New Art Studio In Progress

There were a lot of things we immediately loved about our new house (which led to us placing an offer on it in the first place). The layout was just wonderful, with a small office (big enough for my husband, still currently working-from-home during the COVID-19 pandemic) on the main floor, a roomier kitchen than our old house, and a carpeted family room just off the kitchen, so I could easily see our daughter playing in the playroom from the kitchen. Then there were things we loved the potential of, but which just weren't quite right... yet. And the basement was one of those things.

The basement was already finished (which other houses we were considering did not have), and it had a walk-out to the nice, large, fenced-in backyard. But it was a completely open floor plan, and we wanted to divide the space into an art studio/office for me, a guest room, an additional playroom for our 1-year-old, and a "pantry"/storage space with room for the extra fridge/freezer the previous owners left behind. It took some doing to figure out how best to orient those rooms in the space, but we settled on a layout that worked well for us, and over the course of several weeks, we were able to see our vision realized with the help of a local contractor.

Here are some pictures of what the basement looked like before we had it sectioned off with more walls:

The previous owners had a couch in the space where my new studio would go (which we paid for them to leave behind for us, and which we moved upstairs into the family room). There is also an electric fireplace built into the wall, and two windows looking out on the backyard, in my new studio. I love the natural light! (Though I admit, so far I've only had a chance to come down here to work after our daughter goes to bed, which is after it's already dark out. Thanks winter!)

And here's the room after the contractor was done building us new walls (but before we moved in all our furniture/stuff):

I was really excited to have a single room that could fit all of my "projects" - both studio art and graphic design. In our old house, I originally had my computer all the way up on the top floor, and my studio in the basement, and packing materials scattered in both places. When an Etsy order came in and I had to print notecards, package them for shipping, and ship them out, I had to walk up and down two flights of stairs to gather everything I needed. I created my art in one space, and scanned the artwork on an entirely different floor of the house; I then stored finished artwork in yet another room/closet. (I wrote a bit about trying to figure out how to organize my artwork/art supplies in this blog post.) Then, once our daughter was born and the COVID-19 pandemic shifted my husband to all-online school and then work, we rearranged the house a bit, moving both his desk and my desk down to the basement. I liked having my computer on the same floor as my studio... so when we decided to move, that was one of the first things I tried to figure out - how to make it work so that I could have a COMBO studio/office, instead of housing my artwork and my computer/desk in two different spaces. My BFA was a double concentration in graphic design and watercolor, and a decade later I continue to do both. I combine "fine art" techniques and digital techniques when I design patterns on my computer, print them out, trace them onto watercolor paper, paint them with traditional methods, scan them back to the computer, and resize them for printable notecards. Or when I draw colored pencil artwork using the computer to help find source material of different types of flowers. Even just creating art and then writing about the art on this blog, or uploading designs to Etsy to sell, requires the use of a "studio" and an "office". The more I thought about it, the less sense it made to physically separate these two sides of my work. I wanted a room that would be both (which I've started to call my "studio" IRL just so it's easier to differentiate in conversation from my husband's "office"). 

I measured all the furniture I wanted to fit into "my studio" and made sure that it would all fit in a to-scale floorplan I made in Adobe Illustrator, before we had the contractor start work on the basement. Once I was sure the room would be big enough and everything would fit (and that it wouldn't detract from other things we wanted to also have in the basement to have my studio so big), we went for it. (Side note: I'm so lucky to have a partner who supports my artwork and my desire to have this big space all just for "my" projects. I felt a little guilty taking up so much of the basement for my studio (especially since, as a new mom, I'm not using it very much these days), but he was always all for it, even when it meant taking the cool electric fireplace/space heater the previous owners had installed in one of the basement walls.)

The room is 21' x 14', and fits 1) my L-shaped computer desk with iMac, HP Officejet printer, and three storage towers of printer paper, photo paper, notecard paper, and envelopes, 2) my easel (which never even fit in the basement of our last house, because it was too tall for the short basement ceiling height), 3) a small desk perfect for colored pencil drawings, 4) five bookcases to organize art supplies and office supplies, as well as extra wall space for organizing gift wrap supplies and other craft supplies, 5) a sewing cabinet (which I don't even use and is so far purely aspirational), and 6) my large folding table in the center of the room, which I use for watercolor paintings and large-scale projects. There is also (hopefully) room for a shelving unit/cabinet for storing large art paper (drawing paper, newsprint, watercolor paper, and unused canvases), but that it yet to be purchased and/or built.

Here are some pictures of the room thus far, as I've started to unpack and organize everything:

It's not done yet - obviously some things are still in boxes, unpacked. I have to figure out what exactly I'm going to do to store my art paper and other art supplies that are too large for the bookcases. My husband and his sister want to build me a cabinet, thinking that would be easier than purchasing one (they are quite expensive, and quite heavy, and we aren't sure how we'd get it down there if we didn't... build one in the room or near the room). So right now the going plan is to wait until the weather warms up, and then hopefully we can build some shelves or a cabinet, cutting the wood to size in the garage or on the back patio right outside my studio, and then bringing the pieces inside and assembling it in the room. But we will see what the warmer weather brings (assuming we ever get any... February in Michigan always has one feeling a bit pessimistic). :)

I'm so happy I got everything to fit. I just know having everything in the same room will really streamline my creativity/productivity - which is, as any parent will tell you, so important when your time to get not-parenting things done is so much less than it used to be before kids! :)

2020 Art In Review

I created only ten pieces of art in 2020 (a far lower number than the 98 I did in 2019!). This year's art was also all on a small scale, with all ten measuring 8"x10" in size. Nine were colored pencil drawings that were a part of my "floral attributes" series, and one was a watercolor I painted as a gift for a friend. I knew I wouldn't be nearly as productive as I had been the previous year (and indeed, the reason I made SO much art in 2019 was because I knew I would be busier in 2020, and I wanted to save back some 2019 artwork to fill in the gaps for this blog this year) - but looking at that number ten is still rather shocking at first glance. Ten? Only ten? Sure I was busy, but I definitely had time to do more than 10. Right? 

