Thank you so much everyone for your love and support in the last few weeks since my miscarriage. I cannot adequately express what it means to me. Strangers have reached out and contacted me through this blog and through social media, shared their stories with me and kept my family in their thoughts and prayers. I know that there is a vulnerability in sharing our stories, often prefaced by “I hope you don’t find this creepy” or “feel free to delete this…” so I would like to speak to that before I dig into what we ate last week. The experience of a miscarriage, I am realizing, is a very unique one. I’m sure that every experience of trauma and loss has the same ring: we are suddenly very alone. Not alone as in lonely, but alone in that the circumstances surrounding a loss are as different as we are. Not two experiences are alike. Not only are circumstances different but our personalities and how we process these circumstances are also unique. We often feel either like no one understands or we feel like impostors. Many of us feel like we have no right to play the grief card. Maybe because we didn’t lose our baby as late as another. Maybe because we didn’t need surgery. Maybe because we were never in danger of death. Maybe because we didn’t even need medical attention. Whichever our circumstances were, we tend to look at someone who had it worst and trash talk our grief into a corner. The sharing of your stories has been immensely helpful to me because it has shown me that whatever your circumstances, you all experienced a similar trajectory of sadness and loss. You have helped me see what is coming next and helped me be better prepared to face it. I haven’t been as blindsided as I would have been without your stories. This is huge for me. As the mother of many, I need to maintain a certain level of functioning. Your stories and testimonies have helped me tremendously in managing my emotions by welcoming them, letting them wash over me and knowing that it is normal. Knowing that I have to get through a difficult passage to get to the other side has made me better able to take the passages instead of trying to get around them. Bridges can be scary, especially rope bridges way up high. But trying to walk down the valley, across the river and back up the other side might prove to be harder, longer and more treacherous. That’s why a bridge was built in the first place. You are the bridge builders. You are the people who have done the crossing before me and are encouraging me to go-ahead, don’t look down, we’ll see you on the other side. Thank you for being there, thank you for your willingness to share your stories and please don’t ever feel like this is creepy or useless. It is not. I’m an optimist and I may look like I am all better but to those who ask me how I am, all I can answer is : “I’m ok. But I’m not ok. And it’s ok.” 

We had a whirlwind week that ended-in two round trips to Kingston, ON where my son is studying. After the first day my father-in-law asked us why we were going home that evening only to come back the next morning (it’s a 130km trip each way.) A little bit of sleep in my bed is better than no sleep in a hotel room with twins and a toddler. Not only that but it’s a pretty drive through the Rideau Lakes area. Stop at the Vanilla Bean’s Cafe and Creamery on your way through Westport: between Kawartha Dairy ice cream and Equator coffee (both local-ish treats) you can’t go wrong. A few steps down toward the water will take you to a gazebo with picnic tables to enjoy your treats. My phone was dead as a doorknob so you’ll have to take my word for it. 

We were in Kingston for the traditional obstacle course that marks the official entry of the first year class into the Cadet Wing at the Royal Military College of Canada. You can see some pictures on my Flikr photostream on the right hand side of my blog. Maybe someday I’ll get around to posting a description of each obstacle. It was very impressive. My phone was still dead as a doorknob so you are spared pictures of the Boston Pizza/Dairy Queen feast that followed. Only one of us had run the obstacle course but we got hungry just watching them. 

Last week we continued to feast on the generosity of others but as can be expected of the second week of recovery, there is a sense of having been there, done that (the first week) and can we please get on with our lives already? Of course the reality is that I’m still running on hemoglobin light and need to sit my butt down every hour or so. We ate a lot of leftovers, had more than our share of “breakfast for supper” — by which we mean bagels and cream cheese, not crêpes Suzette flambé with maple buttercream — and was too run down to even grab my camera. On Sunday I decided to go whole hog and made pancakes…. Then I had to nap for 3 hours. 

What? Everyone doesn’t use two pans to make pancakes? These are the delicious apple oatmeal pancakes from Canadian Living. You can find the recipe here: http://m.canadianliving.com/#!/blog-food/apple-oatmeal-pancakes/5f7f8a1569c68f7aa516462f8d4e8dec We eat them topped with plain yogurt and maple syrup. This my friends, is the epitomy of comfort food in my books. 

In the absence of photo evidence, I thought I would share with you some of the meals and treats that friends have brought to us in the last two weeks. 

My friend Sue sent us this chorizo and sweet potatoes skillet and it was delicious. We had leftovers and it’s the kind of recipe that improves with age (until a certain point, don’t go and poison yourself on my account). I’m sure it would work with any kind of sausage meat that tickles your fancy. Or that happens to be on sale. 

My friend Sam brought us a whole bunch of things that are still in my freezer but one thing that didn’t bear to wait were those apple cinnamon muffins. Big hit. Big big hit. I may have eaten 3 in a row warmed-up and slathered with butter. 

(As an aside, if you decide to click on the apple muffins link, am I the only person who can’t stand recipe blog posts that have to post an ode to each ingredient before showing the recipe already? I promise that if I ever post my own recipes — which would involve writing them down and could actually be beneficial — it will only be with a short preamble. Like “this is what I make. My kids don’t hate it.” Bam!)

Sam also brought us some banana bread and we managed to improve on perfection by smothering it in Martha Stewart’s cream cheese frosting. I don’t have Sam’s banana bread recipe but here’s my personal favorite (in the non-chocolate-chipped category): Serious Eats Banana Oatmeal Bread. This one pairs exceptionally well with cream cheese frosting. When you find something that doesn’t, I’d like to hear about it. 

We buy cream cheese by the pallet at Costco, being bagel eaters of the first order. Sadly it means that I always have cream cheese on hand to make frosting. One thing that I never have on hand is confectioners sugar. Sadly, I discovered that sugar is sugar is sugar: put regular white sugar in the Nutribullet and in a whirl you have super fine sugar. Dang. 

Et voilà everyone, what we sort of ate last week.  Say cheese!