Fellow Travelers

11-2-09

I haul my tired-from-work ass in through the back door and plop my bags onto the floor with a groan.

“Hey hon,” I say to Mr. Crud.

“Oh hey,” he says, rounding the corner from our currently under renovation bathroom. “Darrell and I were just talking pregnancy loss.” Darrell is the tile guy. He is turning our shabby budget bathroom into a sparkling newly tiled budget bathroom.

“Uh okay.” I beeline for the bedroom to shrug off maternity outfit #3—only so much you can do with a few pairs of cords, jeans, and variations on the black shirt—and slip into something more comfortable. Sweatpants.

Hm. Pregnancy loss. That’s an odd thing for two relative strangers to be talking about, especially dudes. I switch into make dinner mode and reemerge, freshly sweatpanted and starving.

Later that night Mr. Crud and I are hunched over our empty dinner plates.

“Good dinner, hon,” he says.

“Thanks.” I carry my plate to the sink. “So, pregnancy loss. How did that come up?”

“Darrell was asking me about your due date and I asked him if he and his wife had any kids. He said they had a loss last year. Then I told him about us.”

“Wow. That’s cool that he told you, that you guys could talk about it.”

“Yeah, he’s a cool guy.”

I feel heavy in my gut. My eyes start to tear. “I’m so sorry they had to go through that.”

“I know. We talked about all the messed up things people say like ‘it wasn’t meant to be’ and all that crap. Does that make anyone feel better?”

I’m already on record with my feelings on meant to be. I am surprised by the depth of the sadness I feel for these virtual strangers. Darrell seems like such a sweet guy. He sings along with the radio as he tiles, he throws a smile when we pass in the kitchen, and comes over on Saturday to make sure that our tiles are drying correctly. But it isn’t his nice guy-ness that has me sniffly. It’s the miscarriage and knowing that everywhere, all around us, people are experiencing losses. My instant kinship with the recent experiencers of pregnancy loss is slipping away. My status as pregnant woman—27 weeks, bitches!—has taken over. The miscarriages feel far away and dreamlike. Did 2008, the year of the miscarriage, really happen? The miscarriages aren’t that far gone. If I want to torture myself I can easily conjure up images and the emotional reality of those days, but that card has been shuffled to the back of the deck for the time being. I am using all my emotional and creative resources to keep myself from traveling that fearful path over and over. At times, I feel like I’m losing myself to this one singular goal—have baby without going crazy—but it works. At least for now.

I wonder if Darrell feels a tug of sadness, of longing when he catches a sideways glimpse of me and sees my growing—still Bactrian, g-ddamnit—bump(s).

The next time I see him I want to inappropriately pep talk him. Try again! You all can do it! We made it and so can you!! I keep my pep talk to myself, knowing that there is all too much that I don’t know. Maybe they had tests. Maybe they can’t do it or maybe they are just waiting to get up the nerve again. They are a good 10 years younger than Mr. Crud and me thus have the luxury of a longer period of wound-licking.

But then again, maybe he’ll take our story back to his wife and they’ll find the nerve to try again. (I know how egotistical this sounds. Can you hear the music swelling in the background as I paint myself an inspirational figure?) I had such role models on my road back to pregnancy world.