But when I look at previous years that saw me make only ten (or fewer) pieces of art in the year, it starts to make more sense. 2011, 2012, and 2013 were all also low-output years. These were the three years immediately after I graduated with my BFA from EMU. I was 1) recovering from a bit of an art burnout, 2) focusing much more on graphic design (trying to find a local graphic design job, and also trying to start an invitation design company), and 3) planning for my wedding and our first househunting/home-purchasing/moving adventure.

2020 ticks a lot of those boxes as well. I went really hardcore in 2019 to pump out lots of art, so a bit of art burnout was likely there. 2020 also just had a lot of LIFE burnout. It was hard for ALL of us to be productive this year, with all the anxiety-spiking news making headlines. When you're weighing heavy pros and cons of everyday decisions (Is it safe to go to the grocery store? Is it too risky to visit family?) day in and day out, and your adrenaline is kicked into higher gear - and stays there for months on end - it's hard to focus on ways to channel creativity into productivity. Add to all that becoming a parent for the very first time, and prioritizing caring for our newborn daughter and trying to figure out what to do with her every day in a world where a lot of usual options were suddenly unfeasible... and then also deciding to move, and thus embarking on another househunting/home-purchasing/moving adventure (this time all in the midst of a pandemic no less) - and it's easy to see why my art output was a bit on the skimpy side this year.

I don't bring all this up to self-shame. In 2011-2013 I absolutely shamed myself for my lack of productivity - but I've grown since then, and I'm trying to be less of a perfectionist, and less hard on myself. I'm actually quite proud of my 2020. I accomplished a lot, especially all things considered; it's just that most of those accomplishments weren't art-related. And that's ok. That's the way it is sometimes, when your work is in a creative field. There will be ebbs and flows to your commissions and opportunities, and also ebbs and flows to your work habits and priorities. After 2013, I really prioritized art again, and I turned around those low-output years, coming up with plans for entire series of artworks - one of which I'm still working hard and seeing through. And after this year, I can turn around that low-output again. I have no doubt I will create more art in 2021, after we finish moving in to our new house and I get my new studio set up.

And the art I did work on this year? I'm really proud of it all. Here are 8 of the colored pencil drawings I finished this year (the 9th one I haven't posted on this blog yet - something to look forward to for a 2021 post!):

I also had a lot of success at Rochester Art Market at the Paint Creek Center for the Arts and on Etsy this year, selling notecard sets. My Great Lakes notecards continue to be most popular - but I've sold other notecards as well, especially those in my floral and rainbow alphabet series.

Head over to my Etsy shop to see all the notecard varieties I have to offer! And keep an eye out for some changes coming next year - I have a lot of new notecards on the way soon, featuring drawings from my floral attributes series!

Turning 32

My 32nd year was not exactly what I pictured... but I think that was the case for all of us. 2020 has been a wild ride, y'all. But I'm really hoping things are looking up (or will be soon) where the pandemic is concerned, and we'll finally start feeling safe enough in 2021 to start venturing farther outside our homes again.

Here are some of my hopes/goals for my 33rd year, leading up to turning 33 on December 20, 2021:

• Stay healthy while we all ride out the end of this pandemic.
• Successfully move in to our new house, organize and unpack everything, and make it feel like home for us, our daughter, and our dog.
• Prepare our old house for the housing market and sell it.
• Find a groove again with creating artwork - I was doing well for awhile, and making sure to prioritize working on colored pencil drawings while our daughter was sleeping... but then we decided to move, and in the process of packing everything and planning for the new house, my art fell by the wayside again for this last part of 2020. Once we're all moved into the new house, with a new art studio, art will begin again!
• Submit my artwork to be shown in various local art exhibitions or art shows. I had grand plans to do this in 2020 (after I settled in to motherhood a bit) - but then the pandemic hit, and what few art exhibitions were still happening in-person were not things I felt safe participating in. Here's hoping 2021 will be better!
• Start working part-time as a graphic designer again, too. I had planned to continue working from home for Temple Israel as a contract designer after our daughter was born - but then with the pandemic, they were hosting a lot fewer events and had much lower needs for graphic designers this past year than anticipated. I'd love to start designing graphics again - if not for Temple Israel, then for others. My new studio in the new house is going to be big enough to fit my easel and tables for watercolors and colored pencil drawings AND my computer desk, and I'm so stoked to be able to work on all aspects of my creative work from a single room in the house.
• And of course - watch our daughter continue to amaze as she grows every day! She'll turn one in less than two weeks, and I'm so excited to see what her 2nd year brings!

