She’d been feeling tired. Older and more tired than she should feel at the ripe old age of twenty-four.
One day her synapses sparked and it occurred to her that she could be pregnant. She asked a doctor friend to write an order for the test and, when it came back positive, she and her husband looked at each other confusedly, “Pregnant? But when . . .?” and then shyly as a memory came back to each of them. “Oh. Now I remember.”
It wasn’t exactly good news. She was working full-time and he was going to college and working part-time. They got by. Barely.
The timing was all wrong. They hadn’t planned to get pregnant for at least another year. How would they manage during her maternity leave? How would they pay for child-care for two children? How could this be happening right now?
And so, she cried. For a couple of weeks, she cried. She cried right up until the night when she and her husband lay side by side in bed and recounted the memories of the birth and babyhood of their three-year old son. She remembered the slight weight of him in her arms in the hospital. She remembered his first smiles and coos. She remembered how cute his pudgy little feet and legs looked when he was taking his first steps.
She stopped crying.
A few days later, there was some spotting. Nothing to be too concerned about since she’d experienced the same symptom during her otherwise healthy first pregnancy. But she and her husband went to the hospital in the interest of caution. The ultrasound showed the baby wiggling around and there was the steady reassuring blink-blink on screen as their baby’s heart beat.
It seemed like things would be okay.
But the doctor told them, “You are probably going to miscarry. I can prescribe progesterone injections and it might improve your chances of keeping the baby. But it is unlikely.”
Of course, she chose the injections. The heartbeat on the screen had been strong.
She gave herself twenty-one progesterone injections over the next three weeks. The hormone was mixed in a thick, oily solution. The needle had to be big, she had to use the z-track method, and she had to inject a big muscle. As a result, the injections were painful and she always whimpered a little before twisting around slightly to swab her hip with alcohol and ease the needle into the muscle.
For each day it seemed to work, she said a prayer of thanks.
On the 21st day, there was more spotting. She wasn’t too worried. It seemed a familiar and harmless part of pregnancy by now. But she called her doctor, just in case.
She knew. Before looking at the screen. Before hearing the words. She knew from the way the ultrasound tech’s face fell. Moments before, the tech had been scowling a little because she was called in from her weekend plans to perform this STAT ultrasound. One look at the screen and her face softened and her eyes filled with concern.
She forced herself into her professional nurse mode as she spoke to the doctor on the phone. He said, “Heather, make yourself NPO. You’ll need a dilatation and curettage. Call the house supervisor for instructions on when to present to 7 Central.”
She called her husband but he didn’t answer. Another nurse took report on her patients and a nurses’ aid drove her home despite her protestations that she could drive.
She walked into the house and straight to the back porch that her husband was enclosing and converting into a family room–since the family was growing. He hadn’t heard the phone because he was working with saws and drills and hammers and the like.
He smiled at first. Then it seemed to register that his wife wouldn’t be home in the middle of the day for any good reason. She cried, “I lost the baby.” He reached her in two long steps and they sank to the floor together, her crying in loud, wracking sobs and him crying silent tears that dripped down his face and soaked her hair.
Family members were called. Arrangements were made for the three-year old. They spent the time before going to the hospital lying together on their bed, rarely speaking.
As they drove to the hospital, she felt cramps ripple across her lower abdomen. She embraced that pain as a gift. For, up until then, she couldn’t help but wonder if the sonographer was mistaken. The pain seemed confirmation that yes, the baby was dead. Her body was beginning to understand that the baby was dead.
For, you see, the ultrasound showed that the baby had died three weeks ago. Probably on the very night of the first progesterone injection; the same night when the heartbeat had seemed so strong.
She checked into the hospital, had the D&C, and woke up from the anesthesia to find she had been crying before she even woke. The recovery room nurse stood over her, patting her hand and wiping away tears. When she groaned in pain, the nurse decreased the rate on the culprit — the pitocin drip.
The floor nurse told her, You have to eat, drink, and pee. If you do that, you can go home when the pitocin drip is complete.
She gave her sandwich to a hungry family member. She couldn’t eat and didn’t like sandwiches anyway. She reached over and opened up the pitocin drip all the way and gritted her teeth against the cramping as her uterus clamped down.
Then she called the nurse, signed her discharge papers, and went home. That’s all she wanted: her own home, her own bed, her husband’s arms around her.
A week later, at the follow-up appointment, the doctor asked how she was doing. She nodded her head, said, Fine, and burst into tears. He reminded her of the story of David and Bathsheba — how David fasted and lay on the ground and would accept no comfort when their baby was born ill. But when he received news that his baby died, he washed himself and ate food saying,
“While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; For I said, ‘Who knows, the Lord may be gracious to me, that the child may live.’
“But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him but he will not return to me.” (2 Samuel 12:22-23)
So there was healing, after a time. She found comfort in the hope that she will hold her child, someday. She accepted that her experience was not unique; many other women have experienced the same hurt and there are many who’ve experienced far worse.
Now, many years later, she can look back and be grateful for the family who surrounded her as she grieved and for the medical professionals who took time out of their weekend to care for her. She is able to accept that things happen for reasons that are outside of our comprehension and that we may be lucky in the end to have a limited understanding of the grand scheme.
But every year, on this date, she honors the life of the child she carried for a short time. She prays and begs the angels to love the child as much as she would have, had he been born.
And then she gets back to the business of loving the children she was able to carry and deliver safely.
And she is thankful.
