It’s okay to feel numb.

I felt this first, if you call numbness a feeling. I cried in the doctor’s office, but after we left I just felt numb. Maybe it’s a self-preservation technique. My brain and body couldn’t process emotions when they were processing so much else. But the numbness lasted a few days (which is where the onset of dark humor began). For a while, it felt like I was handling things like a boss. I understood what was happening. I had made the choice about which treatment option we’d pursue. I wrote a journal page where I made a list of things to be grateful about, what we learned from our pregnancy and pregnancy loss. It’s strange to look back on my journals now and realize my brain was trying to process logic without emotion, it doesn’t read like me at all.

Later on, I tried to return to numbness. Once I started processing emotions, it felt overwhelming. But feeling numb wouldn’t erase my other feelings jockeying for attention, it just made them knock on the door more loudly. My advice is this, numbness helped me to get through the first few days, but trying to feel nothing after feeling everything did me no good. Acknowledge your feelings. (I did not expect to paraphrase Yoda for this, but here we are).