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

come over and investigate my unexplained spotting, or at the very least, to check the baby’s heartbeat one more time. I was desperate for information. Insight. Answers. By phone, she suggested I have a sip of red wine to reduce the cramping and take a warm bath, then quickly drove over to our house to listen in on the baby.

The sound emanating from the doppler reassured us yet again that everything was proceeding as it should: baby’s heartbeat was as strong as ever. This brought a momentary sigh of relief, though the cramping continued, and my mind barked a cacophonous chaos of what-ifs. I tried hard to quell these grave thoughts. I had to. There was nothing I could do to change whatever course this pregnancy was already on, and there was no way to know why these things were happening or what was wrong. So we popped in a movie for some much-needed distraction, and I tried to lose myself in a narrative that wasn’t my own. I tried to find rest in those less intense moments when the cramping slowed but my mind could not.

It was a futile effort. I was up most of the night, roiling in thought-stopping physical torment. For ten-plus hours, I was trying to ward off—or somehow make peace with—the ebb and flow of the pain. Some moments were so intense, though, I felt like the wind was knocked straight out of me. Unable to speak, unable to catch my breath. The spotting, at this point, was an unconvincing shade of dull red, which seemed like a positive development, but still, I was unsure of how anxious I should be. I reminded myself of the encouraging doctor’s appointment throughout my sleepless night. There was no indication whatsoever that death was lurking on the horizon.

When things hadn’t improved by Thursday morning, my headspace plummeted, and the worry I had attempted to stave off not only resurfaced, but multiplied. Because of my sleepless night, I asked my husband to manage our son’s morning routine. The fact that my pain level was too severe for me to be involved was concerning to my husband. But he, like I, was not fully prepared to face the ramifications of any outcome other than the one that would end five months from that moment with us bringing home our second baby. He, like I, hoped this tornado of pain, uncertainty, and emotional overwhelm was temporary.

Still, I called a friend to ask if she’d be able to take our son, Liev, home from preschool at the end of the day and keep him for a while, just in case I still felt like this in the late afternoon. My husband was incredulous: “Why would this random Thursday be the time for our child’s first-ever sleepover? Isn’t he still too young for that?” The answer was probably yes, he wasn’t quite ready for a sleepover, but neither would he be prepared to see trauma unfurl before his fledgling eyes. While I couldn’t have anticipated in my wildest dreams (nightmares, more like) what was about to happen, I still didn’t want to take the chance that my sweet boy would have to witness anything grim.

The last thing I wanted was to be alone, but I didn’t ask Jason to stay either. He had an important workday ahead, and I figured I’d be uncomfortable at best and unable to play cars with my son in the afternoon at worst. So my husband left for work, my son for school, and there I was. Alone.

And that was when I realized there was no going back. There would be no going back to unbuttoning my jeans after a meal to make room for my growing belly. No going back to joking about how badly I wanted a beer with dinner—a hoppy IPA I could almost taste even though I was entering my fifth month without one.

Then, there would be nothing but going back. Back in time. Losing the pregnancy, and becoming a mother of one again. I miscarried, in my home.

• • •

As the cramps strengthened through the morning hours and the color of the blood changed from dull to bright once again, I began to pull my pants on to go see the perinatologist. I hoped seeing this maternal-fetal expert, a subspecialist of obstetrics who performs the twenty-week anatomy scans, genetic amniocentesis, and other such procedures concerning fetal care, would give me answers, even though it was unlikely he’d have any additional information than what I had ascertained two days prior at my ob-gyn’s. But I was desperate. I was determined. I was obsessed with finding a way, any way, to keep a tight grip on a future that, on some level, I knew was slipping away.

I never made it to his office that afternoon. As I shimmied myself into one of my maternity tops, panic overtook me. My palms began to sweat, my heart raced as if I’d just run a half marathon or downed gallons of undiluted black coffee. I felt light-headed and sure I’d lose consciousness. Somehow, I made it to the bathroom, shuffling slowly. I thought if I could simply empty my bladder, calm my breath and apply a cold compress to my face, I would resume normalcy.

Breathe.

I didn’t know it then, but I was in the active phase of childbirth, in what is termed “transition.” Moments from expelling a baby, the body rejiggers for release.

• • •

I heard a pop. Or did I? For better or worse, I simply do not know anymore. Maybe there was a distinct sound; a warning, as if my body was trying to say, “Please, get ready.” Perhaps there wasn’t, but in the recesses of my mind I have created an audible line in the sands of time that distinguishes the “before” and the “after.” Before and after I felt an urge, almost a compulsion, to howl a guttural “no” in sheer and utter disbelief. Before and after I looked down. Before and after I