The Main Event

It happened.

Cramps ramped up almost out of nowhere yesterday afternoon. I was bleeding by eight pm and cramps and bleeding worsened until after midnight. And then it really got started. We didn't make it to lights out until four in the morning.

I was in full miscarriage-labor for about three hours, complete with out of body visualizations and spontaneous breathing exercises and, in the last hour, vomiting. Not to mention blood and plenty of it. Oh yeah. And pain. Yup. There was a long period where I could barely opened my eyes, because I needed to stay internally focused in order to cope. J~, loyally constant at my side, struggled to keep his open too, though for much more benign reasons (in other words: he was tired).

In my mind's eye during the worst moments, I saw a cloud of blue-green, an undersea bleariness. Focusing on the color, I urged whatever life-ishness that might still exist within me to swim out. Swim! I thought. And in my less graceful moments this helpful encouragement became a much more desperate: Get out of me, now.

The whole experience was much more intense than the last two times.

Also unlike the last two, unlike my sister-in-law's, unlike any of the growing circle of stories I've heard about miscarriages as early as this one (which stopped developing at 7.5 weeks, though it was one day shy of twelve when it actually happened) the tissue that finally sprung out through my cervix (and that's really how it felt, like it popped out) resembled an actual creature: An off-white tadpole on its way to albino frog. An inch-long, larval salamander, with a long tale and a shorter umbilicus, a narrow torso with the tiniest miniature sprouts of arms and legs, and eyes like sharp black pencil dots at the sides of its large, pale, salamander head.

I collected it in a plastic container, which J~ interred in the refrigerator until the light of day, when he took it in his lunch cooler to the hospital lab for genetic analysis. It is hard to think that my child, my albeit freakish amphibian not-yet baby, will now be cut up like a science experiment. No, not like a science experiment, but truly, actually, as a for-real science project.

Hope we get some answers.

Limboland. In Other Words: Life

J~ is back at work, B~ is back at his mom's for one last week before gearing up for eighth grade. As for me: still no bleeding. Barely anything that can qualify as a cramp.

I've begun taking phone calls. Some phone calls. A few. I'm not quite ready for normal life, its pace and rhythms and distractions. In another world, another time, I would be dressed in black, head shaved. My mourning would be visible to all. People who can't cope with grief would know to keep their distance.

On the other hand, there is a Phoenix rising from these ashes. I'm not all gloom and doom. In fact, I'm looking into applying to graduate school, and that excites me somewhat. And J~ and I are hopeful about our long term future, with or without a child together. We've done the math: Shortly after B~ graduates high school, for instance, the house will be paid off, J~ will have enough years under his belt to earn a small pension and continued good health insurance for life. We could both work part-time and have leisure to do some traveling. Or we could start a business together (that's another category of fantasy we lose ourselves in occasionally). And if I get that degree and find something lucrative that I love, a tenured teaching position, perhaps, he could quit working altogether for a while, or go back to school himself, or volunteer. We won't be rich, but we won't be destitute either. (Then again, if we had a child, we'd have more time to enjoy it...)

But I can no longer keep this question, Babies or Not, at center stage. Though truly, who am I kidding? Haven't I said this before? Until I no longer menstruate, it will never quite leave the stage entirely. As it is, dressed in red, flailing about, it will not quit diverting my attention. I accept that. It's biological. It's emotional. It's part of me. As much as I wish I was done with it, as much as it reduces me to tears to think we could go through another miscarriage, I can't quite close the door on trying again, on ever being someone's biological mother.

Thanks, by the way, to all of you who've reached out to me. I feel your words, your hearts, buoying me up, and it means a lot. As long as this question is relevant in my life, as long as you are interested, dear readers, I will keep you posted.

The Hole

No bleeding at all yet, almost no cramps.

J~ is getting better, planning to go back to work on Monday, though he will rush home if I need him. B~ will be around for the weekend, starting tomorrow.

We went to the beach in Rhode Island on Tuesday, J~ and I, walked for miles away from the crowd at Watch Hill toward the crowd at Misquamicut. In between, nothing but wind and sun and the surf's deep breathing, and me, finally, opening my mouth. "As much as I'd like to push myself to be done, I have to admit, I'm not done yet."

"Yeah," he nods. He feels the same.

It is hard for us, at this point, to say, No more, although it seems it would be a relief if we could. I know the chances are not good at this point, taking into consideration my three-in-a-row miscarriages, my age, my unwillingness to hop myself up on supplemental hormones, but how can I stop trying? And yet, how can I possibly bear another loss? So far there are four: four children I have grieved, having never seen a face, never held a one. The only presumably viable life of the lot, the first, ended because I chose to end it. I have to live with that.