5 Months of Motherhood

When I planned making a blog post after a few months of motherhood, I didn't expect it to be quite like this one. I envisioned a quick check-in where I would reflect back on how things have been going, and how much (or how little) art and writing I've been able to do compared to what I thought I'd be able to squeeze in, now that baby duty is taking up so much of my time. I counted on sleepless nights and long days, crying jags and learning curves, as I learned what my daughter needed from me - and when. But I didn't anticipate a global pandemic casting a shadow over these first several months, and how that might factor into my art and writing plans.

Michigan was under stay-at-home orders from mid-March until the end of May - 2.5 months altogether. Or, to put another way, half of my daughter's life to date (she turns 5 months old today). In many ways, our lives were not upended by this nearly as much as other people's lives were. We were already basically social distancing while our baby was young - limiting visitors to those who had received flu shots, and avoiding taking her out into any crowded public spaces. Furthermore, I was already planning to be home with her full time (ramping up to working from home part-time around the 3 month mark), and my husband was finishing the last bit of his master's degree by driving the one-hour commute to campus twice a week for classes. We had already restructured our lives to being home with the baby as much as possible - so when the pandemic altered our work and schooling, it was only "in our favor," letting us be available to our baby even more. My working from home was pushed back (with no events happening, there's little to design flyers and emails for, so I haven't been needed); and instead of going to Ann Arbor, my husband's classes moved online, letting him be home with us all 7 days a week. It's never a good time for tens of thousands of deaths - but from our standpoint, being granted even more time at home with our baby has actually been really nice.

Still, if you thought both of us being home all the time meant I had even more time to do all that art and writing I'd planned on doing, you'd be wrong. I did manage to complete two 8"x10" colored pencil drawings since our daughter was born - but these were both done in January/February, before the pandemic hit our state, and before the stay-at-home orders began. I've done very little art (and no writing) since.

It's not that I don't have time for it - after all, I managed to squeeze in some time in January/February. It's just that it hasn't been a priority for me lately. For one thing, as our daughter got a little older, and staying awake longer, it's been so fun and rewarding to spend that awake time with her every day, playing and taking pictures and videos of her. Even when my husband is available to watch her and I could take a break, I often choose not to, just because I don't want to leave her side. I'd probably feel this way regardless, but I'm guessing that the pandemic has exacerbated this feeling. When we can't leave the house, and no one but my husband and I can see her every day, it seems more important to witness and document all of those moments, and to share daily photos and videos with the grandparents, who haven't been able to visit during all this.

Another aspect is that I feel obligated to make the most of our time at home with her, since she's "missing out" on other experiences outside the home. It's true we wouldn't have been doing much with her yet anyway, but I had wanted to start taking her to storytimes at the library, or just to different stores to let her look around and experience new things. Now, if I want her to see something new, I have to try to find a corner of the house we haven't spent much time in yet. Expanding her horizons is not as "easy" as packing up the diaper bag and heading out somewhere (though that is never easy either, I'm sure!). We're lucky that she's still so small, and that so many things are new to her. I feel so bad for parents stuck at home with toddlers or kids, whose worlds had already opened up a little past their own houses, only to have this situation shrink their worlds smaller again. Our daughter doesn't yet know what she's missing out on.

Still, she isn't playing or feeding ALL the time - she's a baby, and she also naps. And that was when I'd planned to do any art or writing I wanted to do - while the baby was sleeping. But she isn't the best at napping during the day, and I suspect that's because she hasn't had to be. Instead of trying to make her conform to our schedules, we didn't really have a schedule anymore - and so were able to let her dictate her own routine however she wanted. Plus, we're both always home to hold her or pick her up if she cries, or rock her to sleep so she doesn't have to self-soothe. For a long time, she wouldn't nap in her crib at all - only in our arms (though she's starting to finally get a little better at that). Part of me wonders also if she'd be a better napper if her world was more "exciting" during the day. If we could pack her up and take her out somewhere, to show her a totally new place she hasn't seen before, would that extra bit of stimulation tire her out more, and help her sleep better?

She still often naps for only 30-45 minutes at a time, which means she ends up taking 4 short naps like that throughout the day. In the last month or so, I've been trying to rectify that - trying to encourage her to sleep longer, so she can also go longer between naps, so that we're only down to 3 naps a day. It's hard to get anything done when I only have a 30-minute window. It's not impossible, but it's harder. And when I don't have the motivation to prioritize squeezing in 30 minutes of work on a colored pencil drawing... it doesn't get done. I was able to do it early on, in January/February. But now it's harder. For the first part of the stay-at-home order, I was on my phone a LOT, reading news articles and keeping track of how many new cases and deaths there were - in the world, in the U.S., in Michigan, in our area. It burned me out a little - it left little time to work on any of my creative pursuits, and with little motivation to do so. I've also been doing more planning - planning dinners several days in advance, looking up new recipes to try to be creative with what ingredients we already have on hand in the pantry (and yes - hopping on the quarantine baking train), and those things also take up time I might otherwise spend on art or writing.

