The first time was harder.
Probably because it was so unexpected after having two healthy pregnancies, Olivia in 2015 and Orion in 2017.
I remember the scene of when we found out so perfectly.
We were at my first OBGYN appointment, about 10 weeks along, according to my Glow Nurture app.
Jason and I were in the exam room, playfully arguing about what our next vehicle would be, as I got into the stirrups, relieved that I only had to be half undressed. It just doesn’t make sense to have to be totally naked.
Adamant about not being ready for a minivan, we asked our doctor what could possibly fit 3 car seats and have enough trunk space for a stroller and groceries.
“What if there are two in there?!?” she deadpanned, starting the ultrasound.
“Not funny,” Jason said as we all burst into laughter.
I playfully explained that Jason was an only child and having two children was his compromise, although I was clearly winning, pregnant with our third.
And then silence.
Eerie silence.
Not the familiar echoes of a tiny rapid heartbeat.
And I saw the lighthearted smile of our doctor fade from our frivolous banter.
“There’s no heartbeat. I’m so sorry,” she softly said.
Then more silence.
Just silence.
“Are you sure?”
I’m not one to usually doubt a subject matter expert, but I had questions. Some about her equipment, rate of error. Others about maybe the fetus was a bit behind – maybe the heartbeat would come later.
All asinine in retrospect but indicative of our deep denial.
“I’m so sorry. I’ll give you a few moments and I’ll be back to answer your questions and discuss next steps.”
Jason held me, but I pushed him away, getting down to get dressed.
He’s used to that by now.
In times of crisis, I need solitude to think, to analyze, to hold the feelings at bay. But after five years of marriage, he knows when to return. It’s usually when I can no longer compartmentalize and I’m sobbing in a ball under the covers.
I held back tears, willing myself to be steel, as I pulled on my pants, already blaming myself, all the maybes and should-haves deafening in the silence.
Maybe it was the beers I had at Dustin’s over Fourth of July when I didn’t know I was pregnant?
Maybe it was because we weren’t ready, because we didn’t plan for this, and the universe was punishing us for not being initially overjoyed at the news.
Maybe because we were being too greedy, daring to pray for more children, already blessed with two.
“Should we name it?” Jason asked.
I said nothing although my lawyer brain was objecting to the relevance.
“Do we have some kind of service?”
This time I shot him a look of annoyance.
“For tissue the size of a blueberry?” I asked, perhaps a bit too sharply from his expression.
It was forgivable though for my Catholic husband to ask.
“Should we cancel my Ironman?”
This is when I could feel myself getting hot, anger rising.
Seriously? He’s worried about his Ironman right now?
Jason’s not really a jerk, very far from it. To his credit, it was a very logical question as we were scheduled to leave the following Thursday for Mont Tremblant, Quebec, Canada for his full Ironman, something he had been training for all year.
And I knew that if I asked, he would cancel it.
My logic wouldn’t allow it.
I can mourn just as easily in Canada as I can at home.
The rest of the appointment itself was not as clear, a blur really.
Our doctor came back in and explained what likely happened and next steps.
The gist is that the fetus stopped growing at 6-7 weeks, there was no heartbeat, and it just hadn’t registered with my body yet. The term is ‘missed miscarriage’ – when your body misses the fact that the blueberry didn’t grow to be a kumquat and has no heartbeat.
Our choices were to induce a miscarriage with medication, which would take a few days, or schedule a “D&C,” a surgical procedure that couldn’t be performed until after Jason’s Ironman.
I Googled D&C (I know, what doctors probably hate their patients for doing) and I didn’t love the idea of small instruments being inserted into my uterus to cut, scoop or suck tissue out. (That’s what Google says!)
Plus, I really didn’t love the idea of holding my dead fetus in my uterus while we were traveling in Canada so option number 1 it was.
As soon as I got in the car in the parking lot of the doctor’s office, I called my mom and all the tears that I held back – rushed to the surface as if a dam broke, complete with snot and body-racking hiccups. I don’t remember the last time I ugly cried like that.
She told me that it’s natural, that she had had 3 miscarriages between my sister and me (we are 5 years apart) and that I was already blessed with two healthy children.
I couldn’t really hear her words.
I could only cry.
That very night, after we put the kids to bed and after Jason went to bed, I took the pills (which are not for oral consumption, by the way – I’ll leave it at that) and went to bed wearing the thickest pads I could find.
I’ll save you from the gory details (and they were gory) but that night was the worst night of my life – physically and emotionally.
Excuse my vulgarity, but it was such a mindf#%!.
I spent that night – peering into the bloody mess in the toilet, wondering if that particular mass was my child-to-be while at the same time, logically knowing that it’s just a blueberry-size mass of cells that stopped dividing.
