1st Place for College Creative Nonfiction - 2017 Met Awards
I’d never felt passion for any one specific thing. Sure, as a child, there were many careers I wanted to pursue, but I never felt particularly set on any of them. I never even considered that my calling would be motherhood. And then I got pregnant. The two pink lines on that test changed everything; the only thing that mattered was the little life rooted to my own. Chris was ecstatic. Everything in me and around me felt so right I became terrified something bad would happen; I could lose this baby or the devotion I felt for the tiny life blooming inside of me would wane like every other passion I’d had. I vowed I wouldn’t let this happen; I would protect the being inside me with every breath. I ate well, stayed active, I did everything I could to give this child—my child—the best start possible. So, when I started spotting around 14 weeks, I panicked. We were shopping, and I insisted we go home, I changed into pajamas immediately and got into bed. Thinking surely the baby was scared, I hummed the German lullabies my mother sang to me. The spotting stopped by morning and all was well.
The first time I heard the heartbeat I was ten weeks at my first appointment on December 18th. I couldn’t help smiling. The first time I felt her move, I was four months along with an awful cold, only made worse by not being allowed to take any medication. I was sitting on the couch eating a burrito with extra jalapenos when she started doing somersaults. She moved so vigorously Chris could see it from across the room and asked if it hurt. Yes, I thought because I wanted so badly to hold the baby watching their chubby arms move. I remember the first time I saw her: pink and slippery, angry as all hell, perfect. The doctors marveled at her health. The first time I held her, I looked at her face wondering where the wisdom I saw came from; she was only minutes old after all.
I’d had the easiest pregnancy imaginable. I worked in a meat department, lifting 100 pound boxes daily, 48 hours a week until I was eight months pregnant with no complications. I was dilated four centimeters before I even went into labor. The only complication came when the doctor realized she was coming out face up. Every time I bore down, her heart rate dropped drastically. The doctor wanted to perform an episiotomy. I refused and pushed so hard the next contraction she slid completely out at once. I burst every blood vessel in my face and shoulders.
For the next two years as I watched her grow and learn, she convinced me I had actually found my purpose: motherhood. I didn’t want to have 20 children or anything. I told Chris I drew the line at four and even that was excessive. So naturally I was excited when I found out I was pregnant again. It would be another spectacular event. I tested positive on a home test on my one year wedding anniversary. Amalie had just turned two. Our families were as excited as we were. My sister-in-law told me she could tell by my face. For the next five weeks I didn’t have any morning sickness, or sore breasts, or anything. My only complaint was the heartburn. I started spotting at about ten weeks. Having been through this before, I wrote it off as implantation bleeding. When the spotting continued for four days, I decided to ask my doctor about it at the next appointment. Little did I know I’d be in an operating room that day.
The last Sunday of September, the weather was starting to get cooler, and I could smell autumn approaching. Amalie was taking a nap and I was tired enough to take one too, falling asleep as my head hit the pillow. A ringing phone woke me an hour later; Chris told me he was coming home for lunch. After I hung up, I went pee and noticed bright red spotting straightaway. I struggled between hope and logic. Never very good at hope, I logically called Chris back and told him we had to go to the ER. We waited in the ER four hours before Chris took Amalie to a sitter. In the exam room, I stripped from the waist down, only to see the spotting had turned into light bleeding. The technician did an internal ultrasound. He took forever measuring, peering at the screen with a look I still can’t put a name to. As he finished, he still didn’t speak. I broke the silence, “Is everything ok?” His answer tore at me. I cried uncontrollably, hoping the sound of my voice would deafen me so I’d never hear anybody say no again. The doctor discharged me with Vicodin and said to expect labor-like contractions. Every medical professional kept telling me they were sorry; I just wanted them to shut the fuck up. They couldn’t possibly know how sorry I was, how badly this hurt. I would never be whole again. On my way out, a man in the waiting room—a man in far worse physical pain than me—said “I hope you feel better.” He was the only one that got it right, not because he didn’t apologize. He had hope, something I was all out of.
I cried for the rest of the evening and even harder when Amalie hugged me asking what’s wrong. I was just sitting down to check my e-mail when the gush of blood and tissue the doctors told me to expect scared the hell out of me. I ran into the bathtub, Chris, at my heels, rattling off questions. I stood cowering in the tub and requested a plastic bag. When he returned, I pulled down my pants and red stained the entirety of my panties and pants. I was just about to step out of my pants when the mass of the pregnancy fell out of me and landed on my underwear. Stepping out of them and looking down, I’m sure I saw the twist of the umbilical cord. Chris quickly grabbed my underwear by the waist-band and threw it into the plastic bag. We made eye contact as we realized that was the baby we would never hold. The baby I would never nurse. The baby we would never name. I almost told him, WAIT!!! I need to hold it…if only for a moment. Instead I sank into the bathtub, knees drawn to my chin. I looked past Chris at Amalie standing in the doorway, close to tears, asking what’s wrong, wanting so badly to help somehow, my sweet, sweet girl. “Get her out.” I said, “She shouldn’t see this.” My body had betrayed me, everything I wanted. I was horrified, devastated by my loss and pain. Embarrassed by my body’s betrayal, I spent the next hour in pain like I’d never felt, bleeding in the bathtub, thinking that I was supposed to take care of that new life, nurture it, and protect it. And I had failed.
Contributor's Note: This was written in 2010, about 4 months after I miscarried. I was struggling to reconcile how my pregnancies could end so differently and how my mind could be at such odds with my body.
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