Scared

6-23-09

I call Mr. Crud because it’s all I can do to keep my shit together at work.

“I’m scared. My symptoms seem to be lessening. I’m not exhausted or nauseous anymore. I don’t know what to do.” Tears stream down my cheeks as I walk in the sunny afternoon en route to do deliveries, my reason to escape the office for a brief moment of honesty.

“It’s okay. Do you want to call the doctor? You can call her.”

“Yeah, I know.” I sniffle and wipe a tear away from my cheek. “I don’t know.”

The thought of waiting another week with this fear lodged firmly in my gut renews my tears. I could call her. I don’t want to be hysterical though. Symptoms can come and go, so say the pregnancy message boards. But this can also be a symptom of a missed miscarriage, which is my MO. In my previous pregnancies I felt the symptoms right up until I had the D & Cs. Or at least I thought I did. “But every pregnancy is different,” writes one mom on a message board trying to soothe the fears of a disappearing symptom pregnant woman. I read these over and over but simply don’t believe them. I send mental messages to my embryo: If you’re alive, keep going, but if not, get out. While I recognize the benefits to being a missed miscarriage person, most importantly the ability to test the products of conception to find a reason for the miscarriage, I still feel unsettled that my body doesn’t seem to know when enough is enough.

But that might not be the case now. Is probably not the case. “Only 1% of couples experience 3 or more consecutive miscarriages.” Now is not the time to be exceptional. Just normal. All I ask is normal.

“Do you want to call Dr. Awesome? See if you can come in earlier?” Mr. Crud asks.

“Maybe. I don’t know. I could email her, I guess.” I say. I emailed her yesterday about my pityriasis rosea. I don’t want to become a pushy patient and have my email privileges cut.

“Will that make you feel better?” He asks.

“Probably.”

I don’t email. I return to the office, cheeks tight from dried tears, and get to googling. Each reassuring message is like a hit of a drug. Temporarily satisfying, but I find myself needing more and more to maintain. I decide to give it another day and see how I feel. I remind myself that either way there is not a single solitary goddamn motherfucking thing that I can do. If the embryo is gone, it’s gone. If it’s still bumping alone, so it will. As long as I keep eating, breathing, sleeping (yeah, right), not smoking, and avoiding all the preg no-nos, I’ve done all I can do.

Surrender, I tell myself over and over, because fighting is like punching a brick wall.