All of this is to say... I am very "behind" on the plans I'd made for creating art this year. All of the posts you've seen these past few months, and many of the ones I have scheduled for later in the year, are all things I made in 2019 (though the next two posts will be of the colored pencil drawings I did in January/February). I kind of figured I was overestimating how much time I'd have, and that I'd fall behind on my plans for 2020 artwork - but I didn't think it would be because of a pandemic. I hope to start making more art again in June, and getting back to my plans. Once our baby starts napping a little better (more consistently, for longer time spans, and actually IN her crib), that will help; so too will the grandparents being able to visit again, and the weather (finally!) getting nice enough to go out to parks, etc. I think that the more time we're able to spend with other people, or out of the house, the less pressure I'll feel to be present with her for ALL of the time spent at home with just us and her - I'll allow myself to sneak away and steal 30 minutes here or there for some art projects, knowing that I already did a lot to stimulate her at other times of day.

Or, you know, I'm just kidding myself again, and when I reevaluate in another few months, I'll find that I'm still super behind on all my artwork plans. :)

April 19

Today, April 19 is the due date my pregnancy would've had, if it had gone to term. When I miscarried back in September, this due date still felt very far away; I thought for sure I'd be pregnant again by the time April 19 finally rolled around, and be able to use that new pregnancy for solace. But trying to conceive after miscarriage has unfortunately turned into a longer journey than I anticipated, and as much as I wish I had good news to share right now - I don't.

There are days (this week in particular) when it's hard not to focus on the could've-beens, thinking about that alternate universe where my pregnancy went to term and I became a mother this week. There are other days when it's hard to remain optimistic about getting pregnant again. There are days when I feel like a failure. Though deep down I know it's not my fault and there's nothing else I could be doing right now to try to make this work, a part of me still feels like I'm letting everyone down (myself included) every month that my period shows up again. I feel like I'm depriving the people I care about from the happy ending they're waiting to hear.

In moments of defeatism, I have several quotes I turn to for inspiration. My favorite right now is this one, from Helen Keller: “Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.” I remind myself that even though we can't control the outcome, we can keep trying anyway... and then try to find hope in our resilience. Many days, this doesn't feel like enough. I want to do more than that, have control over more than that. But at least that's something.

These are not things we usually talk about. Worse, these are things that are hard to talk about. It's hard to post about disappointments and things that feel like personal failures - especially on social media platforms where most people only post their success stories, happy memories, and best selfies. It's hard to admit that there are things we can't earn just by wanting, just by trying. It's even hard to admit to wanting something at all, in a world that encourages us to blow out birthday candles and wish on shooting stars in silence. Not only is vulnerability hard - but, we are taught, also punishable. Share your deepest hopes and dreams aloud, and risk seeing them "jinxed" and never fulfilled.

But as hard as it is to be vulnerable - especially with something like this, where I'm still in the middle of the story, without any idea of how long I'll be here - it's also hard to be lonely. And going through a miscarriage and trying to conceive are often very lonely endeavors. When you're struggling with something privately, and your pain goes unrecognized, it's hard not to start feeling invisible. And that's a shitty thing to feel, on top of everything else.

Which is why I'm sharing all this. I debated with myself for a long time about whether or not to post anything, writing and rewriting several drafts over the last several days, weeks, months... Ultimately I decided that, at least this week, I want to be visible again (and I deserve to be). I want my experience to be acknowledged, my pain to be just a little less private - if only for a moment.

You can read more about my miscarriage here - the post I wrote last October 15 for Pregnancy Loss Remembrance Day.

"Nourishment" Colored Pencil Drawing

I started this drawing in early July 2018, took a rather long break from it, and then picked it up again in late August, finishing it in early September. It's one of my "symbolism" drawings, where the title is a single word describing the symbolism of the flower being drawn, and the first such drawing I did on cadmium yellow Canson Mi-Tientes paper.

Earlier in 2018, I was in the habit of doing two of these drawings back-to-back, both on the same color of paper. (See: "Ambition" and "Fertility" on red paper, "Flight" and "Playfulness" on blue paper, and "Loyalty" and "Prophecy" on gray paper.) I had planned to do the same thing here, drawing "Nourishment" on yellow, and then "Enthusiasm" soon after. Instead, this "Nourishment" drawing took a lot longer than anticipated, and I couldn't even bring myself to start "Enthusiasm" for awhile. Wanting to continue the tradition of at least posting two same-colored-paper drawings in consecutive blog posts (even if they weren't consecutive artworks), I postponed posting "Nourishment" until I finally finished "Enthusiasm" as well.

I'm not entirely sure why it took me so long to complete these drawings, other than I got distracted with life and my heart just wasn't in art at all for awhile. I have a long list of these "symbolism" drawings all planned out and ready to go - a list of the flowers I intend to draw, the corresponding title, and the colored paper I plan to use for them - and in early July, "Nourishment" just happened to be next on my list.

I found a picture of sunflowers to use as a reference, and started lightly sketching in the yellow petals and brown centers.

And then, after about 10 minutes of work, I stopped.

When I started "Nourishment," I wasn't yet pregnant - but was hoping to be soon. I had a lot on my mind. If I had completed "Nourishment" in the time frame I usually do, it would've likely been complete long before I knew I was pregnant; instead, I procrastinated and stalled and got distracted, and for 7.5 weeks, this drawing sat around in this barely-started state. During that time, we started trying to conceive, and found out I was pregnant on August 10. We started telling people the news, and I made plans for my pregnancy. I didn't get back to this drawing until August 27 - at which point a drawing titled "Nourishment" seemed to be laden with so much more meaning. It felt like such an apt drawing to work on, while my body was busy nourishing a growing baby-to-be. It took me a few more days to finish, working on it a little bit at a time (for I was still not quite in the mood to focus on art), and I finally finished it on September 2.

