Bitches.

Bitchy female co-worker to another less bitchy but very pregnant co-worker today at work, "Ugh why on earth would people wish being pregnant on themselves." And then they dish on how awful it is to be pregnant. Bitches.

D&C: The Surgery

The hospital scheduled my D&C for the wrong date but they were "adding me on." By the time the nurse in Surgery figured out the dilemma it was almost noon. I signed in and waited with my husband - a woman sprawled on the couch behind us was snoring, her pants were down and I could see her thong. I pointed it out to him and we shared an immature chuckle. There was an older guy on his speaker phone yelling about a car. He kept asking the woman on the phone if she was Sherry. Yes, she kept saying, this is Sherry. 

The nurse at the desk didn't have my chart. I told her I was scheduled for today but the hospital got the date wrong. "So you aren't having the surgery today?" She asked. "Oh wait, you're the add on." She produced my file and shuffled through the pages. Turns out I had no anesthesia paperwork in my file. I was starting to wonder if this was one of those eerie portents, a warning - maybe if I had this surgery I wasn't going to come out alive. And people would say, all those signs... the wrong date the wrong paperwork - why did she go through with it?

 I signed the permission slip - I give consent for the hospital to put me under and to suck out my fetus. 

When they finally swept me into Surgery, away from admits and the general hospital population, I felt better. I'm not going to say I felt great, but I felt better. My husband sat with me in a private room and stole Fall Risk bracelets from the desk drawer. He put on my surgery cap. We made fun of the hospital gown. The anesthesiologist gave him a sticker for good behavior. 

After the IV was in and  I was tucked under warm sheets waiting to actually go to surgery, the door opened and a young nurse entered. She had a pamphlet in one hand and a piece of paper on a clipboard. She handed me the clipboard and asked me to read it. I saw the words "Floral Haven," and immediately handed the clipboard to my husband. "You read it," I said. Floral Haven was a funeral home. Later he told me the form gave the hospital permission to cremate our baby's remains. I told him their timing sucked. The nurse handed me the pamphlet and then, because she knew the timing sucked, she snatched the clipboard and practically ran from the room. I looked at the folded up rectangle in my lap. MISCARRIAGE was stamped across the top. I handed that to my husband too. He handed me a tissue. 

The rest of the procedure went off without a hitch... as far as I know. They knocked me out in the operating room and I woke up thirty minutes later. The first thing I wanted to do was pee. It was also unfortunately, the very the last thing I wanted to do. 

But I peed, and thank god everything seemed to be okay.   

On the Ferris Wheel

The day we learned there was no heartbeat my husband and I emailed work and took the rest of the day off, claiming "bad news at the doctor." Then I put on a roast, fed the dogs, picked up my step-daughter from school, and, as promised, we took her to the fair. Life doesn't stop just because the one in your midsection decided to. 

I cried. I cried when we got home from the second ultrasound. I cried in the middle of our living room after the first ultrasound. I cried when I fed the dogs. And I cried over the crock pot.    

I cried in the car all the way to kindergarten. I stopped crying when we saw her, waiting in the pick up line. "How's the baby?" she asked. She knew we had gone to the doctor. We knew what we were going to tell her. "The baby isn't growing as fast as we thought," I said, "It's going to take a little longer for us to make that brother or sister." 

She seemed to take that in stride, contemplating it in her five year old little brain. I turned around and gave her what I still hope was a confident smile, "We're still working in it, everything is going to be okay." And there it was, the first verbalization that yes, everything was going to be okay. And I believed it, for a little bit.

We took her to the fair for two reasons, 1) I promised, and I believe in keeping promises, and 2) I needed to get out of the house.

Looking back I don't know if that was emotionally the best decision. What is worse, 1) staying at home in bed with the lights out and the covers over your head or 2) riding the Ferris wheel with a frantically giggly five year and a dead fetus in your uterus? Funnel cake never tasted so bad. 

My body had not expelled the baby. In fact, I learned this a week later, my body was still operating business as usual. It's going to come out, the doctor had said, either naturally or surgically but the baby is going to have to come out. And that's a scary thought. 

"When?" I asked.

"Anytime."

"How?"

"You'll feel cramps and there will probably be a lot of blood."

"What if it doesn't?"

"Call me in two weeks."

Two weeks. Sitting in the Sky Ride looking out over the fair grounds I turned that conversation over and over in my head. Two weeks. Dead baby. No heartbeat. Lots of blood.

If a cable broke and our Sky Ride car fell to the parking lot I would not have been even the least bit surprised.

Losing Baby

The doctor told us. I knew he was about to tell bad news, but not from anything my body ever said to me. My body had been clicking along without a clue. 

Maybe it was when the nurse visibly stiffened, or when no one exclaimed "there's baby!" when we knew that fuzzy out of focus bean was the baby, maybe that's when I started to know. 

I had a dream the day before. In my dream there was no baby. Maybe that's where, deep down, in the places you don't want to go, I knew.  

Regardless, I knew it was bad news before the doctor opened his mouth, before he put his tongue to the back of his teeth to make the, "th," sound. The sound in the beginning of the word, "there's."

"There's no heartbeat." And there it was. The Bad News. 

What does a first time expectant mother do with that kind of Bad News? 

I cried. I laid my head on the back of that stupid plastic bed and cried a soundless cry. I stared at those stupid fluorescent light fixtures in the ceiling and cried. I thought about how stupid I was for telling everyone so soon, and I cried. I thought about that stupid gallon of paint in the soon-to-be nursery and I cried. I thought about that stupid baby shower gift list I started, the phone calls, the plans, the dreams. I felt cheated. And I cried.

I wasn't thinking about my husband, I wasn't thinking about Dad. I could sense him next to me, his hand on my shoulder, in my hair, reaching for my hands. Just because his eyes were dry doesn't mean he wasn't crying. I know he was. 

The TV screen was angled invitingly for eager parents to get the first or, if they're lucky the second, third, fourth pictures of their little one. On our screen, for about five minutes, was the black and white image of our baby. And even though the "cameras were rolling," or in other words, we were watching in real time, it looked like a photograph - everything was so frustratingly still. 

I just wanted one little wiggle. 

The doctor asked if we wanted a picture. I guess some people say yes, and they tote home the photo of their dead baby stowed away in purses, clenched hands, breast pockets, back pockets, tucked in bibles, etc. But I declined.  

We'll never forget the doctor's cursor moving over our still little bean while he explained that at 10 weeks there really should be a heartbeat.