Those known only to God

Getupgrrl's oh so perfect post regarding Mizuko may just be the best damn bit of hot diggity blog I've ever read. I mean, but dayum. It's inspired me to the depths of my own personal nostalgia, to the creepy cobwebbed corners of my memory. I hardly ever go here, with good reason. But even with that in mind, I haven't forgotten a thing. Still.

While I wanted to write the story of my own miscarriage in grrl's comments section like everyone else, that almost seemed too public. I mean, everyone reads grrl's blog. Hardly anyone reads mine. So here, I have pseudo-privacy. Here, I feel safe. Here, I don't have to worry about rambling on too long, thereby using up grrl's entire comment section. Here, I don't have to worry about living up to the awesome poetic standard previously set by others tragic stories. Here, I can sound as crazy as I wanna be.

And so, here will reside the story of 12/28/92.

I was only 19, and had just become engaged. My period was just a bit late, and I am always regular. But I thought that I might be feeling pms symptoms so I agonized over whether to buy a test. Finally I did. The tests back then were the kind where you pee'd in the cup, then used a little dropper plus some other chemical and drip-dropped your very own urine plus the magic chemical onto the test pad, in order to obtain result. The instructions say to wait 5 minutes (tests were slower back then too), but after only a few seconds . . . It was positive. I decided that I must've done it wrong. I drop more urine. Still positive. I add a little more chemical. Still positive. I decide I haven't waited long enough to read the result. I go in the other room and return 15 minutes later. Still positive. Shit.

I go numb. I will stay that way for a long, long time.

I go sit down, frozen by fear. Am I happy? Am I sad? I am definitely scared. Certainly, I'm numb.

I go through about eleven weeks of pregnancy mostly by myself. My fiance is there, but he's not really there. How can he be when I'm so numb? How can anyone relate to that? Mostly, I am alone. Which is how I like it best during this time.

I go through swinging moods. The one thing that I do know about this pregnancy is that I love this little unexpected baby. The fiance, I don't love so much anymore. My future, I'm much more ambivalent about. My family, I'm too scared to face. But the baby, I do love. I decide to name it Caitlin if it's a girl (Caitlin wasn't so god-awful common back then) and tentatively decide on Austin for a boy, but I don't feel completely sure of that choice. My due date is July 19, not so far from my own birthday. I imagine being 9 months pregnant at my own party.

I put off going to the doctor for several weeks. Partly out of fear, partly out of denial, and partly because I'm scared that something might be wrong. Afterwards, I will wonder if seeing the doctor right away would've changed anything. I will feel guilt.

Once I'm at that fateful appointment, Dr. Weird keeps reminding me of how young I am (nothing, it seems, gets past him). He gives me what is the most painful and longest pap smear of my life. I swear, the man was intent on carving his initials into my cervix. This hurt so incredibly bad. Later I will wonder if somehow this had something to do with what happened. I will feel guilt for not hollering "stop it, that fucking hurts!"

My parents are horrified at the news of my approaching motherhood, rightfully so. After all, I am a good girl. No one saw this coming from me.

Then, just a few weeks after I break the news to them, I notice something pink. In my underwear. What is that, I wonder. I feel uneasy. When the pink stuff doesn't quit coming, I get worried. I call Dr. Weird. He offers no opinion on anything. I feel lost. I tell my mother, who calls her own former OB. That doctor tells me to go on complete bedrest. So, I do.

I lie in bed and pray for my baby. I have mental pep talks with my baby, telling him/her to hang on and be strong. I get sick of bedrest. I feel guilt for being sick of bedrest. This continues on for a few days. I start to feel a bit of hope. The pink isn't getting any worse. True, it's not better, but it's no worse. Surely, if something really bad were going to happen, it would've happened by now.

That night, something really bad does finally happen. I wake up so early, that it's still black as pitch. I don't feel right. And I feel . . . wet. I go to the bathroom and I see more blood than I've ever seen before. Blood is everywhere. I am scared. I am so scared. I know there's no way my baby will survive. It simply can't.

My mother takes me to the ER. The 45 minute drive is a silent one. I hurt so much, physically and spiritually. In my heart, I know my mom is relieved, even though she doesn't say it. Finally at the hospital, endless searching for a heartbeat, endless poking and prodding. I overhear a tech say that she doesn't know why they're looking for a heartbeat, she can tell my water has already broken. If I weren't so numb, this would break my heart. That's my baby you're talking about. Nurse Bitch keeps shouting at me that they have to confirm this is a miscarriage. Um, okay. Blood is still gushing out of me at an alarming rate, not sure what the hell else she thinks it could be. A nurse complains about me asking for pain meds, telling me that this is a process that I must endure. Oh, thanks for clarifying that for me. I am treated like I've received a late Christmas present--that this miscarriage has blessedly rescued me from motherhood at such a young age. And I understand that, really I do. I feel guilt, for mourning my baby. I feel sorry that I can't squeeze out the expected, obligatory gratitude for this crowd of bystanders. Yes, I know I am so young. Yes, I know, this is probably for the best. Yes, I know the baby was probably horribly deformed. Go away. Please just leave me alone.

Finally, a few people do manage to squeeze out some compassion my way: the rad tech who bawls like a baby herself while she's looking for the baby inside me and the surgeon who will eventually perform my d & c, because I just don't seem to stop bleeding. The thought occurs to me that the mattress on my hospital bed looks exactly like an enormous maxi pad. I take some bizarre, perverse pleasure in this destruction of hospital sheets.

My mother's ob stops by my room. She recommends that I get a Norplant, so I will have something "good and strong" for birth control. I'm a good girl, so I take her up on the offer. My mom puts my hair into a french braid, I put my clothes on, and I'm dismissed from the hospital. Dismissed is exactly how I feel. From that day forward, I can't stand my hair in a french braid. It reminds me of how I looked that day.

On the drive back home, afterwards, my mother rather stiffly informs me that "I had better never do this again for a long, long time." My ovaries apparently take this statement very much to heart, 'cause in a few months, the beginning of my pcos symptoms show themselves. Not that I know enough to recognize what they are. And so ultimately, my mom will get that particular wish: it will be 7 years before I adopt my beautiful daughter, and it will be well over a decade before I manage to get knocked up again.

During my 5 years suffering from infertility, I occasionally wonder if she ever thinks about and/or regrets this statement. I don't blame her for making it. I can even almost understand how she felt. I just wonder if she remembers it. I wonder if she wishes she could take it back. Since her grandchildren turned out to be so hard to come by, I wonder if she regrets treating that first one so casually.

One thing becomes glaringly and hurtfully clear: I might've wanted this baby. I might've loved this baby. I might've realized what a miracle this new little one is. But I am the only one.

And so I give a shout-out to whoever posted the comment somewhere that referred to these little babies lost as "those known only to God", I immediately loved that thought. The idea that God knew this little one is somehow a comfort.