First, I finished lightly sketching in the plants by adding in light green leaves.

Then, I started going in and adding depth and detail. I darkened the brown centers, and lightened the yellow petals with white and yellow colored pencils.

Then I darkened the leaves somewhat (though not adding much more dimension/detail to them, since I wanted the focus to be on the sunflowers themselves), and darkened the brown centers yet again, to heighten the contrast of the sunflowers.

The above picture is the completed drawing, complete with signature. Here are some close-up shots of the final drawing, below:

Five days after I finished this drawing I learned that I was having a missed miscarriage; six days after that, on September 13, I had my D&C. I understandably wasn't in the mood to create much art for awhile after that (for an entirely different reason than before) - and I especially wasn't gung-ho about starting the next symbolic floral drawing on my list, which was titled "Enthusiasm." I eventually worked on some other projects during that time instead, but I still kept putting off "Enthusiasm"... In January, I finally started and finished that second colored pencil drawing on yellow paper, which is why I'm posting "Nourishment" today. "Enthusiasm" will be the next post.

Missed Miscarriage

Trigger warning: Discussion of miscarriage, including emotional grief and graphic descriptions of the physical process

***

Today, October 15, is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.

I wanted to make a happy social media announcement this week - the week that would have marked the beginning of my second trimester of pregnancy. Instead, I'm making a different sort of post.

At my eight-week ultrasound at the beginning of September, I learned that I was having a missed miscarriage. Though my body had yet to get the memo, the ultrasound showed that everything was measuring only six weeks and five days along, with no detectable heartbeat. I had no symptoms of miscarriage, and over the next few days, while I researched what might happen next and talked to my doctors, I would still never have any symptoms.

And so I was faced with a series of awful options:

1. Anxiously wait several more days (or weeks) for my body to start naturally expelling what the medical field calls "the products of conception"

2. Take medication to induce uterine contractions to speed along the process

3. Get a D&C - a surgical dilation of the cervix and removal of the uterine contents by suction

I read several accounts online of women who had chosen options 1 or 2 (or been forced to endure them by nature, their doctors, or financial limitations), and knew from their stories that the experience was often physically and emotionally traumatic. For one thing, it would almost certainly include some degree of labor-like pains as I “birthed” into the toilet the blood clots and tissue of what could’ve, in an alternate universe, become an April baby and its placenta. Furthermore, there was a chance I could end up in the ER if I started hemorrhaging or fainting due to blood loss - or that I wouldn’t be able to pass everything naturally anyway, and still end up requiring a D&C to prevent infection. It all sounded horrific, from both a physical and emotional standpoint, and more than anything, I didn’t want to do it.

Option 3 carried its own risks - as any surgical procedure does - but on the whole it seemed the “least awful” to me. At least a D&C would get the physical process over with faster, less painfully, and on my own terms - something I longed for in a situation where I felt like I had so little control about what was happening. (It is worth noting that my husband has health insurance through his work which covered the majority of my D&C, and we have the means to cover what’s likely to be our $1000-1400 out-of-pocket expense. I didn’t have to factor in the financial cost when making my decision - a privilege that I wish every person had when weighing important options about their health.)

I told my doctors I wanted a D&C, and they quickly scheduled the procedure for me, on the day that would’ve-could’ve-should’ve been one day shy of a nine-week pregnancy. My first pregnancy was thus completed in the span of exactly two months, from July 13 to September 13.

Left: At my 6-week ultrasound on August 24 we were told that everything was measuring slightly behind, at maybe 5 weeks 5 days - but that it was common for dating to be off by a day or two that early in the pregnancy, especially if there was a chance it implanted later than expected. The ultrasound tech insisted that she could see a fluttering signaling the beginnings of a heartbeat, and while it was "still too weak" to officially measure the heart rate, she remained optimistic that it was just because it was so early that a day or two can make a huge difference in the embryo's development. We had no reason to believe I would have a miscarriage, and the ultrasound tech spent time showing us which parts were the gestation sac, yolk sac, and fetal pole.

Right: In the two weeks between my early ultrasounds, I watched some of my early pregnancy symptoms lessen or disappear - while other pregnancy symptoms ramped up. Part of me worried that I might be having a missed miscarriage, but as this was my first pregnancy and I had nothing to compare it to, I had no REAL reason to believe that these changes meant anything. Still, I was much more nervous going in to my 8-week appointment on September 7 - and not just because I'd told more people about the pregnancy in the interim and was getting rather attached to the idea of being pregnant and becoming a mom. The ultrasound tech at my 8-week appointment was much quieter, making her measurements quickly and silently. Before she said the words, I already knew. She handed me tissues while I cried. After a moment, she said: "This may seem weird, but would you like a picture?" I didn't think it was weird. I was grateful. And even though I already had one from my 6-week ultrasound, I said yes, I wanted another one.

Pregnancy loss is a grief that is hard to reconcile, with very few answers to explain why, and very few memories or pictures to draw on for comfort. And all of these feelings are compounded by changes in hormones, which come crashing back to pre-pregnancy levels after weeks of steadily rising. I am not often a crier about Big Things - I tend to grieve more silently - but there were days before and after my D&C when I was surprised at how emotional I felt.

