Chase and Madelyn: A love story

Chapter 76

TW: Mentions of miscarriage and overmedicating

Madelyn's POV:

After I collected myself, I joined Alex again in the living room. She gave me a sympathetic look.

"Are you ok to keep going?" She asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry about that. " I replied.

"Don't apologize, take all the time you need. I know it's difficult to unpack these things. We can talk about something else, anything you want. " Alex said.

"No, it's ok. I want to keep going." I said.

I knew I'd feel worse about myself if I gave up now. Not only would I let myself down, I felt I would also let everyone who was struggling with these things down.

"Can I give you a hug?" Alex asked.

I nodded and we both stood up as she embraced me. We sat back down and the camera person counted down from 5.

A: I wanted to talk a little bit about your miscarriage last year. Is that something you feel comfortable speaking about?

I relaxed my body. Even though I wasn't feeling totally confident about this situation, and was rarely confident in public speaking, I was going to fake it. Fake it 'til you feel it, I thought to myself.

I took a deep breath. I was ready to take control over my story.

M: Yeah, well it's never really something I've talked about. Obviously I've had Chase and really close family and friends help me process it and talk it through, but it's still such a hard thing to articulate and explain.

A: Do you feel like having twins was almost the universe's way of like giving back to you after your miscarriage? I know that sounds bad, but do you know what I mean?

M: No, I totally get what you're saying, but it's complicated. I'm really grateful for my twins, but nothing can replace or fix that loss.

A: Did you and Chase name the baby?

M: We didn't. We didn't even know the gender at that point. It all happened really fast, and the pregnancy was unplanned anyway, so I was dealing with all of the emotions that came with that but also dealing with the loss at the same time.

A: Do you feel like you had closure, or can move on from this loss?

M: Yes and no. The first couple of months after it happened, I couldn't even think about it let alone talk about it with Chase or in therapy. I was in a really dark place, not just because of the miscarriage, but it definitely fueled my insecurities and depression. But I think it'll always be something that I'll grieve. Loss is a really complex thing and I feel like people think that I'm lucky because we lost the baby so early on, so they thought I didn't form any sort of attachment or love for it. And even though I didn't have a physical baby in my arms that I lost, it was still apart of my body and still something that I felt really connected to.

Alex could tell that I was getting emotional again, my eyes were glossy.

A: You mentioned that you're in therapy. Have you learned anything about yourself that's changed the way you live or see yourself?

M: Yeah definitely. Therapy is amazing and I think everyone should have access to that resource. But it's also really hard, because a lot of times when something happens or if I'm not feeling great about myself, I just want to forget about it and move on, but therapy really forces you to uncover like oh why am I feeling this way and what triggered it, how can I prevent this next time, and things like that. I think I'm always learning about myself in therapy. I've been learning how to appreciate myself and realizing that it's ok to not have all the answers and that I can't control everything. I've had to accept that it is ok to ask for help, and I've had to realize that it's not weak to do that, it's actually very brave.