Just Enough Rope

Time goes by.  We  trod through the days.  Mother's Day came this year with an extra bit of stank on her slap.  I cried as usual and found a bit of solace with my husband on what I'm coming to think of as our "grief couch".

I bitched about how my boobs hurt.  I complained how I wish my period would start instead of this two weeks of spotting and cramping.  I wondered if I had an infection and that's why I was spotting.  Matt finally convinced me to call the doctor and I did the next day.

As suspected the nurse told me to take a pregnancy test and I argued that I couldn't be pregnant.  We paid a doctor an obscene amount of money to tell us we weren't going to get pregnant.  She told me that I could do it at home or pay for it at the office.   So, grudgingly, I took the damn test.  And, yes, as you all probably have figured out, I was pregnant.

It had to be wrong.  I peed on four sticks and they all showed that coveted double line.  I crumpled to the floor, staring at the worn grout around the tub as if it would offer me some clarity.  My mouth hung slack and one of the cats pooled into my lap at some point. 

My ringing phone brought me crashing into the present...well, sort of.  I mumbled a hello to my mother and she asked me what was wrong.  Apparently I was sobbing and my words were slurred and incoherent.  I gasped out the words.  "Mom, I'm pregnant."  She screamed while I remained in my confused fog.  I'm pretty sure there was a conversation but I have no idea what it could have consisted of.  I wasn't there in any way but body.

 Fuckin' A.  I was pregnant.  I had reached the glorious station of having a positive pee stick and got to take victory laps with it, waving it widely while fire works burst and a jumbo-tron blinked my name in bright pink lights!  I don't know why they would be pink, but they would be.  And my name would be registered in some secret gold book that only other mommies knew about.  I would no longer be without sticky windows and sharp toys on my floor!  No! I would be among the proud who have sprained an ankle after hopping up and down on one foot!  Those Barbie shoes are pointy after all!  I too would have vomit in my ear and not be sure exactly when it had come to be there.!  Oh, yes.  I would join this coveted club.  I was going to be a mommy.  And cue sappy music.

I was considered high risk because of our long background with infertility.  This secretly pleased me.  I wanted the comfort of being monitored a little closer.  And so there was blood work.  Oh, the blood work.  I waited dutifully for the calls to come and I would chart my hCG numbers on my little wipe board next to my desk.  I would be that model pregnant person who never missed an appointment, blah, blah, blah.

Apparently these hCG numbers are supposed to double over the span of 48 hours and of course, ours did not.  The office tried to keep us calm but by the Friday of the first week we had our first ultrasound that they were really quite insistent that we needed to have the imaging done that day, so obviously they were concerned. So our US showed us a gestational sac but no fetus and that was supposed to be okay because these hCG levels hadn't reached 10,000 yet.  So, we were scheduled to have another US on Monday.  Our numbers were sure to reach the 10,000 mark.  At this 10,000 mark a heart beat should be able to be heard and we could get baby's first picture.

There was no fetus.

Matt stroked my hair back and held my hand as we stared at the empty nest our baby should have been resting in.  Instead there was... was just nothing.  Vacant.  And from that moment my whole body felt empty.

I turned my head away from the big screen TV and into Matt's hand and cried rivers.  Matt bent his head to my hair and kissed it, and added his tears to the oncoming flood.

The nurse and doctor said some words, but we offered none.  Nodding seemed to be all we had to give.  At home we cried and we held each other in stunned silence.  Our world had once again been tainted, touched by the black finger of grief.

That night I started to bleed.  I stared in shock at the proof of my pain and feared what I would find.  The physical pain came right after like a cart behind a horse.  My body twisted and ached, and I cried.  I took the Vicodin and I stared dry eyed at my vacant belly.  Our little miracle gone.  Taken away.  We weren't worthy of this gift, so it was rescinded.

While I curled my body around the pain, Matt was left to suffer his own alone.  He hadn't told many people about our unexpected pregnancy and so was left with next to no one to talk to about it.  Only now can I begin to fathom what it must have been like.