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.
Showing posts with label miscarriage 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miscarriage 2. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
My Darling Nausea
7-24-09
I awake to my alarm. 4:54 again. I push myself out of bed and it slaps me in the face: I only peed twice in the middle of the night last night. Panic. Are my symptoms subsiding? I haven’t been feeling as nauseous as I was either. As soon as I get to work I look up my latest pregnancy newsletter. Yes, phew, it says that symptoms can start diminishing as early as the 11th week. I’m well into week 12 so I can relax, right? I get an email from Ruby. She had a similar experience. Are we the only two women in the world praying for constant, nagging nausea?
Weird how I cling to symptoms like they are the baby itself. When else do nausea, frequent urination, and fatigue indicate that things are going well? Aside from a few pee sticks, journal entries, and medical bills, my symptoms (and now their memory) are all I have left from my first two pregnancies. Nausea and running to the bathroom are pregnancy to me. Until I get the belly, something to see and hold on to, I have nausea, dear nausea.
People told: My interim boss for the month of August. She is excited, kind, and low-key about the whole thing. Perfetto.
New Favorite Euphemism for Baby/Fetus/Purvis: Houseguest (courtesy of Trista)
I awake to my alarm. 4:54 again. I push myself out of bed and it slaps me in the face: I only peed twice in the middle of the night last night. Panic. Are my symptoms subsiding? I haven’t been feeling as nauseous as I was either. As soon as I get to work I look up my latest pregnancy newsletter. Yes, phew, it says that symptoms can start diminishing as early as the 11th week. I’m well into week 12 so I can relax, right? I get an email from Ruby. She had a similar experience. Are we the only two women in the world praying for constant, nagging nausea?
Weird how I cling to symptoms like they are the baby itself. When else do nausea, frequent urination, and fatigue indicate that things are going well? Aside from a few pee sticks, journal entries, and medical bills, my symptoms (and now their memory) are all I have left from my first two pregnancies. Nausea and running to the bathroom are pregnancy to me. Until I get the belly, something to see and hold on to, I have nausea, dear nausea.
People told: My interim boss for the month of August. She is excited, kind, and low-key about the whole thing. Perfetto.
New Favorite Euphemism for Baby/Fetus/Purvis: Houseguest (courtesy of Trista)
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Scared Day II
6-24-09
I’m coming to a sort of peace with this whole situation. Somehow I fell asleep last night and had dreams of serial killers—who first looked like Jon Hamm (sexy!) and then like John Goodman (not so sexy)—stalking me until it was an either you kill me or I kill you situation. So I killed the John Goodman incarnation in the middle of SE 39th Avenue in the pouring rain. Perhaps this blew off some of the gathering steam of my panicked afternoon and evening.
Today the panic has subsided and been replaced by a general gloom. I’ve had a miscarriage. The symptoms still haven’t returned to their pre-Tuesday levels. The sooner I accept the hard, sad truth and take up my mantle as habitual aborter (the medical term for ladies who miscarry 3 or more times in a row), the better. It’s only a matter of time before the next ultrasound of doom, the next D & C, the next round of extreme alienation and teary nights in front of the TV in search of sitcom salvation. I see it in the future so clearly. So clearly that I’ll be flummoxed if next week’s planned ultrasound is anything but negative.
At Mr. Crud’s urging I call Dr. Awesome this morning. I break into sobs almost as soon as the words, “my symptoms have decreased” leave my mouth. My planned speech, constructed between sun salutations during the morning’s yoga practice, falls apart as I sniffle and slobber and attempt to calmly answer her questions about breast tenderness and nausea.
“Oh no. I’m so sorry. This doesn’t necessarily mean you’re having a miscarriage. Sometimes symptoms come and go. Every pregnancy is different.” She says all the reassurances I’ve found on websites, but I feel 75% more comforted. “Nothing in your records indicates that you’ll have another miscarriage,” she says. Well, except the 2 previous miscarriages.
My options are to wait and see, to come in next Wednesday for the ultrasound as planned or to come in and take some blood tests over the next few days to monitor my hormone levels and see if they are rising or dropping. Dr. Awesome recommends waiting and seeing. An ultrasound in the clinic today wouldn’t be high resolution enough to tell much. I gather myself together and agree to wait. I don’t relish the idea of coming in for blood tests over the next few days only to have to return the following week. I can stay in this place of worst-case scenarios for a few days more.
I hang up and realize that I do feel better. I don’t really believe that nothing is wrong, but I at least feel like I’ve done something. Mr. Crud calls.
“I talked to the doctor.”
“Thank you,” he says.
I pass along her reassurances. “She says that this is all totally normal. The symptoms and how we’re reacting.”
“Oh.” Mr. Crud sounds like he’s in a tunnel or talking through a cup at the end of a string.
“You okay?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I just want to cry.” He says. I feel bad for dragging him along on this rollercoaster even though I know he wants to support me.
“You can cry,” I say. “You’re doing a great job.”
He is. Last night I told him that no matter what happens I still feel incredibly lucky because of him, which is no lie.
We make plans for an afternoon walk. I try not to think too much about my possible refreshed entry into Miscarriage World. I try not to think of all the people who had 2 miscarriages before having a successful pregnancy. How I want to be one of them so bad. How I do not want to join the 1% of couples who have 3 in a row. It’s going to be a long week.
I’m coming to a sort of peace with this whole situation. Somehow I fell asleep last night and had dreams of serial killers—who first looked like Jon Hamm (sexy!) and then like John Goodman (not so sexy)—stalking me until it was an either you kill me or I kill you situation. So I killed the John Goodman incarnation in the middle of SE 39th Avenue in the pouring rain. Perhaps this blew off some of the gathering steam of my panicked afternoon and evening.
Today the panic has subsided and been replaced by a general gloom. I’ve had a miscarriage. The symptoms still haven’t returned to their pre-Tuesday levels. The sooner I accept the hard, sad truth and take up my mantle as habitual aborter (the medical term for ladies who miscarry 3 or more times in a row), the better. It’s only a matter of time before the next ultrasound of doom, the next D & C, the next round of extreme alienation and teary nights in front of the TV in search of sitcom salvation. I see it in the future so clearly. So clearly that I’ll be flummoxed if next week’s planned ultrasound is anything but negative.
At Mr. Crud’s urging I call Dr. Awesome this morning. I break into sobs almost as soon as the words, “my symptoms have decreased” leave my mouth. My planned speech, constructed between sun salutations during the morning’s yoga practice, falls apart as I sniffle and slobber and attempt to calmly answer her questions about breast tenderness and nausea.
“Oh no. I’m so sorry. This doesn’t necessarily mean you’re having a miscarriage. Sometimes symptoms come and go. Every pregnancy is different.” She says all the reassurances I’ve found on websites, but I feel 75% more comforted. “Nothing in your records indicates that you’ll have another miscarriage,” she says. Well, except the 2 previous miscarriages.
My options are to wait and see, to come in next Wednesday for the ultrasound as planned or to come in and take some blood tests over the next few days to monitor my hormone levels and see if they are rising or dropping. Dr. Awesome recommends waiting and seeing. An ultrasound in the clinic today wouldn’t be high resolution enough to tell much. I gather myself together and agree to wait. I don’t relish the idea of coming in for blood tests over the next few days only to have to return the following week. I can stay in this place of worst-case scenarios for a few days more.
I hang up and realize that I do feel better. I don’t really believe that nothing is wrong, but I at least feel like I’ve done something. Mr. Crud calls.
“I talked to the doctor.”
“Thank you,” he says.
I pass along her reassurances. “She says that this is all totally normal. The symptoms and how we’re reacting.”
“Oh.” Mr. Crud sounds like he’s in a tunnel or talking through a cup at the end of a string.
“You okay?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I just want to cry.” He says. I feel bad for dragging him along on this rollercoaster even though I know he wants to support me.
“You can cry,” I say. “You’re doing a great job.”
He is. Last night I told him that no matter what happens I still feel incredibly lucky because of him, which is no lie.
We make plans for an afternoon walk. I try not to think too much about my possible refreshed entry into Miscarriage World. I try not to think of all the people who had 2 miscarriages before having a successful pregnancy. How I want to be one of them so bad. How I do not want to join the 1% of couples who have 3 in a row. It’s going to be a long week.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts
6-8-09
Back during preg #2, I picked up a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting despite the warnings from my doctor and doula that it wasn’t the best of resources. The true title should be What to Freak Out About When You’re Expecting as it contains extensive lists of all the things that could go wrong along. Not to mention the hyperventilating tone. (More exclamation points per paragraph than notes from my niece who is enamored of this most charismatic of quotation marks.) And the condescension. But such is the way of pregnancy world. A woman has sex, starts growing a being in her uterus and somehow morphs into a kindergartner in the eyes of the pregnancy industrial complex. The situation is improving with the publication of From The Hips and other such resources from the sassy and smart Gen X intelligentsia. But those books aren’t as detailed as the classic.
The hip, blue-jeaned woman on the cover beckons. Okay, fine. I’ll just take a quick look at what to expect during week 6. Sore tits: check. Nausea: yup. Food cravings/aversions: And how! (Though I always have my finger on the pulse of my appetite so I might be exaggerating.) My eyes drift to a sidebar “Stay positive!” Women who remain positive during their pregnancies have easier labors and fewer pre-term labors. Well, good for them. All the entreaties to stay optimistic are the fingernails-on-chalkboard of my subsequent pregnancies. I wouldn’t say that I’m all doom and gloom, but I’m certainly not bouncing around, spreading the news of my pregnancy far and wide, and plastering a smile on my face. Now that sounds stressful.
Mom and I are having our weekly chat. She asks how I’m feeling.
“Oh you know, a little sick, very tired, but on the whole I’m okay.”
“I hope you’re feeling better by the time I get there,” she says.
“I’m just hoping that I’m still pregnant by the time you get here.”
“Oh sweetie. Think good thoughts!” she says.
My mom does not appreciate my gallows humor. I try to explain to her that I am staying positive for the most part, but that it’s hard to be blindly positive when I know how things can turn out. When other women tell me of their pregnancies and aren’t aware of my history, I don’t instantly regale them with my story. I smile and congratulate them and envy them their uncomplicated joy. But for those who know, I am honest. Yes, I am thrilled. Seriously. I want it to work out very badly, but I just don’t believe it yet. Talk to me after my ultrasound at week 9. (Thanks for fitting us in before you give birth, Dr. Awesome!)
