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

pregnant again. But I don’t know. I just know that not everyone does get pregnant and so I mustn’t say a thing. I resist the reflex to enthusiastically say yes, as I know not what the future holds.

• • •

I understand this too well: The yearning to bypass trial and error. To just know—to find out somehow—what will come next, with some degree of definiteness. No one, of course, could predict if I’d get pregnant again, but I will admit, I searched high and low for answers. In those desperate moments of disquieting uncertainty, I turned to places I never thought I’d go. Grasping to glean insight, I turned to, of all places, a psychic. Vivian.

Vivian’s office was just south of Santa Monica Boulevard, west of the street on Camden Drive in the heart of Beverly Hills. Since her office was only about a twenty-minute walk from my own, I arrived early and apprehensive. I’d never done this before—search for answers in the metaphysical. Vivian greeted me with the air of someone regal as I glanced around her space to get a sense of her. A mix of faux flowers in dusty glass vases, stuffed animals, and several photographs of famous people in Lucite frames sat on the paint-chipped windowsill. Did these people really come here? We sat down around a thick walnut, oval table and she began shuffling cards. “Tell me when to stop,” she said. “Okay … Stop.” I was just playing along. I didn’t have a clue what we were doing.

She flipped the card over. “Do you have a son?”

“I do.”

Then, more shuffling. “Stop!” I exclaimed again. I was getting the hang of this now.

Vivian flipped another. “And you have a daughter?”

I hesitated. I was there for answers—not hide-and-seek—so rather than wait to see if she could guess what I’d just been through, I decided to share. “Maybe you’re picking up on my recent loss. I had a miscarriage, in the second trimester. It was a girl.”

There was a pause. A pregnant pause.

“No, no. No, that’s not it. You will have a daughter,” she said without hesitation.

“Really?” I said, perhaps a bit too skeptically.

I found her confidence fascinating, if not a little troubling.

“Why would I tell you that you were going to have a healthy daughter if you weren’t? This wouldn’t benefit you or me to tell you this if it wasn’t true,” she announced, her voice at once haughty and benevolent.

She had a point.

“And this girl has your eyes almost exactly, darling. Green and open wide, taking in the world with poise, just like you.”

Silence sat between us as I ventured to digest the enormity of what she’d said with aplomb. And then it dawned on me that this interchange could surely get my hopes up (high, way too high) and how much more dashed they’d be if she was wrong. What if this is all just make-believe? And what if she’d said I wouldn’t get pregnant again? Would this affect my next move?

We held eye contact.

She continued, “Sometimes things happen to us and they deepen our work. They incite a metamorphosis or a deepening of something we’ve already started. I believe your loss will do this.”

She hadn’t been privy to my last name, so there was no chance she’d googled me prior to my appointment; it seemed eerie that perhaps she was alluding to my practice and specialty. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“This loss of yours will help you affect others that have gone through similar experiences—this could be through service or writing or public speaking or other avenues, but whatever it is, your impact is needed.”

She was way off on other things she covered in our time together, but the things that were spot-on left me chilled for days. She was so sure. How could she be so sure?

Nevertheless, Vivian’s assuredness came and left my weary psyche almost as quickly as it’d blazed in—and I was right back where I’d started. Will I get pregnant quickly again? Have another loss? Or might I not even get pregnant at all? Her certainty hadn’t fully assuaged my concerns, so I was back to square one. No amount of crystal balls, shuffled stacks of tarot cards, or sorcery could convince me. I’d have to brave pregnancy again if I wanted to find out for sure.

• • •

Are you going to try again? The question itself seems innocent enough—albeit incredibly personal—but considering it after experiencing pregnancy loss can be cumbersome. The question looms. It often comes from others around us—those closest to us, gently or not-so-gently prodding to see if we’re feeling ready to make another attempt, and those on the outside of our circles who are less informed, reminding us offhandedly that our older child(ren) seems ready for a sibling or that it’s “about time” we have a child. But it’s not always like this—sometimes we find it percolating primarily within ourselves. And though it seems like a simple question, the answer is not necessarily altogether straightforward. After all, a loss holds the power to alter the way someone feels about pregnancy for good. Not always, of course, but sometimes. With loss can come a greater awareness of vulnerability—mortality even—now knowing too well what it feels like to lose something once growing inside of us. If we choose to dive in again, how do we relinquish the control that we never had to begin with, but somehow thought we did? Will this newfound awareness of our lack of control haunt us as we consider trying again, and perhaps accompany us through the next pregnancy, if there is one? How will it feel to try? What if we don’t get pregnant? What if we do?

I’ve seen a wide gamut of reactions from women in my office as they consider this complicated next step. Some are paralyzed in their grief and, as I’ve mentioned, unable to contemplate sex, let alone think about another pregnancy—not yet, anyway. Some, as I’ve also described, are crippled by an erroneous fear that