that female thing we go through

I'm currently on my period.

And before you all run screaming to the hills - "oh my gawd, Alicia, TMI!" - let me say that I'm currently on that period. Oh yes, the first aunt flo after my miscarriage.

I feel kinda betrayed by my body. I'm still grieving, but my body decided almost two weeks ago to ovulate as though the past five weeks were the same as any normal month. It's like my D&C was the first day of my last period, and I ovulated right on time, and here I sit, having my period like it was any normal month.

I know I should be oh-so thankful - and I am! that my body didn't take forever to get back on track. Some women take months to get their first post-miscarriage and some need help from hormones to jump start their system. Some were never regular in their cycles to begin with, and I have never skipped a cycle, never been late. Got pregnant with G in one month and second-baby in two. I certainly know all of this.

And yet. And yet.

I was so happy when Fertility Friend, an awesome site for women who want to know more about their cycles, put up my crosshairs showing that I'd ovulated. Even more thrilled when I felt those tell-tale signs of a period approaching and then it started right on time. We want to start trying for baby #3 soon, and the sooner I started my period, the sooner we could start trying again.

And yet, there's a huge amount of bitterness that hangs in my mouth during all of this, a clench in my heart, a melancholy blanket that settles over me now and then. It's the period that never-should-have-been, another reminder that I'm not pregnant anymore.

I guess that feeling never goes away, does it? Everything will remind me of that, every period I have between now and when I (hopefully) get pregnant again. Every child I have after. Every time February 15th, the day we discovered the miscarriage, and August 15th, second-baby's due date, rolls around. Every time people ask me how many kids I have, and I struggle between saying one or two because that'll open a whole can of soap opera.

I was lucky that I never saw the blood of my actual miscarriage. The bleeding I had after my D&C was just leftovers, like what you have after giving birth. So my period is just that - a period. The bleeding all of us women go through in our lives, the bright red that's so normal for us.

At least for my body, it's just a period. My body has decided it's back to the usual business of being a woman, no matter what my heart says in protest.