My yoga pal Jan said that her pregnancy was transformed after her positive ultrasound. I am waiting for similar magic. Not that I mind other people being optimistic. I rationally know that my chances are good, but I’m just not feeling it yet. When you’re on the wrong side of statistics twice in one year, it’s hard to believe that you can get back to the right side. In this case I am so ready to not be special.
Now if I may totally contradict myself. I also feel like I am supposed to be wary when I spread the news like if I were totally thrilled and jumping for joy that my friends would smack a smile on their faces while secretly thinking, “Is she delusional?” I feel like I need to acknowledge that we are in a precarious position. Sometimes I trot out the statistic that 3 miscarriages in a row is extremely rare. To others I just say, “We’re excited, but you know,” and look down at my growing pot -belly. At some point I will want to be balls-out thrilled. Oh probably around month 8 (g-d willing). And then no one will need to entreat me to be positive. I might even glow.
But we’re not there yet.
Random: As I lay in bed, contemplating pregnancy an image of 2 babies popped into my head. Twins? Not bloody likely. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days swearing to G-d that we didn’t use fertility drugs. For the record, we didn’t.
This weekend I devoured Elizabeth McCracken’s excellent An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, a memoir about her first pregnancy, which ended in a stillborn baby, and her second, which ended in a happy, healthy, breathing child. She nails many of my feelings: how I must remind myself over and over again not to assume anything of a pregnant woman’s history lest I judge harshly, and the anguish, the deep, bone-rattling, soul-painful anguish. Probably not the best book to read while pregnant, but I certainly feel less alone.
Back during preg #2, I picked up a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting despite the warnings from my doctor and doula that it wasn’t the best of resources. The true title should be What to Freak Out About When You’re Expecting as it contains extensive lists of all the things that could go wrong along. Not to mention the hyperventilating tone. (More exclamation points per paragraph than notes from my niece who is enamored of this most charismatic of quotation marks.) And the condescension. But such is the way of pregnancy world. A woman has sex, starts growing a being in her uterus and somehow morphs into a kindergartner in the eyes of the pregnancy industrial complex. The situation is improving with the publication of From The Hips and other such resources from the sassy and smart Gen X intelligentsia. But those books aren’t as detailed as the classic.
The hip, blue-jeaned woman on the cover beckons. Okay, fine. I’ll just take a quick look at what to expect during week 6. Sore tits: check. Nausea: yup. Food cravings/aversions: And how! (Though I always have my finger on the pulse of my appetite so I might be exaggerating.) My eyes drift to a sidebar “Stay positive!” Women who remain positive during their pregnancies have easier labors and fewer pre-term labors. Well, good for them. All the entreaties to stay optimistic are the fingernails-on-chalkboard of my subsequent pregnancies. I wouldn’t say that I’m all doom and gloom, but I’m certainly not bouncing around, spreading the news of my pregnancy far and wide, and plastering a smile on my face. Now that sounds stressful.
Mom and I are having our weekly chat. She asks how I’m feeling.
“Oh you know, a little sick, very tired, but on the whole I’m okay.”
“I hope you’re feeling better by the time I get there,” she says.
“I’m just hoping that I’m still pregnant by the time you get here.”
“Oh sweetie. Think good thoughts!” she says.
My mom does not appreciate my gallows humor. I try to explain to her that I am staying positive for the most part, but that it’s hard to be blindly positive when I know how things can turn out. When other women tell me of their pregnancies and aren’t aware of my history, I don’t instantly regale them with my story. I smile and congratulate them and envy them their uncomplicated joy. But for those who know, I am honest. Yes, I am thrilled. Seriously. I want it to work out very badly, but I just don’t believe it yet. Talk to me after my ultrasound at week 9. (Thanks for fitting us in before you give birth, Dr. Awesome!)
My yoga pal Jan said that her pregnancy was transformed after her positive ultrasound. I am waiting for similar magic. Not that I mind other people being optimistic. I rationally know that my chances are good, but I’m just not feeling it yet. When you’re on the wrong side of statistics twice in one year, it’s hard to believe that you can get back to the right side. In this case I am so ready to not be special.
Now if I may totally contradict myself. I also feel like I am supposed to be wary when I spread the news like if I were totally thrilled and jumping for joy that my friends would smack a smile on their faces while secretly thinking, “Is she delusional?” I feel like I need to acknowledge that we are in a precarious position. Sometimes I trot out the statistic that 3 miscarriages in a row is extremely rare. To others I just say, “We’re excited, but you know,” and look down at my growing pot -belly. At some point I will want to be balls-out thrilled. Oh probably around month 8 (g-d willing). And then no one will need to entreat me to be positive. I might even glow.
But we’re not there yet.
Random: As I lay in bed, contemplating pregnancy an image of 2 babies popped into my head. Twins? Not bloody likely. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days swearing to G-d that we didn’t use fertility drugs. For the record, we didn’t.
This weekend I devoured Elizabeth McCracken’s excellent An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, a memoir about her first pregnancy, which ended in a stillborn baby, and her second, which ended in a happy, healthy, breathing child. She nails many of my feelings: how I must remind myself over and over again not to assume anything of a pregnant woman’s history lest I judge harshly, and the anguish, the deep, bone-rattling, soul-painful anguish. Probably not the best book to read while pregnant, but I certainly feel less alone.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The Road Diverged
6-4-09
Mr. Crud and I are watching an installment of the excellent PBS series, “We Shall Remain.” Tecumseh and his posse are fighting valiantly against whitey. Mr. Crud and I root for the Indians even though we know how it all turns out. The announcer intones “The colonists then mutilated Tecumseh’s corpse beyond recognition.”
“Stay classy, America,” I say.
“I know. Really.” Mr. Crud snorts.
As the story continues on to the next chapter of Native American bravery and colonist chicken-shitery, I find my mind drifting. Ultrasound room. Audrey Hepburn. Babies floating in utero with their hearts outside of their bodies. Shit. I’ve been spending too much time on the internet again.
It started innocently enough. I went on Amazon to order a book about pregnancy after miscarriage. As I paged through the comments, trying to decipher if I should spend my hard-earned cash on yet another pregnancy book, I found more heartbreaking tales of miscarriage, multiple miscarriage, and harrowing experiences with birth defects that caused women to have late-term abortions. I’ve also been reading about the tragic murder of George Tiller, a man who has morphed into a saint in my eyes for his bravery and kindness to women stuck in the most miserable of situations. In short, I’m reading way too much about what can go wrong in a pregnancy while trying to keep myself sane.
“I’m thinking bad thoughts again,” I tell Mr. Crud.
“About?”
“The usual. It’s the internet’s fault,” I say.
“Stop doing that.” He squeezes my foot.
(It’s only week 5. Can you believe that? I wait at the traffic light this morning and think ahead to next week. Oh finally, week 7. Hold on a second. Just 6. Dang. Pregnancy time drags more than stoned time. When I was an enthusiastic stoner, I claimed that I was “beating time” when it felt like time passed at molasses speed. I loved beating time, wringing every last drop of nectar, from my glazed eye joy. Now? Not so much.)
I’m walking at lunch and imagining my mother’s visit here in August. Will I show by then? Or just look bloated and like I’ve gained a few? I imagine us shopping for maternity wear even though my plan is to don all the too-large t-shirts from my rocker days past. I plan to use pregnancy as an excuse to revisit my punk rock t-shirt roots. If not now, then when. Then my brain swerves again. Or I could be wearing my fat pants because I’ve been eating and drinking so much to chase away the pain of another miscarriage. I am experiencing two pregnancies simultaneously: best and worst-case scenarios. I want to believe. I want to relax when Dr. Awesome tells me that everything will be okay. I want to know that we have tested what needed to be tested, that it was just bad, bad luck (and my needy, overly hospitable uterus). But it’s so hard to go down the yellow brick road when the one that winds through the menacing woods is so much more familiar.
Symptoms: Almost passed out in yoga class when our teacher had us stand up to chant after I’d moved to floor poses. Guess I may need to tell him sooner rather than later about the bun in the oven.
Mr. Crud and I are watching an installment of the excellent PBS series, “We Shall Remain.” Tecumseh and his posse are fighting valiantly against whitey. Mr. Crud and I root for the Indians even though we know how it all turns out. The announcer intones “The colonists then mutilated Tecumseh’s corpse beyond recognition.”
“Stay classy, America,” I say.
“I know. Really.” Mr. Crud snorts.
As the story continues on to the next chapter of Native American bravery and colonist chicken-shitery, I find my mind drifting. Ultrasound room. Audrey Hepburn. Babies floating in utero with their hearts outside of their bodies. Shit. I’ve been spending too much time on the internet again.
It started innocently enough. I went on Amazon to order a book about pregnancy after miscarriage. As I paged through the comments, trying to decipher if I should spend my hard-earned cash on yet another pregnancy book, I found more heartbreaking tales of miscarriage, multiple miscarriage, and harrowing experiences with birth defects that caused women to have late-term abortions. I’ve also been reading about the tragic murder of George Tiller, a man who has morphed into a saint in my eyes for his bravery and kindness to women stuck in the most miserable of situations. In short, I’m reading way too much about what can go wrong in a pregnancy while trying to keep myself sane.
“I’m thinking bad thoughts again,” I tell Mr. Crud.
“About?”
“The usual. It’s the internet’s fault,” I say.
“Stop doing that.” He squeezes my foot.
(It’s only week 5. Can you believe that? I wait at the traffic light this morning and think ahead to next week. Oh finally, week 7. Hold on a second. Just 6. Dang. Pregnancy time drags more than stoned time. When I was an enthusiastic stoner, I claimed that I was “beating time” when it felt like time passed at molasses speed. I loved beating time, wringing every last drop of nectar, from my glazed eye joy. Now? Not so much.)