And yet, if there was a magic pill to guarantee a healthy child, I'm not sure I could bring myself to take it. It seems like a no-brainer, but it is not. I don't trust that I would be adequately supported, that my love for a baby would outweigh the burden of the work, of putting myself, my own selfish pleasures and pursuits, on the back burner. But this does not reduce the grief. It only twists it. It makes me wonder if somehow, subconsciously, I am influencing the demise of these pregnancies, if I am at fault.

No amount of rational, scientific reason can dissuade me of this fear. It is torturous.

On the day of the final ultrasound, we spent some hours with family who only addressed our bad news in hushed asides. There were children around. It seemed inappropriate to speak openly, or for me to cry. My brother tried to crack jokes, to make me smile. "I don't want to be cheered up," I interrupted, "but you can hug me whenever you want." He puts one arm around me briefly, but that was the end of it. My father insisted on snapping pictures of J~ and I. "Please don't" I said, "I'm not in the mood." "Too late!" he quipped, grinning. "Feel better," he said to me later, in lieu of good bye. My mother reiterated her offer to help, whatever we need. But what do we need? We need love. We need flowers. We need cards. We need condolences. We need room to grieve, witnesses to our grief, sharers in the burden of it. These are not easy things to ask for. Or to receive.

When J~'s neck hurt too much, I was relieved to go home. In the car, we were both sad, surprised at how alone we felt amidst family, that only the women (two of three - the third said nothing at all acknowledging the loss) asked how I felt, though there were in-depth discussions of J~'s surgery and its aftermath.

The phone rings. After too many conversations that made me feel worse, I can no longer bring myself to answer. It is as if this loss is carving a hole into me, exposing a lifetime of hurts. People don't know what to say, so they ask questions. Even the ones who say all the right things are no help. I don't have it in me to make any more reports.

But there is something good about this solitary process. It is a cleansing; it is a purge. For example: In the shower this morning, I found myself thinking of A~, my first husband, who admitted before deciding to marry me, that he feared that such a union would bind him to me for eternity. To him, this was a nightmare. And yet, though even then, I suspected he only did so out of fear of leaving, I felt lucky that he chose to stay.

It hurts that I spent so many years clinging to him, believing I could do no better. I am indignant that my self-esteem was so little nurtured, that I was left vulnerable to this kind of thinking.

Ultimately, I feel good to be shedding all of this old pain, fortified to be angry. I get it now: I deserved better! I always have deserved better. And right now, I deserve better than this motherhood limbo.

And so, I am willing to be opened up emotionally, carved out, emptied, forged into something stronger. Maybe, at the end of all this, I could welcome that magic pill after all, or walk away from it unequivocally, head high.

Eventually, I will answer the phone.

For now, I am here. Where ever that is.

The Verdict is In

As soon as J~ started feeling better, I started feeling worse -- emotionally, anyway. Nausea faded two days ago, cramps began, and I knew it. I knew it.

We went for an ultrasound yesterday, and sure enough: no heartbeat.

I won't be taking any drugs to help this along. And I won't be submitting to any surgical procedure.

It's just a matter of time.

On Nausea and Normality

On Friday, thanks to Motrin or Vicodin or anesthesia hangover, or the demise of the anti-nausea patch placed behind his ear before surgery, J~'s nausea kicked in. On Saturday, he threw up more times than I could count. On Sunday, after two days without painkillers of any kind, he still hovered around the bathroom in that hunched-over abdomen-curled-in pose of debilitating stomach distress, but never knelt before the proverbial porcelain god. Sunday, he felt well enough to expand his diet of Pepsi and Saltine crackers to include cereal, sandwiches, and mango sorbet. And yesterday, we even went so far as take-out Thai food.

I've been too damned exhausted to cook, let alone clean, though there is some improvement, for me as well, today.

Speaking of me: I've had no bleeding whatsoever for the past ten days. Breast tenderness continues. As for nausea, actually, yes, there's been some of that, too. Not as severe as two weeks ago, but undeniable. (If nothing changes by next Monday, and J~ is up for the trip, I will try for another ultrasound).

On the phone the other day, my brother asked how things were going, and I admitted, not well. In an attempt to be helpful, he looked for the philosophical silver lining, saying, "this kind of thing might make you appreciate normal more."

"I was appreciating normal," I whined, not quite sure if this was true.

"I don't believe you," my brother ventured, and I realized, I didn't want or need to continue this conversation.

But it haunted me for hours.

