April 29th. November 26th.
“I want to lay in the sun. “
I said it between sobs on the ride home from the doctors office. My second such ride in 6 months where I heard the words “I’m sorry” and “no heartbeat”
The trip there had been hopeful, optimistic. I considered my first miscarriage, while devastating, a matter of unfortunate odds. 1 in 4 women. Painful, shitty luck.
But this time was different. I’d gone in at 6 weeks and seen a strong heartbeat. I’d spent my morning for the last month puking and my afternoons feeling exhausted. Everything felt… right.
And then, early into the ultrasound, I noticed she was unusually quiet. I knew what she was looking for. My eyes searched the screen frantically for that little flicker. I begged it to exist while I felt a boulder of fear pushing it’s way into my airway. Surely, surely, surely she would find it.
Another minute passed. Brent rose and came to my side. He took my hand. After more silence, I heard her say, “I’m sorry” and then everything after that melted into a low hum of words that no longer made sense. A foreign language nailing down my grief. I felt at once that I had to get away. I wanted to run.
The nurse handed me tissues as I sobbed into my husband’s ribs. At some point, they quietly slipped out to give us time alone. And I felt as if I could never, ever open the door to that room. I could never look at anyone ever again. I’d just stay there forever.
Brent, somehow, got me dressed and to the car. The ride home was a chorus of my rage and heartache, peppered occasionally by his gently whispers, “It’s ok, baby. Take a deep breath. It’s going to be ok.”
In our bedroom, I pulled off all my clothes. They felt suffocating. I put on a long tshirt, and grabbed a blanket from the hall closet. I wandered to the backyard. I laid down in the grass and cried and cried and cried.
I barely moved all afternoon, except to adjust my blanket when they sun spots shifted. Tried to read. Listened to music. Rubbed my swollen eyes. A wasp buzzed near me and I wished for a moment it would sting me. To feel physically, if only for a moment, something like the battering take place in my soul.
Brent and my mother addressed the speed of life that occurred in my background. Arlo returned from preschool. Then Everly.
I put on my bravest face. I didn’t want them to worry, but also, I couldn’t open the door to questions from my incredibly perceptive, well meaning 6 year old. Everly has a natural curiosity for human emotion. She needs details, wants to understand the why and how and I was just to raw to address any of it with her.
Every night, for the last few months, she has paused at the end of her prayers to have a separate talk with God. Her own quiet conversation where her lips move but no sound escapes. Every night, she asks if I heard what she asked him for. I tell her no, but I know the truth. She prays for a baby. A siblings. Preferably a little sister, but another little brother would be ok too.
Over the last two months, as I laid next to her during these little moments, my heart flushed with joy, knowing soon enough I’d get to tell her the good news. That some time near Thanksgiving, she’d get her prayer answered.
Now there would be no such news to share.
Two days later, at 9am, I sat in a hospital gown in another sterile room. The lone patient in a quiet surgical suite. I listened as the nurse chatted with another woman outside, the silence pierced by their laughter. I wanted to run again. Get away from their happiness. But I was also comforted by the tiny bit of control I felt in how the physical part of my loss would end this time. My first loss had resulted in a scary hemorrhage when my body couldn’t miscarry naturally. It required an emergency, middle of the night d&c. This time, at least, I had some control of the process. The how and the when.
After my first miscarriage, it took me a very long time to talk about it with anyone. I wanted to sit, quiet and alone with my grief. I bristled at the kind gestures of friends. I didn’t want to let anyone close to me. I wanted to tuck my sorrow away, in the darkest parts of my heart, for as long as I could keep it there.
My grief was a tornado. I felt like one of those photos after a storm, where the front of the house still stands. The picket fence in place. and it’s not until you turn the corner and walk around back that you realized that everything else is just… gone.
It would be months before I could talk about it with anyone.
But this time, it’s different. I didn’t have enough time to build anything back. And so I have to address it. Open up the mess hiding beneath my ribs - and let it out. Otherwise, the front goes too.
With my first miscarriage, concerned texts from friends were met with silence. This time, they get a messy two paragraphs of rambling words back. The middle of whatever thought was in my head at the moment.
I look at Brent and randomly say, “I won’t have a baby this year. Not in April. Not in November. ″ I say it at dinner. In the quiet before we fall asleep. Over coffee in the morning.
I cried on the phone with my boss and in front of the heating and air guy. I am not ashamed, it needs out.
I made an appointment to talk to a therapist next week. I made a long, sloppy list of topics to get us started. The list feels like metaphorical boards and nails. An attempt to put my broken pieces back in place.
I won’t have a baby this year. Not in April. Not in November.
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