Pondering whether flushing or the trash was more appropriate.
Racking my brain for the moment it died, shouldn’t I have felt the difference?
Reviewing all my past transgressions, trying to pinpoint the mistake I had made, the reason why I was being punished, as I switched from being in a fetal position on the floor of my bathroom or bowled over on the toilet.
For those that are curious, it takes a few days for everything to pass.
And yes, we still went to Canada.
Insult to injury was when I texted my mother in law.
To give you an idea of our relationship, she didn’t come to either of our weddings because I’m Buddhist.
Me: “I had a miscarriage. Thought you should know. But I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”
MIL: “What happened?”
Me: “I don’t know. The doctor said that it happens.”
MIL: “No, I mean, what did you do with the baby?”
No response from me.
MIL: “Did you flush its body down the toilet?
No response from me.
MIL: Did you throw it in the trash?”
No response from me.
MIL: “I ask because there are services we can have.”
No response from me.
MIL: “I’m sorry. Are you ok?”
A day passes.
Me: I’ll be ok, thanks for asking.
That was in August 2019.
I wish I could say I never thought about it again but then I would be lying.
I thought about it this past summer – Fourth of July and August 2020.
That’s probably to be expected.
After all, that was when I was last pregnant – and hopeful – filled with promise of what could be.
But it also creeps up on me when I least expect it.
Like when I catch myself wistfully admiring a family of 3 at the park.
Or when I allow myself to imagine a one year old tottering after Olivia and Orion – but it’s just a passing shadow in a ray of sunlight in the playroom.
Not going to lie.
It’s not all sad.
Everyone once in awhile, in those moments of screaming or crying or fighting, Jason will ask, “can you imagine trying to handle a third in this chaos?”
And we laugh, I with a twinge of pain, even through my laughter.
Cause I can.
I didn’t know the true meaning of “trigger” until I found myself ugly crying during an episode of “Never Have I Ever” where Mohan consoles his wife Nalini for her miscarriage.
Jason was completely bewildered by how much a tween rom com could affect me.
This time around, it was easier I think.
Is that word even appropriate?
But in honesty, it was.
Maybe because it wasn’t so unexpected.
Maybe because it was within the realm of possibilities.
Maybe because I didn’t have the hubris of two healthy pregnancies, and I knew that it could happen to me because it did before.
This time I was about 9 weeks along.
I just got off of a conference call and when I went to tinkle, I noticed light pink spotting.
Immediately, I Googled.
Ok, nothing to be worried about if it stays this way.
I was still hopeful.
By the next day, it had deepened – and as it got worse, I knew.
At least my body picked it up this time, I thought, that the blueberry did not grow to the olive it was meant to be.
I called my doctor, and because I was supposed to fly to San Jose del Cabo for my 40th birthday the next day, I went to the ER to make sure it was a miscarriage and not an ectopic pregnancy or something that required immediate medical attention.
I still clung to a little hope, but when the terse technician, who didn’t make eye contact with me, suddenly called me sweetie, her voice turning tender with empathy, after poking and prodding me during the ultrasound (and I again heard the eerie silence), I knew (although she didn’t actually give me the results).
She did ask if it was my first pregnancy and I said, no — and I wonder if I detected a sigh of relief or maybe I made that up in my head as I shared that it was my fourth pregnancy, that I had two children, that I miscarried in 2019, and this was a very much wanted one.
Because I signed up for the medical records service, I read the report before the doctor came in, Googling the words I didn’t understand. What I gleaned was that the fetus measured at the size it should be at 6 weeks and not the 9 weeks — and that there was no heartbeat.
At least my body is consistent.
When Dr. J, the kind ER doc with crinkly blue eyes and skin as pale as Edward Cullen, told me that I was having a ‘threatened miscarriage,’ I nodded but I knew.
We weren’t having our third baby.
My 40th birthday was beautiful and introspective, complex and sad.
In one moment, I found myself enjoying a refreshing margarita, watching whales on the horizon off our little cliff overlooking the Pacific, feeling so blessed to be able to escape from the pandemic and sedition for a moment.
In another, excusing myself to our casita to change my pad, hearing a plop, reaching into the toilet bowl out of instinct because I couldn’t bare the thought of flushing it down the toilet and placing the tissue (in hindsight, it was probably the placenta and not the fetus, but who knows? ) in an empty Kendra Scott gift box (the remnants of another gift from Jason) and racing down to the beach, vision blurred by tears, with Jason chasing after me, to bury it.
I couldn’t, by the way.
Jason had to do it.
I could hardly breathe between my sobs.
That was five days ago and the elephant between us . . .
Do we try again?
Too soon?
Meybe.