My mind wheeled through the last year, the last two years, the pain of my divorce, the miracle of J~, of this sudden new home in the country, the struggles I've faced with step-parenting, with pregnancy.

And then it hit me: I didn't need to put a positive spin on what was happening in my life presently, or take on any obligation or determination to "appreciate" anything.

If there's anything I've learned in the last two years, it's this: There is no such thing as normal. If there is, then normal has to include this pregnancy roller coaster, watching impotently as your beloved suffers, and the sometimes painful uprooted feeling of my newly rooted life. More globally speaking, it has to include a state of war, of environmental crisis, of extreme financial disparity. It has to include everything, both beautiful and horrific, and every emotional response, including hanging up on someone who loves you and was only trying to help.

Ugh. Things get messy sometimes.

The Thick

J~'s surgery was successful. He is home, not feeling well at all, but between naps, he is out of bed and walking around, zombie-style. I can't tell you how relieved I am that he is still alive, not paralyzed, in one piece.

It was a rough evening in the hospital -- neck pain, difficulty swallowing, anesthesia wipe-out. He did not look good.

As for me, the long day of stress and waiting, with not enough food and then, finally, toxic hospital salad (with chicken basted in so much preservative it may well have been sitting around since 1972, with a dressing composed, undoubtedly, of high fructose corn syrup and not much else) culminated in a raging headache, sore throat, nausea, and weepy exhaustion. I finally got out of the hospital to head home for a few hours sleep, only to find my car wouldn't start. Thankfully, someone in the emergency room was able to give me a jump.

J~'s night was no better, what with the nurse's rounds every two hours, the literal pain in his neck, and an inability to empty his bladder, forcing a midnight catheter. The next morning, worried about a second painful syphon, he visited the bathroom repeatedly, each time managing to void a little bit more. After one last x-ray, he was released just before noon.

By the time we arrived home, he was feeling pretty rough, and so was I. After doing everything I could to make him comfortable, I wept and admitted I needed to lie down too.

It was a long, hard night. J~ slept in an upright position, snoring and gurgling and coughing so much I had to leave the room. When I awoke, in my stepson's bed (he was on an overnight with his camp) it was out of a dream that the miscarriage had begun, and into the worst cramps yet.

Two days after J~'s surgery, still trying to selflessly care for him in spite of nausea, headache, and cramps (but not yet bleeding), still weeping when I hit my strange new limit of extreme exhaustion, it finally occurred to me that, no matter the imminent demise, I am and continue to be pregnant. My body is simply not up for this.

B~'s grandmother had been a help, but not enough. Over J~'s objections, I called in reinforcements.

A good friend came by this afternoon, started my laundry, washed dishes, made lunch, and made me promise to keep asking for help.

Luckily, J~ is feeling better now, thanks, I think, to a switch from Tylenol to Motrin. And so am I, though no drugs were involved in my case.

My sister-in-law, who is normally tireless and an unswervingly devoted mother, said she also hit a mysterious rough patch in the weeks preceding her miscarriage, where she had to lie down and close her eyes and tell her kids to go watch television. She, too, thought maybe she was coming down with something. And then, hours later, just as mysteriously, the dark cloud passed.

Hearing this, I wondered: I know I was sleep-deprived and highly stressed, but perhaps it got so bad because of pregnancy transitioning into not-pregnancy? Perhaps it takes our bodies some great effort to derail that train?

Anybody else ever feel this?

Limbo

I thought I would have so much to say about this in-between place, about the slowly fading nausea, the slowly increasing crampiness. But the truth is, I've sat down more than once to attempt this post, and found myself, again and again, without words.

It's a similar experience every time I've picked up the phone in order to schedule one last ultrasound before J~ goes into surgery tomorrow morning. I have not been able to bring myself to dial the number.

At first I was hard on myself because I felt like such a wimp, shying away from the facts: Either it's dead already, I told myself, or it's not quite dead yet. Wouldn't it be good to know?

In the end, I decided to let it go. There are enough bitter pills in front of me. Why rush to swallow this one? Besides, judging by the level of cramps I feel right now, it won't be long before I'm bleeding again, before it's all over. I'm not there yet, and I'm hoping I don't get there before J~'s surgery, or before he is home on Wednesday. Ideally, not until Friday, when B~ goes to his mother's and his grandmother -- here to help out for the next few days -- goes on to visit her sister.

One brighter note: I feel incredibly blessed by all the support I am receiving, in comments on this blog, from my women friends in the area and from afar, from my co-counseling community (people with whom I take turns receiving and giving peer-counseling care and attention), and from family.

This is definitely a hard time, but I have been through far worse.