I’m walking at lunch and imagining my mother’s visit here in August. Will I show by then? Or just look bloated and like I’ve gained a few? I imagine us shopping for maternity wear even though my plan is to don all the too-large t-shirts from my rocker days past. I plan to use pregnancy as an excuse to revisit my punk rock t-shirt roots. If not now, then when. Then my brain swerves again. Or I could be wearing my fat pants because I’ve been eating and drinking so much to chase away the pain of another miscarriage. I am experiencing two pregnancies simultaneously: best and worst-case scenarios. I want to believe. I want to relax when Dr. Awesome tells me that everything will be okay. I want to know that we have tested what needed to be tested, that it was just bad, bad luck (and my needy, overly hospitable uterus). But it’s so hard to go down the yellow brick road when the one that winds through the menacing woods is so much more familiar.
Symptoms: Almost passed out in yoga class when our teacher had us stand up to chant after I’d moved to floor poses. Guess I may need to tell him sooner rather than later about the bun in the oven.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Hurry!
1-15-09
The cramps began early this morning, awaking me from my dream where Max and Kathy Crud had recently welcomed their second child into the world, a cherubic boy named Purvis. I bounced Purvis on my knee, wondering even in dream-world if I would ever give birth to my own Purvis. (Who, for the record, I would not name Purvis.)
Over the last week my desire to “try this bullshit again” as I told, Kelley, my massage therapist and (fingers crossed) doula-to-be has gone from trickle to waterfall. Last Friday I had a moment to talk to Jan*, the pregnant yoga buddy who has endured 2 miscarriages, each about a month before mine. I dropped off my mat then stepped up to her office door.
“Congratulations,” I said, peeking around the corner.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling. “How are you?”
“I’m good, really good,” I said. “How are YOU?”
“I’m good too.”
She gave me the montage version of her miscarriages. The first came quickly after the positive pregnancy test. The second was an experience similar to mine—ultrasound of doom at 9 weeks after already having a positive ultrasound at 6 weeks. She and her husband did the full battery of tests: blood draws, an ovary stress test, sperm tests, the whole work-up. The news was mixed.
“We decided to give it one month, one more chance, before doing in vitro and—“ she cradles her belly. “I still don’t believe it, but it’s getting pretty hard to deny.” She laughs.
I ask her about the anxiety, if she can relax, why she stopped doing yoga for two months. The questions flow in a giddy rush. In part, I will be late for work if I chat too long, and in part, I need to hear good news, to pretend for just a moment that her experience will be mine.
“I am relaxing. We’re having a boy. After a positive ultrasound experience, I could relax,” she says.
She stopped the yoga on doctor’s orders after she started to bleed. “But the bleeding was probably caused by the ultrasound or the progesterone. They didn’t tell me that of course.” She snorts. “I had to stop longer than I wanted, but it was okay. I did hatha and it was fine. Of course I’m not where I used to be.”
But who is in ashtanga world? Sometimes it feels like we are in constant recovery from past injuries or keeping a wary eye on those creaky body parts for injuries on the horizon. Do I require drama in all aspects of my life? Even yoga?
“The doctors said that yoga wouldn’t cause a miscarriage.”
Every time I hear those words, I am almost rushing to hear them again. Like Lenny and his rabbits, I need to be told daily that nothing I did caused my miscarriages, especially not yoga.
“How about you?” Jan asks.
“We’re thinking about getting going again,” I say, tears glistening in my eyes. “I’m terrified, but what can you do?”
“I’m praying for you,” she says. We hug.
“But I won’t ask if you’re pregnant. You can tell me whenever you’re ready.”
“I’ll probably tell you first thing. I’ll need the support.”
Walking to my office, I feel lighter. The possibility of having a baby is no longer an impassible mountain.
I email my doctor with thanks for her calls, her card, and all her kindness. We set up a phone appointment for the following Monday. Then, Sunday, Mr. Crud and I stop by the bakery before yoga class. Seconds before walking in my spidey senses tingled. I dismissed my intuition as hopeful thinking.
I buy us bread—a 7-grain carrot roll for me, a short skinny for Mr. Crud—and we step towards the door. Dr. Awesome (her newly coined PPC2 name) spins around, her son on her hip.
“Hey!” We say in unison.
The woo-woo side of me goes into overdrive. Despite all my anti-meant-to-be propaganda, I still feel like coincidences are more than the sum of their parts. This is a sign! First Jan, now Dr. Awesome. We must skip yoga class and commence to making Peabody 3 despite the fact that I am a week past ovulation.
We chat, we meet Dr. Awesome’s hot-chocolate mustached son. “You growing a mustache?” Mr. Crud asks.
I smile at Dr. Awesome. Isn’t he good at this?
We confirm our phone appointment and head off to yoga class, my baby mania quelled by the promise of restorative poses.
“So, what are your questions?” Dr. Awesome asks the following Monday morning.
I shut my office door and tell my student worker that I’m going into brief seclusion. He can hear through the window that separates my office from the front reception era but I don’t care. I’m less and less worried about my coworkers knowing about MC#2 these days. They can know. I just don’t want to talk about it.
“Can you go over what happened one more time? I was kind of in a fog right after it happened.”
She consulted the genetic counselor before calling. MC#1 remains a mystery. MC#2 was caused by Trisomy 22. Trisomy 22 is the second leading cause of chromosomal miscarriages and has nothing to do with my old lady eggs or Mr. Crud’s sperm.
“It’s a sporadic variation. Something went wrong when the cells were dividing.”
I jump in, always ready to flog myself. “So could anything I was doing have interfered with normal cell division?”
“No. It’s a mystery why it happens. It just does.”
Ah, the double-edged sword of mystery talk. I wonder if Dewey’s cells were happily dividing when all of a sudden I swung into triangle pose, causing a chromosome to hop to another cell.
“So tell me about the tests.”
Genetic tests. “They can tell you if you are at a higher risk for this happening again, but they can be expensive and insurance might not cover them.”
Thyroid tests. “We sometimes don’t know if something is wrong with the thyroid. It’s not likely, but it’s good to be sure.”
Thrombosis test. “This will tell us if you have a clotting problem. It might explain your first miscarriage if this is the problem.”
Saline infused sonogram. Dr. Awesome needs to consult with the doc who performed my D and C to see what we can learn from this. “Likely it will tell us if the embryo is having a hard time attaching to your uterus because of fibroids.”
Dr. Awesome tells me that most of these situations are treatable. The thyroid with drugs; the clotting with baby aspirin. She and the genetic counselor agree that the genetic tests will likely turn up negative.
Now for my silly question. “Should we wait until we get the test results to start trying?”
“Probably, but if we find out the results early enough in your pregnancy then we can start treating you.”
I decide to consult with Mr. Crud before canceling the genetic tests. I know he will be disappointed. He’s been itching to get his blood drawn. I suspect he’d even be psyched to have to give a sperm sample.
I calculate the date of my expected period. Getting the test results before the fun times of fertile days will be a tight squeeze. I’m in a devil-may-care-fuck-it-let’s-try phase, but I’m alone. Mr. Crud still gets the jittery “eeeee” face when I bring up the possibility.
Purvis’ cousin-to-be will likely be on hold another month. At least.
* Not her real name.
The cramps began early this morning, awaking me from my dream where Max and Kathy Crud had recently welcomed their second child into the world, a cherubic boy named Purvis. I bounced Purvis on my knee, wondering even in dream-world if I would ever give birth to my own Purvis. (Who, for the record, I would not name Purvis.)
Over the last week my desire to “try this bullshit again” as I told, Kelley, my massage therapist and (fingers crossed) doula-to-be has gone from trickle to waterfall. Last Friday I had a moment to talk to Jan*, the pregnant yoga buddy who has endured 2 miscarriages, each about a month before mine. I dropped off my mat then stepped up to her office door.
“Congratulations,” I said, peeking around the corner.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling. “How are you?”
“I’m good, really good,” I said. “How are YOU?”
“I’m good too.”
She gave me the montage version of her miscarriages. The first came quickly after the positive pregnancy test. The second was an experience similar to mine—ultrasound of doom at 9 weeks after already having a positive ultrasound at 6 weeks. She and her husband did the full battery of tests: blood draws, an ovary stress test, sperm tests, the whole work-up. The news was mixed.
“We decided to give it one month, one more chance, before doing in vitro and—“ she cradles her belly. “I still don’t believe it, but it’s getting pretty hard to deny.” She laughs.
I ask her about the anxiety, if she can relax, why she stopped doing yoga for two months. The questions flow in a giddy rush. In part, I will be late for work if I chat too long, and in part, I need to hear good news, to pretend for just a moment that her experience will be mine.
“I am relaxing. We’re having a boy. After a positive ultrasound experience, I could relax,” she says.
She stopped the yoga on doctor’s orders after she started to bleed. “But the bleeding was probably caused by the ultrasound or the progesterone. They didn’t tell me that of course.” She snorts. “I had to stop longer than I wanted, but it was okay. I did hatha and it was fine. Of course I’m not where I used to be.”
But who is in ashtanga world? Sometimes it feels like we are in constant recovery from past injuries or keeping a wary eye on those creaky body parts for injuries on the horizon. Do I require drama in all aspects of my life? Even yoga?
“The doctors said that yoga wouldn’t cause a miscarriage.”
Every time I hear those words, I am almost rushing to hear them again. Like Lenny and his rabbits, I need to be told daily that nothing I did caused my miscarriages, especially not yoga.
“How about you?” Jan asks.
“We’re thinking about getting going again,” I say, tears glistening in my eyes. “I’m terrified, but what can you do?”
“I’m praying for you,” she says. We hug.
“But I won’t ask if you’re pregnant. You can tell me whenever you’re ready.”
“I’ll probably tell you first thing. I’ll need the support.”
Walking to my office, I feel lighter. The possibility of having a baby is no longer an impassible mountain.
I email my doctor with thanks for her calls, her card, and all her kindness. We set up a phone appointment for the following Monday. Then, Sunday, Mr. Crud and I stop by the bakery before yoga class. Seconds before walking in my spidey senses tingled. I dismissed my intuition as hopeful thinking.
I buy us bread—a 7-grain carrot roll for me, a short skinny for Mr. Crud—and we step towards the door. Dr. Awesome (her newly coined PPC2 name) spins around, her son on her hip.
“Hey!” We say in unison.
