Vital Signs and Baseball
Buddhism teaches us that suffering is the only promise life keeps, and so, when we find happiness, we recognize it for the gift that it is. We cannot expect happiness, it is not something we deserve. When life goes well, it truly is a sudden gift, but it cannot last forever. Tho, this is why I feel so blessed, because even while I have known suffering, I have also known exquisite happiness. My life has become complicated, more complicated than I imagined it could be, and I’ve had great difficulty in finding words to express this complexity.
We took some time as a family over Memorial Day weekend. Some day trips to New Hampshire and Cape Cod, some yardwork, some cooking out, some socializing with friends. All typical and wonderfully relaxing. I felt good. Life was good, and even tho I had a secret, nothing could have prepared me for Tuesday morning.
I woke up feeling strange, cold, uneasy and a little nauseous. I knew something was wrong. I was bleeding, but my period wasn’t due, and I knew it wasn’t due because I was pregnant. About eleven weeks pregnant.
It wasn’t something that I was ready to share or talk about, and I’d only told a handful of people about my good news. Me getting pregnant wasn’t something we’d planned for, in fact we’re very careful about that. I’ve been on birth control pills for a long time, too long in fact, and I’d recently made the decision to change from the pill to the new Minera IDU. So, I stopped taking the pill and I was getting ready to see my ob/gyn to be fitted for my new IDU, but like anything, life gets busy and I’d put it off and put it off and didn’t get to it. I wasn’t terribly worried about getting pregnant tho (there are reasons for that which I’m not going to talk about) but I felt reasonably safe having sex with my husband and not worrying about it, but then again, life sometimes has plans of its own and one determined swimming sperm cell can change your life in an instant.
When I missed my period I knew. Instantly. It’s like a feeling we have, when we just know when we’re pregnant. And I knew. I was pregnant. A quick run to the CVS for an EPT II test confirmed my gut instincts and then a visit with my ob/gyn a couple weeks later filled in the gaps of when and how far along.
Then it came time to tell my husband that our nest of three, our power trio was about to become a quartet. I have to admit that he took it better than I expected, even better than I did. We were excited. We were happy. And even tho we didn’t plan on this, we wanted it. I was ready for this in every conceivable way, even tho I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of getting fat again, I love the feeling of being pregnant and I wanted to feel that again before it got too late in life for me.
I’ve always seen pregnancy and childbearing as the full extension of our sexuality. That’s what we’re here for. We’re here to bear children. I don’t resent that, in fact, I embrace it. I almost wish that I’d had more children when I was younger, and it wasn’t because we didn’t try, it just didn’t work out that way, and then with my husband being away, and then our eventual divorce, it just wasn’t meant to be. When we reconciled a few years later, it wasn’t really something we talked about, but we both seemed to be on the same page about ‘not’ getting pregnant, so I took the pill.
But getting pregnant brought all of those conversations like, “Do we have enough money put away?” and “Is the house big enough?” and “Do we want another boy or a little girl?” and “What about your health… complications… prenatal care…” all of that and then some. But we were happy nonetheless.
All of that changed that Tuesday morning.
My husband was getting ready to leave for work. I was in the bathroom, bleeding, feeling sick, crying. I knew something was wrong. I knew I was losing the baby. He knocked on the door and asked me what was wrong. I called him in and showed him what was happening to me.
“Do you want me to call a rescue?” he asked.
“No… just take me… please?” I managed to whimper.
He got me some clothes and a few towels and carried me out to the car, resting me in the backseat as I clutched the towel between my legs; as if I could somehow change this, stop it, hold it all inside me and make it not true. I barely remember the ride to the hospital, but I could hear him calling my doctor’s office and leaving a message with her service about what was happening and which hospital we were going to.
The people at the emergency room took me right in and started IVs and started examining me. My own doctor arrived a few minutes later.
“It’s okay honey” she started, “We’ll take good care of you”
“What about the baby?” I asked
“You had a miscarriage nina…”
Those words of dread. That word no woman can bear to hear.
Miscarriage.
It feels like… failure, death.
“We need to do a d&c honey… we have to make sure it’s all out of you.” she said.
All I could do was weep.
My husband stayed in the room and held my hand while I waited for them to take me into the OR. It was so cold. I was so cold. The tools are so cold. The icy steel cold of the speculum entering your body chills you to the core. I watched them push the drugs into the IV line and quietly turned to look at my husband who was sitting next to me. The only words I could manage… “I’m sorry”… and then faded off into a chemically induced anesthesia sleep.
I was sore when I woke, but the pain medicine flowed freely thru my veins. My doctor came into the recovery room a few moments later. Her face was reassuring and calm.
“I’m going to keep you for the night, okay?” she said
“Okay…”
My husband was waiting for me in my room when they brought me up.
We talked a bit as I faded in and out of consciousness. It was okay. He was okay, and I would be okay. We were okay.
It’s been a week since I lost the baby I carried, and I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about it. I don’t know if we’ll try again, or if we even want to try again, and I know that a miscarriage means that something was wrong and it’s your body’s way of taking care of you, but it’s still hard. I had emotionally prepared myself for being pregnant and having another baby, and now that’s all changed, so it might take me some time to catch up to that reality, but I will, and it will be okay.
Tho for a moment… I knew that happiness, however fleeting it sometimes is. I’m still wonderfully lucky and blessed, and I cannot be so selfish to discount the blessings that I have in this life.
But I will always remember the Tuesday after Memorial Day for as long as I live.
Play Ball!
Okay, so we’re big baseball fans here, and not just any baseball fans, we’re Boston Red Sox fans! A friend of ours invited us to see the Sox play the Yankees last Friday night, and even tho my boys lost, it was a great game. A-Rod has to be the most hated Yankee in Boston, as evidence by this picture of one creative Red Sox fan’s way to nudge A-Rod after it came out in the NY Post that he’s got a Canadian stripper as a mistress. Awwww…. Poor Alex. Cynthia honey, you need to leave his ass! His contract is worth 256 mil…. Half of that will leave you set for life babe!
I love the Sox, especially Daisuke Matsuzuka and Hideki Okajima, the two Japanese pitchers added by the Sox this season! And with Boston in first place in the AL East and with the Yankees about 11 ½ games back out of first place, the season is looking good! Oh yes, if you have time, please write in vote for Kevin Youkilis at first base for the All Star Game! Youk is the man!
But my real heartthrob on the team is Josh Beckett! I just drool over that boy! Josh has taken up full time residence in my erotic fantasy repertoire, even more than Enrique Iglesias! Hmmmm……sigh.
So, that’s where I’ve been and that’s why the extended absence from geishaland. We’ll see where things go from here.
I still have a ton of emails to answer. I sincerely apologize for shutting down for a while. I’ll try and get to those soon. Thanks.
Nina,
My day to remember is Christmas eve. That is when I lost my first one. Be good to you.
S