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

my pregnancy experience—and share I must, at some point—it was bound to activate negative feelings in some.

But what better place—one might argue—to be triggered than in the safe and supportive context of your therapist’s office? A space where feelings are addressed, talked through, and understood, together? Transference, a very basic and central concept of psychoanalytic theory, was bound to materialize during this period. And my work, now more than ever, was to take this in stride: to show up for my patients fully, to listen carefully, and to create a context in which all could be laid out and discussed. This was, of course, always the case in therapy, but given the fact that I was now part of their therapy process—my pregnancies, the lost one and the other that thrived, both activating feelings in them—my role had changed. Compassionate therapist though I still was, I now also carried the potential of being the problematizer too. We talked through all the feelings that arose.

But unfortunately, sometimes no amount of talking about feelings stimulated by this quick, next pregnancy of mine helped. To my dismay, one of my longtime patients, Paige, left therapy during this time. She’d been trying to get pregnant for years, to no avail. No pregnancies, no losses, and no children, Paige pivoted and decided to “give up” on family-building altogether. More than my bulging belly, it was the hope she saw in my eyes—later dashed and then returning once again—that pushed her to a place of intense discomfort in the context of my office, she told me. Hope that dissipated long ago in her eyes. Hope she held on to for years on end. Hope she loathed to see in others, especially now. So, sitting with me week after week became—understandably so—“more pain than it was worth.”

I think of Paige, still. And I even hear from her on occasion. About thirteen months after Noa was born, I received a holiday card from Paige in the mail. The photo on the cover of the card was of her, her partner, and their newborn baby. In it, she shared their adoption story and her nascent impressions of motherhood, and reflected on our work together.

The bonds braided over years of weekly sessions can sometimes bring about a depth and emotional intimacy that—no matter the circumstances—prevail. I feel fortunate and honored that this was the case with Paige. Because, of course, it does not always work out this way. I am grateful when it does.

• • •

Up until my loss, all I had known was my smooth pregnancy with Liev, and a steady clinical practice, with a specialization I knew only professionally, not intimately. Things changed. I became a person oscillating between hope and anxiety, trying desperately to foster the former while tamping down the latter as a grief-stricken wife, mother, daughter, therapist, and friend. In spite of knowing that my third baby was chromosomally healthy, the terror of loss continued still. Until she arrived safely, my daughter—and this thriving pregnancy of mine—felt more like a pipe dream than an eventual reality. And then, at long last, she came.

11

“The discordant refrain of what-if what-if what-if?”

My labor with Noa started gradually and progressed steadily. It rained that day, and I insisted on heading out on a hike in the hills in the early morning drizzle, with the hope of somehow getting things moving. By afternoon, contractions began, and as they quickened, my husband and I headed to the hospital.

Once we got settled in the hospital room, I recall hearing Jason talking with my doctor and the nurses, and moving about the room; I chimed in too. But the closer I got to the final stage of labor—transition—the more I required quiet and deep concentration. The intensity of the contractions demanded singular focus, most especially in those final hours.

I’d opted to forego pain relief. I had delivered Liev with the help of an epidural, but after experiencing the torment of delivering alone in my own home and the unmedicated D&C that followed, it became deeply important to me to bring this baby into the world while I was fully present, feeling it all. Soon after getting pregnant this time around, I realized how poetic and powerful it would be if I had the chance to give birth without numbing, without taking the edge off. I hadn’t really had an option as I labored through my miscarriage, but this time I’d have a choice, and I planned to embrace the pain willingly. There would be no fear of imminent loss this time. I wanted to feel my body go through this, and to bring about a new ending to the story I’d never intended to write at all. I wanted this birth—which I hoped would be a live one—to provide me with something reparative: the start of a lifelong relationship.

I spoke little, aware of the fact that if I left the steady confines of my mind, the physical pain might overwhelm me and propel me into another laboring direction altogether. The intensity of an unmedicated birth required stillness—I was in an internal, meditative state where I sat in silence on the birth ball. I stayed calm and quiet, inwardly facing the pain of childbirth with the knowledge that it was serving an important purpose—that each contraction was bringing me ever closer to meeting this baby of mine.

Pain is something we typically want no part of, be it physical or emotional, as it often signals that something is wrong, that something should be quelled. But not in this case. I went into labor with the mantra that in labor, pain is purposeful. Pain was a dance between my daughter’s body and mine, a necessary conduit to her entry into the world. I stayed the course, and did what I could to shut out the uncertainty—the question of whether or not she’d make it, if she’d be okay. Loss, after all, has that way about it: colors are muted, sepia tones wash over what would otherwise