The woo-woo side of me goes into overdrive. Despite all my anti-meant-to-be propaganda, I still feel like coincidences are more than the sum of their parts. This is a sign! First Jan, now Dr. Awesome. We must skip yoga class and commence to making Peabody 3 despite the fact that I am a week past ovulation.
We chat, we meet Dr. Awesome’s hot-chocolate mustached son. “You growing a mustache?” Mr. Crud asks.
I smile at Dr. Awesome. Isn’t he good at this?
We confirm our phone appointment and head off to yoga class, my baby mania quelled by the promise of restorative poses.
“So, what are your questions?” Dr. Awesome asks the following Monday morning.
I shut my office door and tell my student worker that I’m going into brief seclusion. He can hear through the window that separates my office from the front reception era but I don’t care. I’m less and less worried about my coworkers knowing about MC#2 these days. They can know. I just don’t want to talk about it.
“Can you go over what happened one more time? I was kind of in a fog right after it happened.”
She consulted the genetic counselor before calling. MC#1 remains a mystery. MC#2 was caused by Trisomy 22. Trisomy 22 is the second leading cause of chromosomal miscarriages and has nothing to do with my old lady eggs or Mr. Crud’s sperm.
“It’s a sporadic variation. Something went wrong when the cells were dividing.”
I jump in, always ready to flog myself. “So could anything I was doing have interfered with normal cell division?”
“No. It’s a mystery why it happens. It just does.”
Ah, the double-edged sword of mystery talk. I wonder if Dewey’s cells were happily dividing when all of a sudden I swung into triangle pose, causing a chromosome to hop to another cell.
“So tell me about the tests.”
Genetic tests. “They can tell you if you are at a higher risk for this happening again, but they can be expensive and insurance might not cover them.”
Thyroid tests. “We sometimes don’t know if something is wrong with the thyroid. It’s not likely, but it’s good to be sure.”
Thrombosis test. “This will tell us if you have a clotting problem. It might explain your first miscarriage if this is the problem.”
Saline infused sonogram. Dr. Awesome needs to consult with the doc who performed my D and C to see what we can learn from this. “Likely it will tell us if the embryo is having a hard time attaching to your uterus because of fibroids.”
Dr. Awesome tells me that most of these situations are treatable. The thyroid with drugs; the clotting with baby aspirin. She and the genetic counselor agree that the genetic tests will likely turn up negative.
Now for my silly question. “Should we wait until we get the test results to start trying?”
“Probably, but if we find out the results early enough in your pregnancy then we can start treating you.”
I decide to consult with Mr. Crud before canceling the genetic tests. I know he will be disappointed. He’s been itching to get his blood drawn. I suspect he’d even be psyched to have to give a sperm sample.
I calculate the date of my expected period. Getting the test results before the fun times of fertile days will be a tight squeeze. I’m in a devil-may-care-fuck-it-let’s-try phase, but I’m alone. Mr. Crud still gets the jittery “eeeee” face when I bring up the possibility.
Purvis’ cousin-to-be will likely be on hold another month. At least.
* Not her real name.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, December 5, 2008
My Darling, My Parasite
I plunk my ass in a chair next to an unassuming twenty-something hipster type. The writing workshop I’ve been waiting for with bated breath is finally here. Lynda Barry live, breathing, to be in front of me in mere minutes. The vibe is mellow. Mainly 30-something and older women ready to get our writing groove on with a few bespectacled fellows to keep things diverse. I feel more like myself today than I have in ages. I’m still adjusting to the post-miscarriage me and coming to terms with the fact that this experience has changed me in ways that I didn’t expect. Who knew that miscarriages would turn saying a simple sentence, a simple answer to “How’s it going? What’s been up with you all?” into a scramble for words. I don’t want to lie, but I don’t want to walk around laying miscarriage bummers on all my friends.
The pregnant woman sits down behind me. The matronly woman beside her breaks my concentration on my Pelecanos paperback, the leftover easy reader from jury duty earlier in the week that I brought to keep me company in the quiet moments between writing.
“So when’s the big day?” The woman asks from the table behing me.
“Any day now. I am so ready for Audrey to get here.” Her voice is sharp and nasally like Courtney Love.
“Audrey’s a pretty name.” The woman coos.
Of all the places I could sit in this room of 50 seats, I end up in front of the pregnant woman. Fucking great.
“Yeah, I was going to wait until I met her, but then I realized that I’d already been getting to know her. She’s an Audrey,” Courtney says.
I resist the urge to turn around and take her and her swollen belly in for a moment. Then I can’t resist. I steal a glimpse over my shoulder. The picture I have in my head of Courtney is not far off from the reality: late 20s, round, protruding belly (you can’t get anything past me), dyed black hair in crooked pigtails, wearing slouchy jeans and a faded black band tee. I give myself a pep talk. You cannot dislike women because they are pregnant, because they speak about their pregnancy like the majority of women who’ve never stared down the barrel of a bad ultrasound.
But I sure can dislike somebody for raising her hand to read aloud at every freaking opportunity.
This writing workshop is unique in that the class is instructed to keep our heads down, “working on our spiral” while people read from their assignments. As we doodle spirals and the alphabet, the teacher, Lynda Barry, goes around the room to call on people who have their hands raised and want to read. As you may have noticed, I have a definite sense of how things should be done. I have unspoken rules. I’m a bit of a Larry David without the clit to act on my code beyond a disappointed look or mutter. The same goes doubly true for writing workshops. The first day I (arbitrarily) decide that reading 1-3 times per day is acceptable. You have to give the other folks a chance. You have to keep some of your writing for yourself.
Courtney does not respect my code of the Lynda Barry writing workshop. She stomps all over it by not only reading every time, but raising her hand so fast that she is the first reader most times.
Before Mr. Crud dropped me off at the workshop, he spaketh these wise words, “Don’t be so quick to find a bete noir. Maybe try not looking for one at all.”
I snorted. “Yeah right. I mean, I’ll do my best.”
My best didn’t last very long.
That night I gave Mr. Crud the news. “I couldn’t do it. I have a bete noir.”
“Oh dingles.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But she read every time. And she talked about her pregnancy in that fake-complaining-bragging way.”
I reassure myself that it’s not the pregnancy that is bugging me so much as the breach in writing workshop etiquette. I want to look around and see if anyone else is annoyed, if any other eyes dart up from being bent over our spiral doodles, but fear attracting the attention and ire of my idol. Don’t be such a jerk, I say to myself.
Ahem, loving kindness anyone?
Day 2 begins with a group sing-a-long to the Underpants Gnomes theme song. Promising to say the least. I am in full-on brain crush mode for all things Lynda Barry. I scribble words that I hope will evoke the anecdotes and jokes she tells. Words to seed my retelling of the workshop to Mr. Crud later that day.
Our second assignment is to write something inspired by the word “Shock.” My first image is the darkened ultrasound room. Ah jeez, I chide myself, can we let that one be for a day? I have written recently and extensively on my close encounters with miscarriage shock. I write about something else.
After the requisite 8 minutes of writing, we bow our heads and begin our spirals. Out of the corner of my eye I catch the next reader and quickly look back to my spiral. She reads haltingly of the day that she learned she was pregnant and excitedly told her husband. Her voice grows quieter as she navigates the words, pausing to sniff back tears. I feel my eyes growing full. Oh no oh no oh no. I wanted to escape miscarriage for this weekend, for these precious 6 hours, but there is nowhere to run.
The woman takes a deep breath and reads the final sentence of the piece, her husband’s reaction to her pregnancy announcement. “Don’t get too excited. Sometimes these things don’t stick.” She breaks down into sobs. I want to run and sling an arm around her slight shoulders. “Did it take?” I want to ask her. Did it?
Tears are not uncommon during the course of the workshop. Men and women push back against the waters churning within. My turn comes during the lunch break. Lynda is signing books. I feel like a dope for forgetting my books. I’m not big on book signings. They feel weird to me. The purpose of the book signing is more a ruse to facilitate contact with the writer. Silly me, I have forgotten my ruse. Courtney plops down next to Lynda and inserts herself into every conversation Lynda has with the workshop participants lined up to get books signed.
“Audrey is totally going to read all your books,” she says.
“Do I sign it to you or Audrey?” Lynda asks.
Across the room I turn back to my PB & J and fume. It’s always the loud girls who command the attention of the writers I love. Likely because the writers are awkward and quiet like me and can relax into the feeling of not having to make conversation.
The woman who read her “Shock” piece sits a few tables over from me, picking at a bowl of noodles. Like me she is eavesdropping on Lynda and the booksignees. Her shoulders are stiff, her face closed and tight. Her lips are a thin lipsticked red line. When I look at her eyes I have to look away, the intensity of the sadness is so strong. I may cry if I look at her too long. Did it take? I still want to ask. Did it?
I crumple my napkin. Lynda is rubbing Courtney’s belly and kissing it. “For Audrey,” she says joyously.
Jealousy flashes. In different circumstances, Courtney and I might be bonding right now. I imagine our conversation.
“Yeah, I’m about 5 months along,” I would have said had Dewey lived.
“Oh girl, you are in for some fun.”
Sure, we wouldn’t have become best pals or anything but we could have had a pregnant lady bonding moment.
“I call Audrey my parasite,” Courtney says in real life. “My sweet little parasite.”
“Oooo, I LOVE parasites,” Lynda says.
That does it. I shoot out of my seat and bump into desks and chairs, but thankfully not any of the people in line on my way out the door. I walk the halls of the Convention Center and settle in a spot away from the hubbub of Wordstock and the 2008 Holiday Food and Gift Festival. My longing for my own parasite almost knocks me over. I want to break workshop rule #1 and talk to Shock Reader about her pregnancy. Did it take? Me neither.
I collect myself and return to the room for 2 more hours of writing exercises. Lynda gives us another word. We write. We spiral. Courtney’s voice sounds first.
She tells the story of the last time she saw Audrey’s father: He is in love with another woman, he doesn’t even want to know when Audrey is born. Courtney has shed her tough girl voice and breaks down into sobs. Still I feel hard towards her. On my spiral sheet I write “Y CANT U B KIND?”
Why indeed.
After the workshop Mr. Crud says, “You look happy. Really happy. I’m so glad.”
I feel happy too. A whole weekend of doing what I love with one of my favorite writers has put a spring in my step. I am exhausted and welcome the bed’s embrace.
