It has been an electric night. Not just because of the lightning, and the marble sized hail stones that rained down this afternoon, but because of the incredible stories that were shared tonight at the Victory Gardens Theater for the Listen to Your Mother Chicago show.
Under the skilled leadership of Melisa and Tracey, 15 writers stepped up to the podium, blinded by the spotlight, and read their stories about motherhood. One by one, we stepped behind the curtain and onto the stage to pay tribute to our mothers, to tell birth and pregnancy stories, and to confess our fears and painful mothering moments. As the applause died out, we stepped back behind the curtain into the whispered congratulations of the other cast members. Two months ago, we didn’t know each other, but tonight, the love and support flowed freely.
The videos of the show will be available soon on YouTube, but for now, I’ll share my words here. I shared the story of my near miscarriage of my son, of how close he came to not being.
Fearing Hope
This time, the bleeding was different.
Instead of the timid brown streaks that had announced my previous miscarriages, it was bright, red and heavy, impossible to ignore. The rich blood flowed out of me, rhythmically with cramps that made me gasp aloud, as though my body was trying with all its might to expel the fetus.
For the last eleven weeks, I had worked hard to not get emotionally invested in this pregnancy. I hadn’t spend time researching baby names, hadn’t imagined how much my husband would enjoy teaching a son how to fish, hadn’t even glanced at the baby clothes rack at the back of the Gap. I was terrified of making myself vulnerable to the heart-rending grief I’d experienced the last time, when I had spent weeks crying at my desk in our sunny Soho office as my co-workers looked on, embarrassed, unable to coax me out of my depression.When the bleeding began, I realized that I had been fostering hope, deeply buried in myself. But the blood eradicated that hope. This type of bleeding left no room for doubt. I gave myself a morning to cry, to vent my frustration, and then I scheduled a doctor appointment to begin to prepare myself for the next window of conception.
When the ob gave me my hope back, I was angry. I just wanted to get the miscarriage over with, to fast-forward to trying to conceive again. There was a tear in the placenta, he said, the fetus was in danger, but the heart was still beating. He told me that it was too early to do anything other than wait and see. I was stuck in pause and I could feel hope sneaking back into my heart. My doctor strongly suggested that we cancel our two-week vacation in Block Island. He wanted me to remain in Manhattan in case he needed to do a D&C. He warned me that there was a chance I could hemorrhage. I remembered the dreams I’d had the last time after he cleaned out my uterus of a failed pregnancy, the conviction I’d nurtured that he had somehow missed the fetus and that it was still growing inside of me. If we stayed in Manhattan, the odds that I would lie on a hard examination table trying to block out the sounds of the vacuum draining the burgeoning life out of me were high. Amidst all the chaos of my emotions, I was clear about one thing: this pregnancy would end naturally.
I calmly informed the doctor that we would be going against his medical advice. Miscarrying would be bad, but having it cost us our yearly vacation would be utterly devastating. I reasoned that if I was going to lose another pregnancy, I might as well do it in the sun on the beach. We piled our suitcases into our little red Toyota RAV4 and drove four hours to the Point Judith ferry. The cramping, like early labor pains, was so painful that I braced my feet on the dashboard and ground my teeth. I questioned my decision more than once, but I never asked to turn around. Once the ferry left port, the anger and stress of the last few days dissipated. The sun was shining, the gulls were calling, and I could see the beautiful cliffs of Block Island getting nearer.
The bleeding subsided over the next few days and I started to relax and enjoy our vacation. I assumed that nature had taken its course and that I was no longer pregnant. Nausea still dogged me everyday, but I attributed it to a combination of lingering pregnancy hormones and a nasty psychological trick, more of that tenacious hope.
I returned to the doctor’s office two weeks later, tanned and relaxed, but still nauseous in the New York City July heat. Not wanting to be a coward, I kept my eyes trained on the glowing green screen of the ultrasound machine as he placed the cold probe on my stomach. I saw Jack immediately. He had gone from being a lump, to a fetus with a clear head and body. The heartbeat was so strong and regular that the entire room seemed to pulse with it. In that instant, all the fear and hope that I had held back for so long flooded over me, and I burst into tears.
Jack is now eight. He has the most amazing smile. It’s infectious, lights up his entire face, filling his huge caramel brown eyes with specks of gold. You can’t help but smile with him, even if he’s trying to explain why he chose to leave a trail of bloody snot on the wall. He’s an easy-going kid who makes friends easily, but he frequently gives us glimpses of an iron will, teaching himself how to ride a two-wheeler and ice skate, holding back tears when he falls. He attacks life just as he did in the womb, and greets every day with naked joy, as if he knows how close he came to not being.