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

think of in order to stay afloat. He adopted the I. Must. Survive. narrative and kept moving.

• • •

Ten days after the loss, my doctor rang with the results of the pathology tests. She had thought it may take a bit longer, so her call was unexpected. I anxiously awaited her words and hoped there was something to learn, as I knew it was possible the tests wouldn’t necessarily point to the reason why. Her voice had energy in it and her tone was purposeful, which gave me a smidge of hope she had news that might solve this mystery.

“A chromosomal abnormality—47 XXX or trisomy X—was identified,” she reported.

Anxiety lifted almost immediately, as this information indicated there were concrete medical facts—biological reasons—elucidating why this pregnancy ended as it did.

She explained in detail what this meant. Triple X syndrome is a genetic disorder that affects approximately one in one thousand female fetuses. Females typically have two X chromosomes in all cells—one X chromosome from each partner. In triple X syndrome, however, a female has three X chromosomes.

It was unnerving and paradoxical to feel such intense relief amid this gooey, tar-like heartache I’d been stranded in. But this news gave Jason and I the data we needed to understand that this death was not without reason or rationale. It gave me the space to understand my body; it had known what I didn’t, and had used that information in a way nature had intended. It made sense now, though emotionally it all still felt so nonsensical, of course. But in some very important ways, this news allowed for a welcomed shift in our thinking, particularly about our reproductive futures. In essence, this definitive news was a (re)affirmation of what I’d felt: that my body had not failed; that it was working as it should.

• • •

I hung up the phone.

“Look; I know we’d both been keen on you having an unmedicated birth, but this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Jason joked as he gently cupped my face in his hands. And at once, we were laughing, kissing, and bantering; that bridge that joined us together began to form, and I felt those old familiar feelings of intimacy and ease. I’d missed him, wanted him, and so desperately needed him; and here, at long last, was an emotional reunion. Here was my partner, my best friend, and the man who’d experienced all of this horror right alongside me, tortured at the idea of losing everything he loved in the blink of an eye.

Haggard but hopeful, we made it through together. Though our grief flung us apart for a short stint, it ultimately served as common ground. It was, after all, our only way forward. In the end, born from the loss of our daughter was an ability to exercise compassion for each other at new heights, to respect the other’s humanity and deeply personal emotional experience and reaction to grief.

Through our loss, we realized exactly how much a marriage holds the ability to endure, how strong a union between two people can be, and the extent to which we can learn multitudes about ourselves and each other. We welcomed, at long last, a renewed connection and a hard-won understanding of what resilience we possess in the face of death.

9

“Can pleasure and grief coexist?”

As I’ve combed through the various elements of life after loss, I’m struck by the ways in which loss can upend even our very personal and often complicated relationships with our bodies. Pregnancy can leave us intimately connected with them one moment, then feeling as if we’re veritable strangers the next. Or worse yet, despising or rejecting the very body we’ve been assigned, the one we must continue to live in.

Pregnancy loss can and often does serve as a reminder that our bodies, regardless of shape, size, color, or function, behave outside our control. Our bodies can become the key source of our discontent and grief, especially when we cannot will them to become or stay pregnant. Considering the feelings of betrayal that so often invade the minds of people who’ve experienced pregnancy loss, we might become prone to reassessing exactly how we feel about our bodies, how we feel in them, how we touch them, and, critically, how we like them to be touched.

We find ourselves reckoning with a coupling that is deeply troubling in nature: the intermingling of death and desire. Even though a woman may feel adrift after a pregnancy loss, she still exists as a sexual being—but how do you balance the two? Desire might wane in the face of loss. It might increase. It might remain relatively unchanged. I would like to think we can all agree that we deserve tenderness amid grief, and that such a thing can certainly come about by way of sexual intimacy. And in many instances, expressing sexual desire can serve as a coping mechanism. So as we begin to acknowledge our ability to possess the potential to soothe and rebuild from loss, sex can act as a conduit to elemental connection. Then again, maybe not.

Maybe our genitals or bodies themselves become specifically associated with loss, making it difficult to return to pleasure, as either a form of healing or simply for the sake of it. Does this site then become a source of anxiety, comfort, fear, dread? Toss some unanticipated grief into the mix, and, bam! The footing you thought you had is likely no longer. Sex and intimacy present one crucial question that we must reckon with post-loss: Can pleasure and grief coexist?

Pregnancy and everything surrounding it already has the power to change sex—its meaning, its purpose, its function, its feeling. Sometimes, once couples begin trying to conceive, the mood shifts, especially if it isn’t an easy road to conception (but this can also occur when conception happens fast). And because returning to sex after pregnancy loss also carries the potential of getting pregnant once again, hope and heartache might intertwine in a place previously uncomplicated by