargaining) 

When I told the kids, 'baby dah takde..'. They cried and couldn't believe it and just couldn't understand how it happened. Neither did I. I told them that she is in a better place. and that place is called heaven. They think its the sky. 

When I I went to the doctor, she scanned everything . The routine was the same, the jelly on my tummy and the scanner thing and we looked into the screen. The last time I went there, when the baby was still there, I knew there was something not right because I couldn't see a heart beat. This time, she confirmed that my sac was empty. There was no little figure wiggling on the screen. She said my miscarriage was natural and that I didn't need to go for DNC. But I needed to keep on seeing her till all of my pregnancy hormones are gone.. 

I went by my day like normal, sent the kids to school. I remember feeling weird and empty. As empty as the empty sac I saw in the scan. It's like it was there and suddenly it wasn't anymore. I told my parents, they consoled me. But I was still not okay. I laid on the bed not wanting to do anything. I was still bleeding. I wasn't sure if I could pray. I mean, what blood is this? This is not period. Turns out that if you had a miscarriage within 90 days, you could still pray because there was no ruh yet.. so I prayed. But I was filled with a whirlpool of angry, sad, confused. This went on for a while. I would look okay, I would seem like normal but at times I would suddenly cry. whenever I listen to that song that was on replay during my miscarriage.. that song that would always remind me of this experience. At times I would just not want to do anything. that’s when I realized I went into the fourth stage of grief. (depression) 

Over time, I decided to start finding myself again. I couldn't really talk about it with anyone, because I feel like everybody else has their own problem. And mine would not matter. How could they help? The baby was gone and it’s not like they can do anything about I was wrong. Talking helps because There are people who care. There are people who were there. But I knew I needed to do something for myself to feel whole again. To fill that emptiness. The thing that helped me go through it all was writing. I wrote ferociously till I finished my crappy first draft. A whole damn book. 

God knows how many tears I cried while writing it. How that book was supposed to accompany my pregnancy, how I imagined the pages grew with my growing belly. Instead, I wrote it while bleeding through my miscarriage. Nobody knew. Nobody knew how I felt. Yes, people go through miscarriages all the time, it is normal. But I have the right to feel what I felt. I kept things to myself, going through the motion, trying to pretend that everything is okay. It wasn’t. But I knew it will someday. I just needed to go through the grieving process. 

And then, there was this. I found a video of Imam Omar Suleiman saying that Allah promised the parents of a miscarried baby Jannah, that the fetus would wait at the doors of heavens for its parents and it would pull the parents to Jannah like an umbilical cord... and then, there was the final stage. At one point, I finally made peace with myself. Acceptance. 

I believe that everything happened for a reason. In 2019, nobody knew that there would be a pandemic in 2020.. but Allah knew. Allah knew we couldn't handle it. or for whatever reason that Allah had gifted us with this temporary gift, it was only for our own good. that we would eventually accept it wholeheartedly. And I did. 

There are days that I would remember her, and tears would form at the corner of my eyes, days that I wondered, if she was still with us, would she have the color of her daddy’s eyes? Would she be playful like her brother ? And protective like her sister? 

There are also days that I would be happy and suddenly I feel her presence, as though smiling at me from heaven and saying, “you got this mama”

It’s okay. I am okay.