I serve as Secretary for the Teacher Council and the Faculty Circle at my school. Even though school is out for K-8th grades, the Council is meeting a few times throughout the summer to make some important decisions for next school year and to provide the Director with some support. Our first summer meeting was this past Wednesday.
I am usually a fairly private person when it comes to mixing my work and home life. I share to a certain degree, probably more than the typical person does in a conventional organization, but in our very close-knit community, I might be considered a little on the anti-social side. For many of the other teachers and parents, their closest friends are from our school community. My closest friends are outside of it. Many of the other teachers regularly socialize with one another outside of school. I only do so occasionally. I just really need to keep my work and play a little more separate. I have a hard enough time leaving work at work as it is.
The whole point of me bringing all of this up, is that very few people on staff knew about my first miscarriage. I only told the preschool and kindergarten staff about it... and one other teacher who happened to be the first person I saw that morning (I lost that baby just a few minutes before leaving for work and hadn't pulled myself together). More people know that we are trying for a family, but that is recent knowledge to them and I'm not sure if everyone is aware of it.
Anyway, at the beginning of each meeting, we go around the circle and do a quick check-in to see how everyone is doing. I had considered saying something inconsequential about how exciting it was to watch the children get excited about the caterpillars we are raising in my classroom, but decided against it. I'm just feeling too hurt and drained to keep this miscarriage to myself. I have discovered, in the times I've found myself unexpectedly sharing, that it feels better to just get it out. Besides, with four other pregnancies on staff that I am looking forward to celebrating, I am also feeling sadness that my babies aren't going to be part of that peer group.
So, when it was my turn, I tearfully told them about my losses and that I am having a hard time dealing with this second one especially. I received so much support and love from them right in that moment and afterward. Every one of them offered a hug and some words of comfort. One left a note on my car. Two immediately sent me emails. One, who went through her own difficult journey into motherhood, shed tears with me and offered to come to appointments with me, if I needed extra support (I told her about the bitch-wife).
In my car, on my way home that afternoon, I reflected on the amount of love and support that I felt from my work community. And I recognized that I had been harboring a deep hurt against that same community for a few years because I needed that same love and support when I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia three years ago. I thought about this and examined the reasons why I have support now and didn't then... and I realized that very few people knew what I was going through back then. The only people privy to my situation were my immediate co-workers and the director. I was too scared about my health, and too hurt and embarrassed over my involuntary leave of absence that was imposed by my director, to reach out to the rest of the community and share with them about what I was going through. And for some reason, the people in the know, elected not to share their knowledge with the rest of the community.
So I spent three months at home, healing my body and feeling very lonely and neglected by a community that typically reached out to anyone who was having health and resulting financial issues. It hurt a lot to not see the community reach out to me in my time of need and I've been carrying that hurt with me ever since. I realized this past week, that they would have reached out to me, had they known. But they were unaware. In my realization, I felt that old wound begin to heal a little. There is still some hurt that those in the know, didn't initiate a community effort on my behalf... but the bulk of my hurt that was directed at the community in general is healed. My work community is there for me... I just need to let them know when I need them.
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