I Had a Miscarriage by Jessica Zucker (classic books to read .TXT) 📗

the unintentional and seemingly universal horror of platitudes, navigating this firsthand was another thing entirely. Some conversations were smooth, others stilted, some not halfbad. I wasn’t sure what to make of the disappointments, the strained face-to-face interactions at preschool drop-off, the awkward pauses with friends I’d been close with for decades. Each a sucker punch to the gut.

Some subtle, others demonstrative, these blows hurled me into elaborate fantasies of intermittent hiding. But I had to resist; I had to push on.

• • •

I figured I’d huddle up close to those I’d known the longest. After all, they knew me—and I knew them—best.

So I set out to meet up with Sara. While Sara has never lost a pregnancy, she has lost people close to her, and she is one of my dearest childhood friends. We met in the fourth grade and have remained close ever since—ski trips to Mammoth, cross-country visits during college, long phone calls about our respective crushes, career ambitions, budding sex lives. She has a heart of gold and that wit of hers brings me to my knees in belly laughter every time. I knew she’d throw her arms around me and her embrace would remind me of the person I was before this horrendous experience. A person I so desperately missed.

Even though my anxiety was nearing an unparalleled level, I didn’t want to let myself reschedule our lunch plans. I knew seeing her would be good for my soul and that catching up face-to-face might rejuvenate me. I let her know in advance that my anxiety was at an all-time high—9.75 out of 10, to be exact. I wanted to give her a heads-up on my unfortunate labile state, to give her the opportunity to cancel in case my mourning was too overbearing. She was still up for it.

I arrived early. She was ten minutes late. I didn’t feel well. I thought about leaving. I waited.

She showed up in a turquoise A-line dress with gray side-zip booties and a trio of beaded gold, silver, and copper necklaces. She looked effortless as she floated toward me; her joie de vivre lit up her dark-brown eyes adorned in elongating mascara, with just a puff of blush illuminating her pale, porcelain cheeks. I envied the feeling she emanated. It was so good to see her. It had been a while. But it was hard too. Seeing her in her natural vitality underscored how desolate my insides felt, how downtrodden I must have looked. Connecting with someone who knew me when I was full of life mirrored back to me just how low I’d sunk.

As we picked at our salads, we talked about stuff going on in her work life, our kids, and the anxiety I’d been confronted with ever since my miscarriage. “Do you want to see a photo of the baby?” I ventured. “I know it’s intense, but I wondered if you might want to see what I saw; if you’d like to see her.” Sara’s eyes glazed over with empathy. “Of course I want to see her. I can’t believe you have photographs.” I grabbed my phone, opened the camera roll, and clicked on one of the images taken that day as I lay on the table during the D&C. I felt thankful again that my midwife friend had had the presence of mind to snap these, knowing what an important vestige they’d be as I navigated my grief.

“NOOOOOO!” Sara screamed, not quite loud enough for other tables to hear, as she averted her wincing gaze from the fetus that fell from my body a couple of weeks prior. She looked disgusted. The mood plummeted. I felt horrid, like I’d done something wrong. I quickly found myself trying to make her feel better with a string of bumbling apologies as I awkwardly shoved my phone deep in my bag, as if to bury the evidence. I could feel my face warm with shame. Or maybe it was anger? Perhaps a commingling of both.

“I’m sorry. Should I not have shown that to you?” I muttered in an embarrassed, hushed tone, as if I’d somehow done something wildly inappropriate.

Encapsulated in a cloud of silence for what felt like an eternity, we sipped sparkling water, chewed chunks of ice, and avoided eye contact.

Things devolved from there.

In an attempt at a lighter note, Sara looked up from her now-empty water glass.

“You look svelte; as if you weren’t even pregnant. Aren’t those your prepregnancy J Brand jeans?”

Gulp. I gave a perfunctory nod. “Yeah, the baby weight came off almost overnight.”

I could feel even my skin withdrawing from this seemingly frivolous direction of the conversation. From dead-baby photograph to the size of my body and jeans? This can’t be happening, I thought to myself.

“Lucky you! That must be a relief.”

A relief that my baby died and that I don’t look like I was ever pregnant? Please don’t erase my pregnancy with a trivial remark about the shape of this body of mine, I shouted in my head.

I calmly replied, “I guess.”

Her attempt to redirect the conversation put us smack in another emotional minefield: Talking about women’s bodies. Mine, specifically. People had said similar things to me after my son was born—“You look like you were never pregnant!”—and I found myself chafing against the declaration, which was so earnestly meant to be a compliment. I was, of course, changed. I wanted to be changed. I welcomed, was even overjoyed at, the physical and psychic changes brought about by motherhood. This moment was entirely different, but nonetheless the same. This pregnancy had left a mark on me; I didn’t want to hear that Sara couldn’t see it, or that it had been erased entirely. Also, I wished I were still pregnant, so hearing that I didn’t look like I had ever been pregnant was no consolation at all. Everywhere I looked, I was boxed in by another conversation I did not want to have. Conversations I knew were intended to help, but which too often blatantly