There is so much to process - not just the loss of someone you'd never met but somehow started to bond with anyway, or even the loss of potential: what that baby could've been, what our family could have been. There's the fear of what will happen physically: the potential pain and loss of blood if the miscarriage should start to happen naturally, the possible complications of a surgical procedure, and anxieties about how long physical recovery will take. There's the feeling of being cheated out of a joyful pregnancy and birth and sharing that happiness and excitement with the world - and the awkwardness and grief of telling family, friends, and coworkers that you miscarried, many of whom never even knew you were pregnant. There's the loss of the sense of pride and accomplishment in carrying a child to term, giving birth, and becoming a mother. There's envy towards women to whom pregnancy seems to come easily, and anger that I was not one of them.

There's even difficulty readjusting back to a state of non-pregnancy: planning meals for the week that suddenly aren’t restricted by pregnancy diet requirements, re-adopting my pre-pregnancy blood glucose targets, unsubscribing from weekly pregnancy update emails (and trying to ignore all the targeted pregnancy-related ads on my Facebook feed that I couldn’t unsubscribe to), and packing up maternity clothes I purchased prematurely and never got to wear. These mundane tasks might seem like nothing - but they’re not unlike the tying up of loose ends that many mourners go through when a loved one dies: sorting through their belongings, stopping mail, contacting other people or businesses to let them know of the loss, and paying off medical bills.

There's also resentment stemming from never knowing the cause of my pregnancy loss. I never truly blamed myself, but many women do. I’d read so many articles and statistics even before I’d been through my own that I knew miscarriages were caused by unpredictable chromosomal abnormalities; furthermore, I was fortunate enough to hear from many people (including my very kind doctors) that it was nothing I did or didn't do, nothing I ate or drank, and not even anything related to my diabetes, which is generally very well controlled (and a discussion for another time). But that didn’t stop me from WANTING to find a way to hold myself culpable - because then at least there would be a reason it happened, and something I could do differently to prevent a recurrence. Without that, I'm left with the unsatisfactory truth that life and death are unknowable and uncontrollable; I'm left with a loss of innocence for potential future pregnancies and the fear that this could all happen again.

In my particular case, preparing for my D&C, there was also a longing for my pregnancy to "not be taken away" from me, or (to put in other words) for me to somehow find a way to both get the physical process over with as quickly and painlessly as possible while also not being "complicit" in having my pregnancy terminated. Of course, it was already ended, whether I was "complicit" in it or not - my hCG hormone levels were dropping, the “products of conception” were starting to break apart, and my pregnancy symptoms had been disappearing or gone for days if not weeks. But despite all the evidence from blood draws and ultrasound screens, it was still hard to believe that it was over - and hard not to ask the doctors to triple and quadruple check for signs of potential viability.

I'm sure that initial disbelief affects all women who go through a pregnancy loss - denial is one of the stages of grief, after all, and there are undoubtedly women who pass golf-ball sized clots or survive unimaginable hemorrhaging and pain and still hold out hope for the continuation of their pregnancy - but I also felt like it was a hurdle somewhat harder to cross when I wasn't experiencing any of the telltale bleeding or cramping symptoms. Not only was I upset that my body was unable to maintain the pregnancy, I was also angry that it couldn't seem to "miscarry properly" either, leaving me stuck in a horrible limbo.

Getting a D&C was not a decision I settled on lightly, but one I ultimately chose for my mental and physical health. I hoped to at least avoid the worst of the pain and bleeding - and I'm sure that I did, compared to what it could've been - but in doing so, I forgot that getting a D&C was hardly nothing. My post-op paperwork told me that bleeding for up to six weeks after the D&C was not uncommon (mine lasted on and off for about two weeks), and recommended that I take 600 mg of Motrin every six hours as needed for pain. To be sure, there were days when I had very little cramping or bleeding, and no need for Motrin. But there were a few days, more than I had anticipated, where the opposite was the case and I needed that pain medication to get through the day. A D&C is still a miscarriage.

It took three and a half weeks (and seven pokes for blood draws at the doctor's office) for my hCG hormone to get completely back to non-pregnant levels after my D&C, but thankfully only about one week to start to feel like my body was my own again - that I could count on it to look the way I expected it to look, feel the way I expected it to feel, and behave the way I expected it to behave. Even though I'd been early in my pregnancy, my body had still gone through several changes: by 8 weeks, for instance, the uterus has already grown to twice its typical size - which isn't really visible from the outside, but feels and looks very different to the person it's happening to, as things get more crowded in their abdomen. It was such a relief, then, when I started to feel like "myself" again; after weeks of emotional and physical turmoil, it was a comfort to be back in familiar territory. But that relief was also colored with guilt, shame, and anxiety that were hard to dispel. What if my relief meant I hadn't wanted to be pregnant enough, or that I wasn't ready to be pregnant again?

I tried to tell myself that if I had carried this pregnancy to term, no one would fault me for my happiness at seeing my body return back to normalcy - and indeed, that no one would likely fault me for feeling this way after this ordeal, either, and that I was once again being my own harshest critic. I also reminded myself that pregnancy can be difficult to endure even when it’s at its easiest and least complicated - and that I would never accuse another person who hated or feared the physical changes of pregnancy of not loving their child or looking forward to parenthood enough. But it’s hard to rationalize your emotions away, and what ultimately helped me feel better (about this and so many other aspects of the healing process) was confirmation from others going through similar situations that they felt the same way I did - that it was normal to feel conflicting emotions even over things as seemingly innocuous as the speed/ease of digestion, the frequency of urination, or the shape of my stomach in my favorite shirts.

