Moving Forward

Two weeks. There was no heartbeat on Thursday. By the following Monday I knew two weeks was to long. 

If you have a dead baby in your body don't let it sit there for two weeks. Maybe that's just me.

I called my doctor. "I need a D&C." 

When they told us Thursday the baby would have to come out naturally or surgically I had never heard of a D and C. When the doctor asked, "Do you want a D&C," I automatically said no. I didn't even know what it was. I didn't ask a single question about it. I had to google it later, after the fair, when I realized two weeks was too long. I had asked my husband what was that D thing the doctor was talking about and he said he wasn't listening to that part either. 

Turns out a D&C is like an abortion. When I called the doctor and asked for one the nurse said they don't do them. Excuse me? 

"We have to refer you to a surgeon."

"How long will that take?"

"I'll get the process started and call you back."

"Okay." No. Not okay. Now that the decision was made I wanted one now. 

I reported the news to my husband. "Why don't you call another doctor," he said.

"Can you even do that," I asked, "can we just call another doctor and say I want...this thing done?" He shrugged. He had never done this before either.

I googled again. D&C, Surgeon, Local. I made the phone call. It was Columbus Day and our office was hosting a character building session for the employees. The word of the day was "character," and the guy doing the seminar who looked a lot like Joe Biden defined character as, and I paraphrase, the way a person reacts to a situation regardless of the circumstances.

When I called the surgeon I found on google the nurse who answered the phone reacted with what our Mr. Biden would have deemed, "with character."

"You're how far along?" She asked when I sobbed into the phone about a D&C.

"I'm 11 weeks now, I was 10 weeks when we found out."

"How far along did the baby measure?"
"10 weeks."

"Can you come in on Wednesday?" Of course I could.

I did better than my doctor. I got myself a date for a D&C that Friday before his office made their first referral. Despite a situation that seemed out of my control I think that I too, reacted with character. We were moving forward. 

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.