That night I dream that I am getting an ultrasound after my D and C.
“The baby isn’t developing but it’s still alive,” the doctor says.
“How can that be?” I ask, upset that the D and C didn’t get everything.
The doctor shrugs his shoulders. My dream spirals into images of waiting rooms and the fluttering heartbeat on the ultrasound screen.
The symbolism is too heavy for even me to miss. My babies are still alive even if they aren’t developing, even if they are discarded cells in a biohazard garbage bag. I carry the weight of their absence. My embryos, my parasites.
The pregnant woman sits down behind me. The matronly woman beside her breaks my concentration on my Pelecanos paperback, the leftover easy reader from jury duty earlier in the week that I brought to keep me company in the quiet moments between writing.
“So when’s the big day?” The woman asks from the table behing me.
“Any day now. I am so ready for Audrey to get here.” Her voice is sharp and nasally like Courtney Love.
“Audrey’s a pretty name.” The woman coos.
Of all the places I could sit in this room of 50 seats, I end up in front of the pregnant woman. Fucking great.
“Yeah, I was going to wait until I met her, but then I realized that I’d already been getting to know her. She’s an Audrey,” Courtney says.
I resist the urge to turn around and take her and her swollen belly in for a moment. Then I can’t resist. I steal a glimpse over my shoulder. The picture I have in my head of Courtney is not far off from the reality: late 20s, round, protruding belly (you can’t get anything past me), dyed black hair in crooked pigtails, wearing slouchy jeans and a faded black band tee. I give myself a pep talk. You cannot dislike women because they are pregnant, because they speak about their pregnancy like the majority of women who’ve never stared down the barrel of a bad ultrasound.
But I sure can dislike somebody for raising her hand to read aloud at every freaking opportunity.
This writing workshop is unique in that the class is instructed to keep our heads down, “working on our spiral” while people read from their assignments. As we doodle spirals and the alphabet, the teacher, Lynda Barry, goes around the room to call on people who have their hands raised and want to read. As you may have noticed, I have a definite sense of how things should be done. I have unspoken rules. I’m a bit of a Larry David without the clit to act on my code beyond a disappointed look or mutter. The same goes doubly true for writing workshops. The first day I (arbitrarily) decide that reading 1-3 times per day is acceptable. You have to give the other folks a chance. You have to keep some of your writing for yourself.
Courtney does not respect my code of the Lynda Barry writing workshop. She stomps all over it by not only reading every time, but raising her hand so fast that she is the first reader most times.
Before Mr. Crud dropped me off at the workshop, he spaketh these wise words, “Don’t be so quick to find a bete noir. Maybe try not looking for one at all.”
I snorted. “Yeah right. I mean, I’ll do my best.”
My best didn’t last very long.
That night I gave Mr. Crud the news. “I couldn’t do it. I have a bete noir.”
“Oh dingles.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But she read every time. And she talked about her pregnancy in that fake-complaining-bragging way.”
I reassure myself that it’s not the pregnancy that is bugging me so much as the breach in writing workshop etiquette. I want to look around and see if anyone else is annoyed, if any other eyes dart up from being bent over our spiral doodles, but fear attracting the attention and ire of my idol. Don’t be such a jerk, I say to myself.
Ahem, loving kindness anyone?
Day 2 begins with a group sing-a-long to the Underpants Gnomes theme song. Promising to say the least. I am in full-on brain crush mode for all things Lynda Barry. I scribble words that I hope will evoke the anecdotes and jokes she tells. Words to seed my retelling of the workshop to Mr. Crud later that day.
Our second assignment is to write something inspired by the word “Shock.” My first image is the darkened ultrasound room. Ah jeez, I chide myself, can we let that one be for a day? I have written recently and extensively on my close encounters with miscarriage shock. I write about something else.
After the requisite 8 minutes of writing, we bow our heads and begin our spirals. Out of the corner of my eye I catch the next reader and quickly look back to my spiral. She reads haltingly of the day that she learned she was pregnant and excitedly told her husband. Her voice grows quieter as she navigates the words, pausing to sniff back tears. I feel my eyes growing full. Oh no oh no oh no. I wanted to escape miscarriage for this weekend, for these precious 6 hours, but there is nowhere to run.
The woman takes a deep breath and reads the final sentence of the piece, her husband’s reaction to her pregnancy announcement. “Don’t get too excited. Sometimes these things don’t stick.” She breaks down into sobs. I want to run and sling an arm around her slight shoulders. “Did it take?” I want to ask her. Did it?
Tears are not uncommon during the course of the workshop. Men and women push back against the waters churning within. My turn comes during the lunch break. Lynda is signing books. I feel like a dope for forgetting my books. I’m not big on book signings. They feel weird to me. The purpose of the book signing is more a ruse to facilitate contact with the writer. Silly me, I have forgotten my ruse. Courtney plops down next to Lynda and inserts herself into every conversation Lynda has with the workshop participants lined up to get books signed.
“Audrey is totally going to read all your books,” she says.
“Do I sign it to you or Audrey?” Lynda asks.
Across the room I turn back to my PB & J and fume. It’s always the loud girls who command the attention of the writers I love. Likely because the writers are awkward and quiet like me and can relax into the feeling of not having to make conversation.
The woman who read her “Shock” piece sits a few tables over from me, picking at a bowl of noodles. Like me she is eavesdropping on Lynda and the booksignees. Her shoulders are stiff, her face closed and tight. Her lips are a thin lipsticked red line. When I look at her eyes I have to look away, the intensity of the sadness is so strong. I may cry if I look at her too long. Did it take? I still want to ask. Did it?
I crumple my napkin. Lynda is rubbing Courtney’s belly and kissing it. “For Audrey,” she says joyously.
Jealousy flashes. In different circumstances, Courtney and I might be bonding right now. I imagine our conversation.
“Yeah, I’m about 5 months along,” I would have said had Dewey lived.
“Oh girl, you are in for some fun.”
Sure, we wouldn’t have become best pals or anything but we could have had a pregnant lady bonding moment.
“I call Audrey my parasite,” Courtney says in real life. “My sweet little parasite.”
“Oooo, I LOVE parasites,” Lynda says.
That does it. I shoot out of my seat and bump into desks and chairs, but thankfully not any of the people in line on my way out the door. I walk the halls of the Convention Center and settle in a spot away from the hubbub of Wordstock and the 2008 Holiday Food and Gift Festival. My longing for my own parasite almost knocks me over. I want to break workshop rule #1 and talk to Shock Reader about her pregnancy. Did it take? Me neither.
I collect myself and return to the room for 2 more hours of writing exercises. Lynda gives us another word. We write. We spiral. Courtney’s voice sounds first.
She tells the story of the last time she saw Audrey’s father: He is in love with another woman, he doesn’t even want to know when Audrey is born. Courtney has shed her tough girl voice and breaks down into sobs. Still I feel hard towards her. On my spiral sheet I write “Y CANT U B KIND?”
Why indeed.
After the workshop Mr. Crud says, “You look happy. Really happy. I’m so glad.”
I feel happy too. A whole weekend of doing what I love with one of my favorite writers has put a spring in my step. I am exhausted and welcome the bed’s embrace.
That night I dream that I am getting an ultrasound after my D and C.
“The baby isn’t developing but it’s still alive,” the doctor says.
“How can that be?” I ask, upset that the D and C didn’t get everything.
The doctor shrugs his shoulders. My dream spirals into images of waiting rooms and the fluttering heartbeat on the ultrasound screen.
The symbolism is too heavy for even me to miss. My babies are still alive even if they aren’t developing, even if they are discarded cells in a biohazard garbage bag. I carry the weight of their absence. My embryos, my parasites.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Mystery Solved
I pick up the messages on my work voicemail. Message #1 is from Sara, genetic counselor. We have been playing phone tag despite my initial plan to not call her back right away.
“What? What does ‘you’ll call her back next week’ mean?” Mr. Crud asked me as we lay in bed last night.
“Next week is what it means.” I pulled the covers tighter around my chin.
“Not Monday?”
“I don’t want to talk about this right before bed,” I said.
The truth was that I had grown comfortable in the post-D and C world of not knowing. What if there was an answer? What if was my fault?
I called her back. She called me back on two different lines. Then she called Mr. Crud at home. The second voicemail message was from him.
“Good news, uh, sorta. The tests found a chromosomal abnormality so this miscarriage is unrelated to the first one.”
Yay? Chromosome 23 is the culprit. The miscarriage was destined to happen from the moment of conception. Embryos with this abnormality don’t make it past 11 weeks so there wasn’t any risk of Down’s Syndrome or the other feared conditions listed in Sara’s notebook. The chance of this happening was 1 in 149. Should we play the lottery?
Mr. Crud’s message continues. “Oh, they also found out that you aren’t a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis.”
Good news, of course, but I know Mr. Crud is a little bit disappointed. If I had been a carrier then they would have tested him too and all through both pregnancies, Mr. Crud has hungered to be tested for something. When the doctors tell us that only I need a blood draw, Mr. Crud face takes on a momentary “what-about-me” sadness.
His time has come! For the tests that they would like to run on us, to rule out more systematic chromosomal problems, both Mr. Crud and I will have blood drawn. Sara tells us that there is no rush. And I feel no rush to get back on the pregnancy train. I have been thoroughly enjoying dirty martinis, sushi, bean sprout-laden spring rolls, stinky, unpasteurized cheeses of all kinds, and a few cigarettes here and there. The cigarettes bother me the most. During the pregnant days, I liked the feeling that I had stepped off the cancer train. Self-righteousness is among my favorite natural highs and now when I partake of a smoke, I also trade in my well-worn high horse. Alas.
The only times I feel the pregnancy urgency return is when I hear about my friends getting pregnant, mostly through Facebook status updates. When I read that Old High School Friend is hunting for daycare for the twins she’s expecting, the tears well. Or New Adult Friend has learned the sex of her baby, I sigh. I get an email from Old College Friend who says all the right consolations about my miscarriage until I get to the next paragraph…she’s pregnant too. I feel genuinely happy for her.
And sad for me.