When I was pregnant, I thought about being pregnant nearly constantly - from worries about when nausea might strike and how that might affect how much insulin I should take, to the excitement of planning the paint colors for the nursery. When I learned of my missed miscarriage and all those pregnancy thoughts vanished, I filled the vacuum they left behind with other anxieties: Was that twinge a symptom of impending miscarriage? Will I “make it” to the date of my scheduled D&C? Is it typical to have these cramps and on-and-off bleeding after the procedure? When will I feel normal again? As more weeks passed and my body healed, it was hard to stop obsessing. I wasn’t sure if I should toss aside all my memories of what I’d been through or if I should continue to dwell on them, to mourn, to read online articles about grief.

And if I do let all the thoughts about my pregnancy loss fall away - what should I think about instead, to fill that new vacuum? Is it too soon to start checking my temperature and peeing on sticks in an effort to chart what would likely be an irregular first couple of menstrual and ovulation cycles? Is it unhealthy to keep switching out one obsession for the next - pregnancy for miscarriage, miscarriage for trying to conceive again?

Once enough time has passed, it all starts to feel like it never really happened. It feels weird to say “when I was pregnant” when I have nothing to show for it but a couple grainy sonograms and weeks-old, already-fading memories of early pregnancy symptoms. It feels like something that happened to someone else. That, too, is painful. This was my first and (so far) only pregnancy; this was the closest I ever came to having a child and becoming a mother. Until I get pregnant again, these memories are all I have. And I don’t want to forget them.

Statistically speaking, at least 1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss - and yet, we hardly ever talk about it. It is remarkable, when you start talking aloud about your miscarriage, how many people come back with “me too” - people who you would never know had a miscarriage until you mention yours. To quote Angela Garbes in her amazing book Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy: "Many people are uncomfortable talking about pregnancy loss, so they don't. And it's no wonder - any meaningful discussion of it requires acknowledging death, blood, tears, and items being expelled from the vagina." But just because it's difficult doesn't mean it should continue to be taboo.

I'm choosing to share my story publicly because I want other women who have experienced pregnancy loss to know that they are not alone. Pregnancy loss can feel very isolating - but it doesn't have to be. I am so grateful to everyone who showed me support in the days before and after my miscarriage, including family, friends, coworkers and strangers on internet forums.

I’m also choosing to share my story for my own sake. There is a lot of societal pressure to bury this topic, presumably to save other people a few minutes of feeling uncomfortable or sad, and I often feared that no one wanted to hear any of this - let alone hear me “still” talking about it, weeks later. What can I do, then, when talking or writing helps me, but I feel like I’m not allowed to talk/write about it? Share my thoughts anyway, I suppose, without waiting for other people to give me permission to do so. I still want that outpouring of love and support that I would’ve gotten if I’d had happier news to share today; I don’t deserve it less just because my pregnancy is over too early.

To again quote Angela Garbes: "When it comes to pregnancy loss, there is no script to follow. To help a woman navigate it, you don't need to offer advice or perspective. It is enough to show up, however awkwardly, and be there, to listen." Writing has always been a form of therapy for me. Thank you for listening.

Novel(s) Update

I recently came to the conclusion that I was trying to cram too many stories into a single novel/series of novels. I was intertwining different stories together (each with different voices/narrators), thinking that because they had some of the same themes, they should work together - but really it just became confusing for any potential readers to follow, and each part started taking away from the other parts, rather than building off each other and making each other better.

Further, I decided that the reason I was doing that (the reason I OFTEN do something like that when attempting to write novels) is because I don't feel, for whatever reason, like I am allowed to tell the story I really want to tell. I doubt my abilities as a writer, or I worry that the story will be unmarketable, or I worry that the story's subject matter will offend people - in short, I worry too much what other people might think. In an attempt to still write, but somehow soften the writing, I therefore BURY my writing - underneath other layers of writing. I posit that a story that reads not good enough or not professionally polished could be more easily forgiven if it was framed within the context of someone writing the story, and so I bury the story I am less sure about within a larger story of an author's life. Or I use too much vague symbolism or too many extended metaphors to make potentially abrasive content easier to swallow (for me to write, or for others to read), and then try to pair it with another story with less symbolism to mirror that story and help explain it. None of that is necessary to do - nor particularly helpful, or original, or easy for someone to read and enjoy - but I do it because I feel like it would be presumptuous of me to assume people might care to read my writing. I make my stories discoverable only to those who are willing to put in the effort to prove they want to hear what I have to say, the archeologists who are eager and capable of unearthing the fossils I've hidden in the dirt. I do this because I feel like I am not allowed to let my words shine on their own. It's a habit likely born from low self-esteem and a penchant for making myself suffer. But it's also a habit I'm trying to break.

What I am in the process of doing, then, is splitting up the story I was writing into two separate narratives. I am also changing the structures and timelines of these stories a bit, to make them work better as standalone stories. For each, I am figuring out what the real story I want to tell is - and then I am trying to find the courage within myself to sit down and tell it, without burying it and watering everything down.

