So, I really wanted a baby. It just kind of snuck up on me. All of the sudden, I found myself in my early thirties and with an unshakeable urge to hold a baby in my arms, my own baby in my arms, and cuddle it to the end of time. Fortunately I also had a man I loved (and still do), and we tried. We tried casually for a year and a half, and then I found myself pregnant. I kind of knew it almost immediately, something felt different, and the test confirmed it. I was overjoyed.
We named it Shrimpsy. It was early, so not quite a baby yet. But not a thing, not an “it” either. It was a little alien-like fetus, and a precious baby-to-be. A little baby-acorn.
I had been really scared that I wouldn’t be able to conceive, that I would need surgery, or even IVF. A doctor had warned me of this, as I have a heart-shaped uterus. Although heart-shaped sounds really pretty and lovely, it is not.
Shrimpsy transformed the whole world into a more beautiful and true place. And although I have no idea if it was the case, I had a feeling that it was a boy. I had actually always dreamed of having a girl, but with Shrimpsy it was different. It wouldn’t just be a boy, it would be our boy.
But then the bleeding started. It’s not that uncommon to bleed a little while pregnant, the doctor assured me. Most often it doesn’t mean anything. But the bleeding got worse, and the blood was red. I was sent to the hospital for a checkup, it was just ten weeks into the pregnancy. And then we saw the heartbeat. You couldn’t hear it, but you could see it on the monitor. It was beautiful. Shrimpsy was fine. And it wasn’t that much blood the doctor said, and it wasn’t that uncommon to feel a little abdominal pain.
My man and I walked home through the park. We were so relieved. And we had seen the heartbeat.
But the bleeding didn’t stop, it got worse, it got fresher and it got redder. So two days later we went back to the hospital. The doctor didn’t see a heartbeat. In those cases a second opinion is needed. She couldn’t get hold of another doctor immediately, and I was lying there crying, legs up, in what seemed an eternity. The second doctor agreed. “Missed abortion” they called it, and gave me some pills to take home with me.
We walked home through the park.
Before we got home, and before I had time to take the pills, the abortion proper had started. It was all pain and all blood. It lasted a couple of days. Shrimpsy, my baby-acorn, went into the toilet. I felt it and I heard it, but I made sure not to look. It was difficult to flush, and it was difficult to say goodbye to a something or someone, who was but never was. How do you mourn a loss like this? It was infinitely more than a dream, yet still less than a person.
It was December, it was so dark and so cold, and Christmas and new year’s so unhappy.
But I had my man, and we decided to try again. This time we were even more together, equally determined to have a baby, and strengthened in our bond through our mutual loss.
∼ TDD 2015 ∼
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