Lost Journal entries after turning on iCloud syncing and "merging data with iCloud"

When Journal was only on iPhone, I preferred Day One. But, with OS 26 bringing it to Mac and iPad, I decided to switch. I wanted to start fresh, so I deleted Journal from my iPhone and deleted the iCloud data associated with it.

I then began journalling on my Mac. I copied, pasted and changed the dates on 3 1/2 months of daily entries from Day One into Journal, with 700+ daily entries still to go. (thankfully, they're still in my 'deleted entries' folder on Day One). I also wrote today's entry directly into Journal on my Mac.

This afternoon, I decided to turn on iCloud syncing for Journal. It asked if I wanted to "merge data with iCloud". I first selected 'no (cancel?)' and it turned off iCloud syncing for Journal. So I selected 'merge' and when I went back to Journal it was TOTALLY EMPTY!!!

I have looked in iCloud and can find no way to retrieve this data. Does anyone have a solution?