Thank you for the days

I haven't posted in a while. Let me just say that my fall was a whirlwind. So many good things happened. For starters, I fell in love-with my husband. It felt as if we were in our twenties again. We did some crazy things. For instance, we went to see Wilco on a Monday night in Columbus. My mother watched the kids for us. After all was said and done we got to bed at about three AM. I usually wake up for school at five. It was crazy. But it felt so good to be young again.

The upshot of all of this was that I unexpectedly ended up pregnant again, as an almost thirty-nine year old. To be sure, I wasn't feeling it at the time. I thought,"Oh no-I've ruined my life." I was so worried about how we would manage. We have a small, cluttered house. We have small cars that work for a family of four. I was slated to start graduate school in January. I didn't know how we would begin to make this work. Early on, I just thought of this as a catastrophe. I had just found my groove as a mom with school-age kids. We were hiking, having adventures, going places without diapers or pull-ups. It felt good, but it was all coming to an end.

But by the beginning of the second month of this pregnancy, I began to feel hopeful. I could almost imagine cuddling a tiny newborn in my arms. I daydreamed about experiencing this baby's milestones. It has been so long since my children were babies that I have to strain to remember what it was like to have a baby. This was a new beginning. My husband and I were in love again, and this baby was a reminder of how happy we were. My belly began to get bigger, and I made the transition into maternity clothes. Being pregnant began to seem normal and wonderful.

The last day of normal was December 17th. I skipped choir practice that night to bake cookies so I'd have gifts to give my kids' teachers. My hips hurt, but I felt resourceful. I also felt happy because Friday was the last day of school before Christmas vacation. I had a pretty new (well, slightly used) outfit from Once Upon A Child: black velvet maternity pants, a red tee-shirt, and a red cardigan embellished with a row of red sequins. I felt pretty and happy. My husband was coming with me to an ultrasound appointment to screen for chromosomal abnormalities.

I had to scramble to get to the appointment. My doctor's office had called the month before to say that I had an appointment at 1 on the 18th. They neglected to mention that it would be at the hospital. So I drove to the doctor's office early only to find out that I needed to rush to the hospital. My husband met me there. We sat through genetic counseling, after which I thought, "Okay, so our odds are pretty good, really. We only have a one in 90 or 96 percent chance of some genetic problem. I'll stop worrying." We waited for an available ultrasound room. I wasn't worried about the baby; I was thinking about what I needed to get done for Christmas.

The ultrasound began as all my other ultrasounds did. My giant fibroid (which was there for both my other pregnancies) obscured the view of the baby. Then the tech saw the baby. Then, out of nowhere, she said, "I'm sorry; there's no heartbeat. Let me get the doctor." Before I could process the situation, a doctor came in, saying, "No, there's no heartbeat. Let's call your OB-GYN to see what he wants to do." So then, bam, the OB-GYN is on the phone, asking me, "Have you eaten today? If you haven't we can get you in for the D&C right now. You've eaten? Okay, well, you can't eat after midnight. You'll get a D&C tomorrow. We'll just clean it all out." Sure, it's just some gunk in my womb. No big. It's like cleaning out the fridge, right?

All of this is going on right in the middle of Christmas preparations, the "most wonderful time of the year." While my daughter is at a Christmas party for her after school program, I'm home pondering my dead child. I can't stop thinking about what I did wrong. Why wasn't I happier about being pregnant when I first discovered that I was pregnant? Why did I think about all the hardship this would cause me? When my mother was not initially supportive in finding out about the pregnancy, I said, "Well, maybe at my next ultrasound there won't be a heartbeat." I was angry at her for not being kind. I wasn't really saying that I didn't want a baby. I was trying to make her feel bad. If only I could take back those words. I shouldn't try to hurt my mom that way. I shouldn't have deliberately tried to make her feel bad. And for certain I didn't want my baby to ever think that I didn't want her. I know in the logical part of my brain that the miscarriage is just nature's way of making sure that a child who would be too unhealthy to survive ex utero would not be brought into the world. It's a tidy solution to a problem. It's as common as oxygen, really. But I can't help feeling that she didn't understand how much I loved her, so she left to be where she would be appreciated.

Until I miscarried, I didn't know how many people lose children. Think about all the children who die of preventable diseases and hunger in the world. We here in the easy and comfortable parts of the planet don't give the poor a second thought as they die from malaria and starvation. Here, too, in the easy and comfortable parts of the world, children die. What I am finding so interesting and comforting is that as my family suffers through this, other people come out of the woodwork to tell us their stories. A friend of mine at church said, "If you meet women with two or three kids, chances are they've had a miscarriage along the way." She had one. My mother had one. One of my sisters had one or two. My niece had one. When I told my principal at school, she told me that she had two miscarriages. Beyond the many women who have miscarried, I have spoken to people in the past two days who have experienced stillbirth, who have lost babies ex utero, and a woman who lost an 18-year-old son. When I told the woman that her situation seemed much harder than mine, she said, "Oh, but I got to have him for 18 years. I try now to live the life he would want me to live." There is comfort in knowing that others understand my sorrow.

I am grateful to the staff at the hospital who tended to my D&C. When I found out on Friday that the baby was dead, the hospital staff seemed brusquely efficient. I went in for the operation the next day to find out that I needed to go through labor and delivery, past women trying to deliver their live babies. I cried, sobbing wordlessly I as handed my forms to the nurses at the front desk. The nurses there were emissaries of Heaven, I am certain. A lovely young receptionist took my hand and said, "I am so sorry. We will take care of you." A nurse named Pam found me a quiet, solitary room away from the laboring moms. She and Heather, the nurse who assisted in the operation, made sure that I understood that the baby was dead, because I had made the mistake of reading other people's ultrasound urban legends on the internet. Pam wanted to be sure that I could accept what needed to happen before I signed my consent. I am grateful to Debbie the anesthetist, who made sure I was comfortable. I am grateful to Dr. Bhatia, who showed respect for the situation, not treating it as a simple housecleaning procedure.

I am grateful to my friends and family who have all offered to help. Thank you, Jim and Carolyn, for watching our children on Saturday. Thank you, Mom, for being so sympathetic. I am sorry about the cruel thing I said to you. Thank you Judy, Karen, Becky, Drew, and Kathleen for offering your help. Thank you Jonni and Justin, for listening.

When I look back on this situation, if I am honest with myself, I can be grateful for the time we had with Peach (which is what we took to calling our baby, based on the size she grew to be. The pregnancy books would say, "At this time your baby is the size of a bean/prune/etc. Our baby grew to be the size of a peach. Hence the name.) Peach made me feel hope again. Peach reminded my husband of how much he loved me. Vincent was certain that Peach would be the playmate who would always want to play with him. Lily was very solicitous of my health and Peach's development. Peach reminded me that I still was young, not middle-aged, because I could be the mother of a baby. Peach taught me to be open to possibilities.

Maybe Ray Davies of the Kinks said it best in his song, "Days":

Thank you for the days
Those endless days those sacred days you gave me
I'm thinking of the days
I won't forget a single day believe me
I bless the light
I bless the light that shines on you believe me
And though you're gone
You're with me every single day believe me.

Thank you, Peach. I will always love and remember you.