Right now I'm not quite working on them simultaneously - I'm working on one and then the other - but that may change once I have new outlines and plans drawn up for both. One story is well outlined and already at least 1/3 complete, based on what I had already written; the other is going through more drastic structural changes, and I'm still working out the exact details of how it's going to look. But once I have all those ideas in place, I could foresee it being relatively easy to go back and forth between the stories, working on them nearly concurrently, if I wanted to. We'll see how I feel.

In any case, even though it's a lot of work to rethink and rework my novel(s), I do think it will make for better writing, when all is said and done. And hopefully I'll be able to continue this process as I write, stopping to ask myself every once in awhile if I'm "doing it again" - burying my words under other words and not letting them shine.

New York City Sketches

I decided to make some architecture sketches recently, spurned on by three things:

1. The success I had a couple years ago making a few architecture sketches of photos taken on other vacations (the Notre Dame in Paris, Chenonceau Castle, and the Rialto Bridge in Venice - the last of which is still available for sale, here on Etsy), and

2. The success I had painting the Charlotte Skyline recently in the commissioned triptych acrylic I created earlier this year, and

3. Going through photos and finding all the best architecture pics of our recent trip to NYC for all those recent blog posts.

I thought it would be fruitful and fun to pull a few of the best photos out and try to draw some of the iconic buildings, particularly the One World Trade Center, the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty. I also had some thin Koh-i-noor magic pencils (tri-color pencils that have three different shades in a single pencil) I've been meaning to try out for ages, and knew from my experience drawing the Notre Dame, Chenonceau, and the Rialto Bridge that magic pencils could make for some successful drawings. So I gathered my supplies - the colored pencils, a ruler, white paper, a pencil sharpener, and my source photographs - and measured out 5"x7" areas to draw within.

But the sketches didn't go as well as I wanted them to. Part of my struggle was undoubtedly that architecture drawings are not my typical subject matter, and even though I did recently draw and paint a Charlotte Skyline, I did a lot of preplanning, measuring, remeasuring, and using ratios and rulers to make sure that my sketch was as accurate as possible, rather than drawing it freehand. For these smaller pictures, I was going for a looser, freehand style, and then found myself unsatisfied with it.

Another struggle was that I wasn't used to the thin magic pencils. Though I've used the tri-tone pencil type before for architecture drawings, those pencils were thicker, meaning that my lines couldn't be as precise, due to the constraints of the materials. With the thinner pencils, my lines could be more precise - and so I thought they looked a little too rough when they weren't as precise as I wanted.

Finally, I had other projects I was also concurrently working on - finishing up the varnishing layers on the Charlotte Skyline painting (blog post on that process coming soon), as well as planning and starting other symbolic floral colored pencil drawings, and working on my novel(s) (again, more to come about those in future blog posts), so my heart wasn't totally "in it" when it came to these sketches. I was more excited about those other projects, and so when I forced myself to still work on these small sketches anyway, while NYC was still relatively fresh in my mind, I just wasn't feeling it.

It really doesn't take much for me to lose confidence or lose heart in an art project I'm doing - it can even just be other feelings or experiences I've had that day that are making me sad or self-conscious or anxious, totally unrelated to the artwork at hand. Once I start having doubts or feeling like the piece is not going the way I want it to, it can be hard to overcome those issues.

In the end, I made four sketches. They're decent, but they're not great - that is, they aren't what I really wanted them to look like, and I don't think they're of a high enough quality that I could or should sell, so I'm not going to list them on Etsy like I had initially wanted to. Maybe some day in the future, when I'm in a better place or a better mood, I'll try again and see if I can't get sketches that I'm happier with.

In any case, I still wanted to include the photos in this blog post, just to share what I've been working on lately. Not every art project is going to end up being a winner, but the important thing is that I keep trying anyway - trying new subject matter, new materials, new ideas - and that I don't let the weeks when I'm struggling pull me permanently down.

I started out with the Statue of Liberty. The image on the left is a black and white printout of one of the photographs I took in NYC. I used three different thin magic pencils to draw a (rather linear) sketch of the statue and her large pedestal. I was not satisfied with it in part because it was so small - I could do very little, if any, shading without the drawing just becoming a dark, incomprehensible mess.

Next, I drew the Empire State Building, as seen from the Top of the Rock observation deck. Again, the image on the left is my black and white printout of a photo I took in NYC, while my drawing is on the right. I used a blue magic pencil for this one, and then added in some of the other buildings in the background using a red/yellow pencil.

For my third sketch, I revisited the Statue of Liberty, because I wanted to try again. I didn't include her pedestal this time, hoping that without the large pedestal I'd have more room to get in some of the shading and details that I wanted to. I do think this one turned out better than my first attempt, and like some of the shading. I used two green magic pencils for this sketch.

Finally, I drew the One World Trade Center building, with some of the nearby buildings that make up the NYC skyline, as seen from the Hudson River. The black and white image I was using as a source photo was one that I took on our Circle Line Landmarks boat tour. I used a blue magic pencil for this sketch.

Here are the three best (and three last) sketches. I don't think they're horrible for the quick sketches they are, but I also think I can do a better job if I put a little more planning and time into it. I also think New York City is so big and iconic (it is called the "Big Apple" after all) that I'm only doing myself a disservice if I try to draw small sketches. When I revisit this idea another time, I think I'll make larger drawings, so that I can add in more detail and shading, like I wanted to with these.