Our kids would have been born close together. We could have gone through their stages together, comparing notes on who is smiling, walking, babbling sounds that we swear sound like “Mom.” I mourn the experience of being pregnant with my friends. I mourn unmitigated joy when I read their preg-related status updates and emails. I am happy for them and glad that they have been spared this claustrophobic world of miscarriages. I am also sad for me, for Mr. Crud, for my yoga friend and her 2 miscarriages, for the band friends of Mr. Crud, Liz and Mark and their recent loss, for the woman who used to be my manager at my record store job years ago who found me on Facebook and shared her story of 2 miscarriages in a row. The loss of pregnancy innocence is another death that I revisit even as I had hoped to leave it behind after miscarriage #1.
In a conversation with my brother, he reminds me that fear during pregnancy is just the beginning. The other night my sister-in-law awoke to their child making weird snurfling noises and unable to make eye contact with either parent. They flew into a terrified frenzy that something was WRONG with their daughter. The doctor talked them down and advised them to feed their daughter, which was the trick that brought her back from whatever haze she had fallen into.
“I mean it’s easier because you can see them breathing and know what’s going on with them,” my brother says. “But birth is just the beginning of a-whole-nother world of worry.”
That’s what we have to look forward to?
“What? What does ‘you’ll call her back next week’ mean?” Mr. Crud asked me as we lay in bed last night.
“Next week is what it means.” I pulled the covers tighter around my chin.
“Not Monday?”
“I don’t want to talk about this right before bed,” I said.
The truth was that I had grown comfortable in the post-D and C world of not knowing. What if there was an answer? What if was my fault?
I called her back. She called me back on two different lines. Then she called Mr. Crud at home. The second voicemail message was from him.
“Good news, uh, sorta. The tests found a chromosomal abnormality so this miscarriage is unrelated to the first one.”
Yay? Chromosome 23 is the culprit. The miscarriage was destined to happen from the moment of conception. Embryos with this abnormality don’t make it past 11 weeks so there wasn’t any risk of Down’s Syndrome or the other feared conditions listed in Sara’s notebook. The chance of this happening was 1 in 149. Should we play the lottery?
Mr. Crud’s message continues. “Oh, they also found out that you aren’t a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis.”
Good news, of course, but I know Mr. Crud is a little bit disappointed. If I had been a carrier then they would have tested him too and all through both pregnancies, Mr. Crud has hungered to be tested for something. When the doctors tell us that only I need a blood draw, Mr. Crud face takes on a momentary “what-about-me” sadness.
His time has come! For the tests that they would like to run on us, to rule out more systematic chromosomal problems, both Mr. Crud and I will have blood drawn. Sara tells us that there is no rush. And I feel no rush to get back on the pregnancy train. I have been thoroughly enjoying dirty martinis, sushi, bean sprout-laden spring rolls, stinky, unpasteurized cheeses of all kinds, and a few cigarettes here and there. The cigarettes bother me the most. During the pregnant days, I liked the feeling that I had stepped off the cancer train. Self-righteousness is among my favorite natural highs and now when I partake of a smoke, I also trade in my well-worn high horse. Alas.
The only times I feel the pregnancy urgency return is when I hear about my friends getting pregnant, mostly through Facebook status updates. When I read that Old High School Friend is hunting for daycare for the twins she’s expecting, the tears well. Or New Adult Friend has learned the sex of her baby, I sigh. I get an email from Old College Friend who says all the right consolations about my miscarriage until I get to the next paragraph…she’s pregnant too. I feel genuinely happy for her.
And sad for me.
Our kids would have been born close together. We could have gone through their stages together, comparing notes on who is smiling, walking, babbling sounds that we swear sound like “Mom.” I mourn the experience of being pregnant with my friends. I mourn unmitigated joy when I read their preg-related status updates and emails. I am happy for them and glad that they have been spared this claustrophobic world of miscarriages. I am also sad for me, for Mr. Crud, for my yoga friend and her 2 miscarriages, for the band friends of Mr. Crud, Liz and Mark and their recent loss, for the woman who used to be my manager at my record store job years ago who found me on Facebook and shared her story of 2 miscarriages in a row. The loss of pregnancy innocence is another death that I revisit even as I had hoped to leave it behind after miscarriage #1.
In a conversation with my brother, he reminds me that fear during pregnancy is just the beginning. The other night my sister-in-law awoke to their child making weird snurfling noises and unable to make eye contact with either parent. They flew into a terrified frenzy that something was WRONG with their daughter. The doctor talked them down and advised them to feed their daughter, which was the trick that brought her back from whatever haze she had fallen into.
“I mean it’s easier because you can see them breathing and know what’s going on with them,” my brother says. “But birth is just the beginning of a-whole-nother world of worry.”
That’s what we have to look forward to?
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
There Will Be Blood Clots
Remind me not to schedule my next genetic counseling and ultrasound appointment on any sort of major or minor holiday. The first ultrasound of doom came April Fool’s Day. The second came last Tuesday on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. L’shana tova my ass.
Our second trip to the OHSU Center for Health and Healing or as we are now calling it the Center for Disappointment and Sadness begins with enough promise. The sun bounces off the windows of the Streetcar that take us to our appointment. Sara, our genetic counselor, greets us with smiles and congratulations, also a cute new blonde hair color. I say a silent vow to get my highlights re-highlighted as soon as possible. The trimester of safety and sickness concludes in one week. I can’t wait to check out the dimensions of the 2nd trimester, the best trimester. Pregnancy only means nausea, exhaustion, and sore boobs to me at this point.
“It must be strange coming back here,” Sara says, gesturing for us to sit down in the chairs where 6 months ago we had cried and learned what the terms “molar pregnancy” and “missed abortion” meant. Sara gave us tissues and cups of water to take on our return trip to work that day. I remember the details of the room as if I had been here yesterday—the brushed metal mini-refrigerator, the stacks of tissue boxes on metal shelves, the notebook with graphic representations of genes and lists of occurrences of Down Syndrome by maternal age sprawled on the table.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s kind of traumatic.” I laugh nervously and sniff away tears.
She takes a seat across from us. “We have no reason to believe that what happened before will happen again.” We nod solemnly.
Briefly we review the tutorial of sequential screening that she had given us 6 months ago. We have no questions. She sends us off to kill time before the ultrasound as the technician is running almost an hour behind schedule.
“You’d think after the last time they wouldn’t make us wait,” I say as we step into the elevator.
“At least we can leave.”
Mr. Crud and I step into the cool fall afternoon. “Those 15 minutes cost us $204,” I say.
“Really?”
“Genetic counseling isn’t covered for some reason even though it seems like it would cost the insurance company less to do non-invasive testing first.”
“Fucked up,” Mr. Crud says.
We walk to a private beach on the South Waterfront. Signs warning us of private property abound but residents are scarce. The slowdown in condo sales has been especially cruel to this burgeoning area. We spy a group of yarmulke-topped heads around a table in one of the glass window condo boxes.
“L’shana tova?” I say and look to Mr. Crud for affirmation.
“That’s right.”
Slowly but surely I am learning my Jewish holiday greetings. I am all over Hanukkah and working on my Rosh Hashanah and Passover. Haven’t quite made it to Yom Kippur but I know that I’m supposed to be somber and wish folks an easy fast.
We find a bench and share a blueberry muffin lest the ever-lurking nausea get me in its grips during a key moment of our appointment. This could me my last hour as a pregnant woman, I think. Despite my uneasy détente with the worried voices in my head that this pregnancy isn’t going as well as everyone believes, I still can’t help planning for a bad outcome. I did the same before our first ultrasound at 8 weeks, writing out the speech I’d tell my boss in my head as the doctor smiled and directed our eyes to the fluttering heartbeat on the screen.
Some of the internet boards and well-meaning friends suggest that even allowing such negative thoughts to exist creates a danger to my pregnancy. With all due respect, I think not. My friend Angela had 2 miscarriages between the births of her 2 daughters and she didn’t stop worrying the entire time she was pregnant with her second daughter…which didn’t make her youngest daughter any less real or healthy.
“I barely believed she was real after she had been born,” my friend said, assuring me that my worry was nothing to worry about.
Please people, stop telling pregnant women not to worry, to focus on the positive and implying that worrying is the reason for their miscarriages or infertility. If negative thoughts could end pregnancies, there would be no need for abortion or for women with unwanted pregnancies to worry about ending their pregnancies: “Yeah, I’m knocked up again but I’ll just tell the little fucker to scram and that ought to do the trick.” I can see this opening up a whole new unsavory can of women’s rights worms.
Sometimes I feel like I have to defend my right to feel a little anxious about being pregnant after a miscarriage. For the most part I’ve remained calm and positive although I’ve had moments of fear and worry. I think that being honest about my fears, experiencing them and letting them go is healthier than denying them. Denial leads to a heap of shrill voices that come screaming at me at 3 in the morning, commanding to be heard.
A few minutes before our rescheduled appointment time we head back to the ultrasound office. Here we wait for another 45 minutes as the doctor apologetically explains that the person before us is pregnant with triplets.
“I hope everything is okay,” I said.
Mr. Crud nods.
Finally the doctor ushers us into the room of my nightmares. The framed pictures of Audrey Hepburn and Meryl Streep gaze upon me as I hike down my pants and underwear in preparation for the squirt of jelly on my belly.
Mr. Crud has requested that a doctor sit in on the ultrasound so that if anything is wrong we won’t have the agonizing wait, so that we won’t have to hear the words “I’m not seeing what I’m expecting here. Let me get the doctor” again.
Dr. Toloso is the doctor of the day and he willingly agrees to come along on our second ultrasound voyage. He explains what will be happening, the possible meanings of what they might see, and also reassures us that even if they cannot see well with the stomach cam that the vaginal cam does not automatically mean that we are doomed.
“I know you are very nervous, Katherine. We’ll do this as quickly as possible,” he says with a charming accent.
The technician, Chrissy who is different than the Chris of last time’s ultrasound, pushes the wand around my belly, and presses buttons that emit a beeping sound from the machine. I stare at the ceiling as tears stream down my face. After a few seconds I know. It’s happening again. This is how it happens.
Dr. Toloso tells me that a vaginal ultrasound is necessary. He instructs me to empty my bladder. Numb, I walk across the hall and pee. So distracted am I that I leave the bathroom door wide open and don’t give even the tiniest of shits.
Mr. Crud and I hug before I undress. “He said this doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad,” Mr. Crud says.
