Well, strap in.
I am not, by nature, a patient woman.
I stand up on the train before the next stop is announced.
John William Godward,The Signal, 1899. Oil on canvas. 66 x 45.7 cm (26 x 18 in.). J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
Which has made waiting for my period to return after amiscarriage, well, hard.
Hard and slow and boring and scary and long.
On one hand, I have been nervous about bleeding again.
I was worried that this echo would trip me up, knock me down, pull me back under.
If I wanted to get pregnant again, I needed to have a period.
But did I want to get pregnant again?
Could we handle it?
My son is stillin his own complicated, six-year-old wayprocessing what Id told him about the miscarriage.
My partner had been unsettled and deeply unsure when Id got pregnant in the first place.
Our house is still small, Im still getting older, money is still a limited resource.
And then the email came: would I like to join a press trip to South America?
I would travel to the jungle.
I would see incredible things.
It might lead to a life-changing experience.
Images of parrots and bivouacs, acid-green leaves and misty forests filled my head.
Was this a sign?
Would this be how I filled these bleak weeks, waiting for the bleeding to come?
I could be bold.
I could be glamorous and impulsive and eager.
Sorry, what was that last one?
Sexual health, did she say?
Yes, she explained.
A hot, dry panic clutched at my throat.
And the trip was happening in almost a months time.
That meant losing, what, three months of potential fertility?
Id probably want to leave it longer.
Even just three more months of waiting would make me 40 when I delivered.
If I even managed to get pregnant.
Sitting in that small, glass-walled office, I felt tears start to gather in my eyes.
I have never known a worse pressure than that of time, on my body.
The finite nature of time is written through my DNA and across my skin in so many different ways.
I track the lines; on my face, on ovulation tests, pregnancy tests and charts.
I feel like I am always waiting but also always running out of time.
Since turning down the trip, and pitching this column, my period has come.
It was strong and inconvenient and welcome and upsetting.
It was scattered with dark red berries.
It spilled over in the night onto my pajamas.
It signaled the beginning of something.
I am back to square one.
