Have You Heard the Good News?

Mr. Crud emails his uncle that, unfortunately, he probably won’t be able to procure tickets to the Obama inauguration. Mr. Crud’s Uncle Jon excitedly purchased plane tickets to the nation’s capital and booked a hotel room the night of Obama’s victory. Now he just needs the important tickets, the ones that seemingly everyone (whose head isn’t lodged up their ass) wants. Fat chance. In his “thanks for trying” reply, Uncle Jon mentions that they have a lot going on with Rachel’s due date approaching and all.

Rachel’s due date?

“I can’t believe this,” Mr. Crud says as he emerges from the murky depths of his office a.k.a. “the dungeon.”

“What?”

“Rachel’s pregnant.”

“Oh my G-d!” I look up from the newspaper. “But she’s not married!!”

“Uh, yes she is.” Mr. Crud spares me the “duh” as he reminds me of their wedding. “You know, the martini ice sculpture?”

“Oh yeah, that wedding.” The one where I made multiple trips to the martini ice sculpture. The one where Mr. Crud and I announced to his brother and sister-in-law that we might just start trying for one of those baby thingamajigs in the near future.

“I can’t believe nobody told us,” he says.

“You know your mom. She was probably doing her version of protecting us.”

“Yeah, right,” he snorts.

Like most parents, both of our sets err on the side of keeping potentially upsetting news close to the vest. In high school, I learned that my grandfather had cancer on the way to the hospital to visit him after surgery. Mr. Crud learned that his parents were in the market for a new home after they had purchased a house and sold the one that he’d grown up in. Mr. Crud calls this technique the “Fait Accompli.” We are informed of family news after it’s a done deal.

As a teenager this communication style was one more way that adults were trying to screw me. Now that I’m adult, the Fait Accompli makes me feel like a child. A fragile butterfly instead of a tough-knuckled survivor.

“How do you feel about the whole thing?” Mr. Crud asks.

“You know, the usual, happy and sad and all fucked up.”

After remembering that Rachel is in fact married, I move to the next phase of emotion after learning of a friend or acquaintance or family member’s pregnancy. Why them and not us? My actual, uncensored thought was “Why does that turd—a.k.a. Rachel’s husband—get to be a father and not Mr. Crud?”

Then I grit my teeth and remind myself that I can add a “yet” to that last statement. Mr. Crud isn’t a father YET. I roll my eyes at myself.

I think I’ve entered the teenage years of my miscarriage existence. In short, I’m pissed. Why me? Why in the fuck me? Why twice? Why after two miserable months of nausea and exhaustion? That none of these questions will ever have an answer that I don’t make up to make myself feel better doesn’t keep them from multiplying like those fucking rabbits that seem to have so much luck with the whole birth thing.

All around me, smiling dads-to-be walk hand-in-hand with fecund partners. My old high school buddy updates the Facebook world on the news of her gestating twins. Don’t get me started on the celebrities. Jenna fucking Jameson? Who the fuck do you have to fuck to have a fucking successful pregnancy? I would really like to know.

My yoga friend whose had two miscarriages is pregnant. We email about getting together for coffee to share battle scars, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. She hasn’t told me that she’s pregnant. My yoga teacher let it slip.

“I think she’s at her 11th week now. Out of the woods,” he said with a raised eyebrow.

Not exactly, I think, but I am too flustered too respond. He is the final yoga teacher that I have to tell. When he left for a month-long trip to spread the word of yoga in Japan, I was a dragging pregnant lady. Upon his return today, it’s obvious that I’ve lost my drag, that my belly has not expanded to the size it should be for a 5 months pregnant lady, but he has said nothing all morning.

“Well, I obviously didn’t make it,” I mumble.

Either he didn’t understand me or he ignores my stuttered words. “Yeah, she should be coming back soon.”

“I hope so.” I don’t mind that he didn’t stop to give me a pitying stare, to tell me how sorry he is.

After telling him, I feel a weight lifted. He is the last one. Everyone else in the world who knew of my pregnancy knows that it is no more. The stress of knowing that you’ll have to tell somebody about a miscarriage is great. An albatross around the neck. Next week I am meeting up with old work friends. One knows about MC #1. One knows nothing. I’ve been putting off this meeting for months, wanting to postpone until I have good news to share. A fait accompli with a happy ending.