The tears keep coming. I take off my pants and stick my feet in the stirrups. Dr. Toloso and Chrissy return. The probe goes in and the wand wiggling and beeping recommence. Dr. Toloso asks questions as he watches the screen:
Are you still experiencing symptoms?
When was your last ultrasound?
Have you experienced any cramping?
The charade is up shortly thereafter. “Katherine, I’m sorry to tell you that things are not going well.”
It appears the newest Peabody incarnation, who I have named Dewey (close to the Italian word for Due, meaning 2), died shortly after the first ultrasound which revealed the heartbeat, around 8 weeks. My clingy uterus is at it again.
“But why didn’t I just have a miscarriage?” I ask Dr. Toloso. “Why didn’t my body get rid of it?”
Next to the whole having a miscarriage thing, this bothers me the most. Why in the fuck does my body not know when the thing it is carrying around inside of it dies? Why must I become a walking casket?
“You would have eventually had a miscarriage,” Dr. Toloso says.
The pregnancy loss counselor who we saw after MC#1 said the same thing. I don’t find it comforting. My uterus does not know when to let go, when to say good-bye to the squatter. My 13-year-old-girl hopeful uterus: If I just keep pretending, maybe it will be true. Sorry, kid. Carl Perry wasn’t secretly falling in love with you during 8th grade gym class and this pregnancy ain’t happening.
Dr. Toloso tells me to get dressed and that he will be back and we can discuss my options. I need no discussion. “I want a D and C with Dr. Bednarek tomorrow morning or as soon as possible.” I know my way around the missed abortion block and the one thing I know for sure is I don’t want this dead embryo floating around inside of my uterus and making me feel tired and nauseous another moment more. Strangely enough, my pregnancy symptoms disappear after I get the news. Suddenly I am wide awake and the nausea vanishes. Great, now my brain is in on it too, tricking me into thinking I’m pregnant with well-placed dry heaves and cravings for cheese.
Dr. Toloso leaves to make the arrangements for abortion #2 as I get dressed. Mr. Crud and I hug and cry. “Why is this happening?” Mr. Crud asks.
“This happens to a lot of people,” I say. This comforts me for about 2 seconds.
Nobody knows why it’s happening. Not Dr. Toloso nor Dr. Bednarek or Dr. Risser. Dr. Toloso offers us tests after we have recovered from this latest chapter of doomed pregnancy. Dr. Bednarek assures us—although I don’t remember as I got so high on Ativan that I saw double—that we will have a child. Dr. Bednarek’s resident reminds me that medically recurrent miscarriages aren’t considered a problem until a woman has three in a row. We may want to reconsider doing the tests at this point, she says. Mr. Crud wants to do the tests. He worries that the miscarriages are somehow his fault. Even though we are assured and reassured that the miscarriages are nobody’s fault, the both of us take the blame. I murmur angry curses at my uterus, my vagina, my still overgrown pregnant boobs. I know that this isn’t helpful but the words slip out. “Go the fuck away,” I say to my boobs as I wrestle them into my too-small bra. “Nobody needs you anymore.”
The D and C goes about the same as the last time although we have traded the large operating-type room for a cramped examination room (for a savings of $1200!). The tall awesome nurse, Lisa, from the last time brings me my drugs and checks on us after the procedure is done. We talk books and again I am frustrated at how I trip over my words under the influence of anti-anxiety meds. She tells me that I am known as the “Cool Boot Woman” around the OHSU Women’s Health Center. Dr. Bednarek rushed out to buy the same pair of turquoise cowboy boots that I wore to my first D and C. Another resident picked up a pair in lime green. Consumer desire grips me. I want lime green! I vow to myself to go on a mission during my days off of work. Glimmering green boots pull me out of the gathering funk…for about 3 seconds.
All maxi-padded up, Mr. Crud and I head home where I wolf down a smoke salmon bagel and spend the rest of the day snoozing on the couch.
I decide to stay home from work the rest of the week. My days are spent checking the maxi pads for overly large blood clots and crying. My boss is awesome, telling me that they’ll survive without me at work even though it is the first week of fall term, arguably the busiest days of the year. Mr. Crud stays home when he can and we fall into each other’s arms at double the rate of our normal hugging schedule.
I bleed.
I bleed some more.
I contemplate my membership in a new sisterhood: the recurrent miscarriage club. After the first miscarriage, I hoped that I would never see the dimensions of this new clubhouse: the “Why me?” wallpaper and red hot anger blasting from the furnace. “Most women only have one miscarriage,” the websites, doctors, and books assured. Most then added a statement about how most women who have more than one miscarriage eventually go on to have a successful pregnancy. How big is eventually? 2 miscarriages? 7? My friend Angela decided that she could have 7 miscarriages before throwing in the childbearing towel. “I saw some statistic that 80% if women who have miscarriages have a successful pregnancy.” I no longer find comfort in statistics. My latest pregnancy had a less than 13% chance of miscarriage. I’m beating the odds. Hooray for special me.
Sunday morning I am awoken by killer cramps that only 2 Vicodin chase away. Do these count as severe cramps? Should I call the doctor? That afternoon I stand up from my fetal position to use the bathroom and a huge clump—though not larger than the egg the pamphlet warns me to look for—passes through me onto the pad. I sit on the toilet and hyperventilate. This is so fucking gross. I want to call Mr. Crud in to share in the gore. It’s almost fascinating. The miracle of death and all that, but I spare him and wrap it up in a plastic grocery bag. I jam it deep into the trashcan. I curse maxi-pad world.
The rest of the day is a blur of bloody pads, cramps, and Mr. Crud bearing mugs of Peppermint tea. I dread returning to work the next day although I don’t feel as tortured by the question of to tell the coworkers or not to tell. I decide against making the grand email announcement that I did last time. One miscarriage is sad; the second one seems careless. My coworkers are great, but I loathe the looks of pity that I received. Most people don’t know dick about miscarriage and my attempts at education must come through sniffles and tears that I don’t have the time or energy to shed this time around.
I email the friends who I had let into the pregnancy world. The sorry-s and why-s come fast and furious. Each kind word brings fresh tears. Even though this sucks harder than almost anything I’ve been through, I am overcome with gratitude for my friends and family and their expressions of kindness: a quiche dinner with Tracy and Ezra while their 8-month-old paddles around the floor; a care package from Dan and Anna with a note that makes me ache to hug them; Dawn and Eric bringing us out of our mourning bubble with a dinner at the Savoy, phone calls and emails and enough love to make me feel lucky instead of unlucky. I play my usual misery game and think of those who are alone, who can’t find comfort with loved ones. So many more suffer more than this on a daily basis.
I get an email from a yoga pal who asks why I’ve been away for a week. I share the news even though I hadn’t told her of my pregnancy. She tells me that she experienced her second miscarriage during the summer. She and her husband found answers at a local fertility clinic. I google immediately.
I feel weird doing all the tests like we are trying too hard for a biological baby. I didn’t think I would be one of those women who would do anything for a baby born of her materials. Mr. Crud and I have already discussed adoption. At first I didn’t think I’d ever want this, but I’m warming to the idea. I think adoption is awesome in theory and I love to see multi-ethnic families roaming the neighborhood. However I never fail to think about the couple’s struggles with infertility or miscarriages. Now I puzzle over their back story. I cringe to think that somebody would do the same to us. (Insert speech to self about how I need to stop caring so much about what other people think.)
For the time being I have no answers. Just an ever-multiplying stable of questions. One thing I know for sure: I really REALLY want a dog now.
Our second trip to the OHSU Center for Health and Healing or as we are now calling it the Center for Disappointment and Sadness begins with enough promise. The sun bounces off the windows of the Streetcar that take us to our appointment. Sara, our genetic counselor, greets us with smiles and congratulations, also a cute new blonde hair color. I say a silent vow to get my highlights re-highlighted as soon as possible. The trimester of safety and sickness concludes in one week. I can’t wait to check out the dimensions of the 2nd trimester, the best trimester. Pregnancy only means nausea, exhaustion, and sore boobs to me at this point.
“It must be strange coming back here,” Sara says, gesturing for us to sit down in the chairs where 6 months ago we had cried and learned what the terms “molar pregnancy” and “missed abortion” meant. Sara gave us tissues and cups of water to take on our return trip to work that day. I remember the details of the room as if I had been here yesterday—the brushed metal mini-refrigerator, the stacks of tissue boxes on metal shelves, the notebook with graphic representations of genes and lists of occurrences of Down Syndrome by maternal age sprawled on the table.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s kind of traumatic.” I laugh nervously and sniff away tears.
She takes a seat across from us. “We have no reason to believe that what happened before will happen again.” We nod solemnly.
Briefly we review the tutorial of sequential screening that she had given us 6 months ago. We have no questions. She sends us off to kill time before the ultrasound as the technician is running almost an hour behind schedule.
“You’d think after the last time they wouldn’t make us wait,” I say as we step into the elevator.
“At least we can leave.”
Mr. Crud and I step into the cool fall afternoon. “Those 15 minutes cost us $204,” I say.
“Really?”
“Genetic counseling isn’t covered for some reason even though it seems like it would cost the insurance company less to do non-invasive testing first.”
“Fucked up,” Mr. Crud says.
We walk to a private beach on the South Waterfront. Signs warning us of private property abound but residents are scarce. The slowdown in condo sales has been especially cruel to this burgeoning area. We spy a group of yarmulke-topped heads around a table in one of the glass window condo boxes.
“L’shana tova?” I say and look to Mr. Crud for affirmation.
“That’s right.”
Slowly but surely I am learning my Jewish holiday greetings. I am all over Hanukkah and working on my Rosh Hashanah and Passover. Haven’t quite made it to Yom Kippur but I know that I’m supposed to be somber and wish folks an easy fast.
We find a bench and share a blueberry muffin lest the ever-lurking nausea get me in its grips during a key moment of our appointment. This could me my last hour as a pregnant woman, I think. Despite my uneasy détente with the worried voices in my head that this pregnancy isn’t going as well as everyone believes, I still can’t help planning for a bad outcome. I did the same before our first ultrasound at 8 weeks, writing out the speech I’d tell my boss in my head as the doctor smiled and directed our eyes to the fluttering heartbeat on the screen.
