I showed him the positive strips.  I went to Rite Aid earlier in the week when I missed my period.  My breast were already beginning to feel tender, and I waited for him to leave work before I could vomit.  I played the scenario over and over in my head, the way I would break the news.  No matter what I came with, nothing seemed right.  When would I tell him? How?  His reaction would scare me the most, and it was exactly how I anticipated.

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“No! No! No! I can’t have a child right now!  How did this happen?  You’re on birth control!”

“I forgot to take it for a few weeks.  Things were busy and stressful.  I just forgot.” I handed him my pregnancy tests with the plus signs, “I even took two just in case.”

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He shook his head, “This is so irritating.  I don’t need this right now.  I can’t afford to have a baby,” as said in rage walking away.

That night, he slept in the spare bedroom, and I slept with Zach on our bed.  It was muggy inside the room, so I cracked the window to let the spring breeze grace my body for comfort.  I sat quietly into the good night, blaming myself for not remembering something so simple.  I pondered into my head what might become of my child.  Maybe a basketball player like her momma or a wrestler like his papa.  I planned to have a baby shower at Aunt’s Virgie’s house.  I pictured my round belly and me cradling my stomach.  I would begin to buy maternity clothes and look into day care options.  I drove around my neighborhood the following day and enquired about prices.  When he came home, he asked, “How are you feeling?” and I merely replied, “Fine.”  I didn’t know how else to answer such a tough questions.  He knew I wasn’t myself, but he just let it be and didn’t bother to ask any more questions the rest of the evening.

I was praying for a girl, a mini-me I could mold into greatness.  A girl that would love me unconditionally.  I would teach her how to read, write, shoot a J with an ankle breaking cross over.  Then, as she attended her first dance, we would shop together and get our hair and nails done, like girls.  I tried to stay positive and hoped that he, at some point, would be happy.    

But that happiness never came.

I called my gynecologist to set up an appointment for the first trimester.  I hid the pregnancy from most people, only telling a few close girlfriends, and I decided I would inform Aunt Virgie after my first trimester visit.  But when I called her, I had different news.

 

When I went to the bathroom in the morning, my underwear was slightly bloody.  I read that women, even if pregnant, would experience spots of bleeding during the first trimester.  I felt fine, no headache or cramping, and I went to work.

I called him before I left the house, “So are you miscarriaging or not?”

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“I don’t know.  I never miscarriaged before.”  My doctor’s appointment was in a few days, and during those days, I continued to research miscarriages, but it was still difficult to place.  I went about my every day activity as if nothing bothered me.  On the day of my doctor’s visit, my gynecologist made me undress spreading my legs wide open as she inserted a cold rod up my uterus.  I flinched as it stung from my vagina up to the core of my stomach.

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“You could be miscarriaging, but it’s hard to tell.  There’s a fetus in you, but it’s not developed to where it should be if you are ten weeks pregnant.  If you are miscarriaging, you need to go to the ER immediately.  My guess is you are.”

It took the next day for the pain to finally hit me.  He was in the kitchen cooking dinner, and I was in bed resting, until I let out a violent scream, startling myself.  I clutched my stomach, but the pain continued to peak the more I yelled.  I struggled to get up, quickly became unbalanced and dizzy falling back on the bed.

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“The pain will go away.  I don’t think I need to drive you to the hospital right now.”  I moved to the couch, so he could go to bed.  I turned on the T.V. to find ways to distract my mind from the pain, but nothing worked.  Three hours later, he stormed out of the room, “Fine, I’ll take you now, I guess.”

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I screamed the entire ride to the hospital, and the more I screamed, the faster he drove. I reached for his hand to squeeze, but he moved it quickly, “I can’t hold your hand and drive at the same time.”  As we pulled up, he said, “Get out, and I’ll go park the car.”  I felt like a toddler taking her first steps as I stumbled through the front door.  My throat dry as I explained my miscarriage to the desk clerk.  “Have a seat, and we’ll call you when it’s your turn.”  Two hours later, a nurse helped me in a wheelchair and pushed me to a room with beeping machines.  She transferred me onto a bed, and he sat next to me with his hood over his head.  Another cold rod was pushed up my bloody vagina, as I held my breathe.  “Yes, you are miscarriaging,” the doctors confirmed, “sometimes these things never get an explanation.  It’s just one of those things that happened.  Your visit today is $100.  Let’s get you out of here fast, so you can head home.”

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We arrived at home just in time for him to go to work.  I begged him to stay, but as he shut the door, he said, “I have to go to work.”  The pain medication wore off in a few hours.  My mouth contracted more, and I kept losing massive amounts of blood.  Going to the bathroom seemed like the most difficult task.  I held myself up on the wall to keep from collapsing clenching my teeth as the pain grew intensely.  When I finally made my way to the bathroom, clogs of tissued dispensed from my vagina.  My face was grey, and my eyes drenched and puffy.  I sat on the toilet to disperse more bloody chunks.  I flushed the wet plasma down the toilet when I felt done, but my miscarriage lasted fifteen days.  As I made my way back to the couch, Zach sat by my head, gently licking my face.

A woman doesn’t always have control of her body.  My daughter broken into pieces inside me.  The life I could create no longer possibility but now a myth.  The world around me was empty, and I would never be able say with pride, “She is my first born.”