Some of the internet boards and well-meaning friends suggest that even allowing such negative thoughts to exist creates a danger to my pregnancy. With all due respect, I think not. My friend Angela had 2 miscarriages between the births of her 2 daughters and she didn’t stop worrying the entire time she was pregnant with her second daughter…which didn’t make her youngest daughter any less real or healthy.
“I barely believed she was real after she had been born,” my friend said, assuring me that my worry was nothing to worry about.
Please people, stop telling pregnant women not to worry, to focus on the positive and implying that worrying is the reason for their miscarriages or infertility. If negative thoughts could end pregnancies, there would be no need for abortion or for women with unwanted pregnancies to worry about ending their pregnancies: “Yeah, I’m knocked up again but I’ll just tell the little fucker to scram and that ought to do the trick.” I can see this opening up a whole new unsavory can of women’s rights worms.
Sometimes I feel like I have to defend my right to feel a little anxious about being pregnant after a miscarriage. For the most part I’ve remained calm and positive although I’ve had moments of fear and worry. I think that being honest about my fears, experiencing them and letting them go is healthier than denying them. Denial leads to a heap of shrill voices that come screaming at me at 3 in the morning, commanding to be heard.
A few minutes before our rescheduled appointment time we head back to the ultrasound office. Here we wait for another 45 minutes as the doctor apologetically explains that the person before us is pregnant with triplets.
“I hope everything is okay,” I said.
Mr. Crud nods.
Finally the doctor ushers us into the room of my nightmares. The framed pictures of Audrey Hepburn and Meryl Streep gaze upon me as I hike down my pants and underwear in preparation for the squirt of jelly on my belly.
Mr. Crud has requested that a doctor sit in on the ultrasound so that if anything is wrong we won’t have the agonizing wait, so that we won’t have to hear the words “I’m not seeing what I’m expecting here. Let me get the doctor” again.
Dr. Toloso is the doctor of the day and he willingly agrees to come along on our second ultrasound voyage. He explains what will be happening, the possible meanings of what they might see, and also reassures us that even if they cannot see well with the stomach cam that the vaginal cam does not automatically mean that we are doomed.
“I know you are very nervous, Katherine. We’ll do this as quickly as possible,” he says with a charming accent.
The technician, Chrissy who is different than the Chris of last time’s ultrasound, pushes the wand around my belly, and presses buttons that emit a beeping sound from the machine. I stare at the ceiling as tears stream down my face. After a few seconds I know. It’s happening again. This is how it happens.
Dr. Toloso tells me that a vaginal ultrasound is necessary. He instructs me to empty my bladder. Numb, I walk across the hall and pee. So distracted am I that I leave the bathroom door wide open and don’t give even the tiniest of shits.
Mr. Crud and I hug before I undress. “He said this doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad,” Mr. Crud says.
The tears keep coming. I take off my pants and stick my feet in the stirrups. Dr. Toloso and Chrissy return. The probe goes in and the wand wiggling and beeping recommence. Dr. Toloso asks questions as he watches the screen:
Are you still experiencing symptoms?
When was your last ultrasound?
Have you experienced any cramping?
The charade is up shortly thereafter. “Katherine, I’m sorry to tell you that things are not going well.”
It appears the newest Peabody incarnation, who I have named Dewey (close to the Italian word for Due, meaning 2), died shortly after the first ultrasound which revealed the heartbeat, around 8 weeks. My clingy uterus is at it again.
“But why didn’t I just have a miscarriage?” I ask Dr. Toloso. “Why didn’t my body get rid of it?”
Next to the whole having a miscarriage thing, this bothers me the most. Why in the fuck does my body not know when the thing it is carrying around inside of it dies? Why must I become a walking casket?
“You would have eventually had a miscarriage,” Dr. Toloso says.
The pregnancy loss counselor who we saw after MC#1 said the same thing. I don’t find it comforting. My uterus does not know when to let go, when to say good-bye to the squatter. My 13-year-old-girl hopeful uterus: If I just keep pretending, maybe it will be true. Sorry, kid. Carl Perry wasn’t secretly falling in love with you during 8th grade gym class and this pregnancy ain’t happening.
Dr. Toloso tells me to get dressed and that he will be back and we can discuss my options. I need no discussion. “I want a D and C with Dr. Bednarek tomorrow morning or as soon as possible.” I know my way around the missed abortion block and the one thing I know for sure is I don’t want this dead embryo floating around inside of my uterus and making me feel tired and nauseous another moment more. Strangely enough, my pregnancy symptoms disappear after I get the news. Suddenly I am wide awake and the nausea vanishes. Great, now my brain is in on it too, tricking me into thinking I’m pregnant with well-placed dry heaves and cravings for cheese.
Dr. Toloso leaves to make the arrangements for abortion #2 as I get dressed. Mr. Crud and I hug and cry. “Why is this happening?” Mr. Crud asks.
“This happens to a lot of people,” I say. This comforts me for about 2 seconds.
Nobody knows why it’s happening. Not Dr. Toloso nor Dr. Bednarek or Dr. Risser. Dr. Toloso offers us tests after we have recovered from this latest chapter of doomed pregnancy. Dr. Bednarek assures us—although I don’t remember as I got so high on Ativan that I saw double—that we will have a child. Dr. Bednarek’s resident reminds me that medically recurrent miscarriages aren’t considered a problem until a woman has three in a row. We may want to reconsider doing the tests at this point, she says. Mr. Crud wants to do the tests. He worries that the miscarriages are somehow his fault. Even though we are assured and reassured that the miscarriages are nobody’s fault, the both of us take the blame. I murmur angry curses at my uterus, my vagina, my still overgrown pregnant boobs. I know that this isn’t helpful but the words slip out. “Go the fuck away,” I say to my boobs as I wrestle them into my too-small bra. “Nobody needs you anymore.”
The D and C goes about the same as the last time although we have traded the large operating-type room for a cramped examination room (for a savings of $1200!). The tall awesome nurse, Lisa, from the last time brings me my drugs and checks on us after the procedure is done. We talk books and again I am frustrated at how I trip over my words under the influence of anti-anxiety meds. She tells me that I am known as the “Cool Boot Woman” around the OHSU Women’s Health Center. Dr. Bednarek rushed out to buy the same pair of turquoise cowboy boots that I wore to my first D and C. Another resident picked up a pair in lime green. Consumer desire grips me. I want lime green! I vow to myself to go on a mission during my days off of work. Glimmering green boots pull me out of the gathering funk…for about 3 seconds.
All maxi-padded up, Mr. Crud and I head home where I wolf down a smoke salmon bagel and spend the rest of the day snoozing on the couch.
I decide to stay home from work the rest of the week. My days are spent checking the maxi pads for overly large blood clots and crying. My boss is awesome, telling me that they’ll survive without me at work even though it is the first week of fall term, arguably the busiest days of the year. Mr. Crud stays home when he can and we fall into each other’s arms at double the rate of our normal hugging schedule.
I bleed.
I bleed some more.
I contemplate my membership in a new sisterhood: the recurrent miscarriage club. After the first miscarriage, I hoped that I would never see the dimensions of this new clubhouse: the “Why me?” wallpaper and red hot anger blasting from the furnace. “Most women only have one miscarriage,” the websites, doctors, and books assured. Most then added a statement about how most women who have more than one miscarriage eventually go on to have a successful pregnancy. How big is eventually? 2 miscarriages? 7? My friend Angela decided that she could have 7 miscarriages before throwing in the childbearing towel. “I saw some statistic that 80% if women who have miscarriages have a successful pregnancy.” I no longer find comfort in statistics. My latest pregnancy had a less than 13% chance of miscarriage. I’m beating the odds. Hooray for special me.
Sunday morning I am awoken by killer cramps that only 2 Vicodin chase away. Do these count as severe cramps? Should I call the doctor? That afternoon I stand up from my fetal position to use the bathroom and a huge clump—though not larger than the egg the pamphlet warns me to look for—passes through me onto the pad. I sit on the toilet and hyperventilate. This is so fucking gross. I want to call Mr. Crud in to share in the gore. It’s almost fascinating. The miracle of death and all that, but I spare him and wrap it up in a plastic grocery bag. I jam it deep into the trashcan. I curse maxi-pad world.
The rest of the day is a blur of bloody pads, cramps, and Mr. Crud bearing mugs of Peppermint tea. I dread returning to work the next day although I don’t feel as tortured by the question of to tell the coworkers or not to tell. I decide against making the grand email announcement that I did last time. One miscarriage is sad; the second one seems careless. My coworkers are great, but I loathe the looks of pity that I received. Most people don’t know dick about miscarriage and my attempts at education must come through sniffles and tears that I don’t have the time or energy to shed this time around.
I email the friends who I had let into the pregnancy world. The sorry-s and why-s come fast and furious. Each kind word brings fresh tears. Even though this sucks harder than almost anything I’ve been through, I am overcome with gratitude for my friends and family and their expressions of kindness: a quiche dinner with Tracy and Ezra while their 8-month-old paddles around the floor; a care package from Dan and Anna with a note that makes me ache to hug them; Dawn and Eric bringing us out of our mourning bubble with a dinner at the Savoy, phone calls and emails and enough love to make me feel lucky instead of unlucky. I play my usual misery game and think of those who are alone, who can’t find comfort with loved ones. So many more suffer more than this on a daily basis.
I get an email from a yoga pal who asks why I’ve been away for a week. I share the news even though I hadn’t told her of my pregnancy. She tells me that she experienced her second miscarriage during the summer. She and her husband found answers at a local fertility clinic. I google immediately.
I feel weird doing all the tests like we are trying too hard for a biological baby. I didn’t think I would be one of those women who would do anything for a baby born of her materials. Mr. Crud and I have already discussed adoption. At first I didn’t think I’d ever want this, but I’m warming to the idea. I think adoption is awesome in theory and I love to see multi-ethnic families roaming the neighborhood. However I never fail to think about the couple’s struggles with infertility or miscarriages. Now I puzzle over their back story. I cringe to think that somebody would do the same to us. (Insert speech to self about how I need to stop caring so much about what other people think.)
For the time being I have no answers. Just an ever-multiplying stable of questions. One thing I know for sure: I really REALLY want a dog now.
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