Jack's Story

I got pregnant for the second time when Mat was 13 months old  I was terrified, but overjoyed.  After 11 months of trying with Mat, it was like a godsend to get pregnant on one oops.  I remember watching the stick change color, and feeling so excited.  A new baby.

Chris, however, was not excited.  He was upset.  He immediately jumped to getting an abortion.  It was a fight.  I don't get abortions.  We fought for three weeks before I agreed to get one.  He sent me to my therapist, who literally said, "Are you crazy?  Just go check yourself in to Peachford when you're done, and save yourself the ER trip for the attempted suicide."  So I went home and told Chris.  He agreed with her.  For two whole days.  Then the fighting started again.

I couldn't sleep because of Mat nursing, and the stress.  I was slugging back caffeine and anti-nausea homeopathics.  The fighting went on.   He said I couldn't handle it.  I had so much to do.  Money was too tight.  Everything was so rational with him.

I agreed again at 8 weeks to have an abortion.  Every place I called refused to do the pill because I was nursing, even though I had documentation that it was safe.  Planned Parenthood, but the wait was over two weeks.  I didn't want to wait that long.  One place told me not to let anything stop me from what I wanted to do, and I remember wanting to scream at her that killing my baby was the last thing I wanted to do.  Instead, I thanked her.  It was humiliating.  I had to make all the calls, because Chris was too busy.

I finally put my foot down at about 9 weeks, because I wasn't aborting something that looked like a baby.  We decided to keep it.  Midwife appointments ensued.  We couldn't find a heartbeat, but she wasn't worried.  About 11.5 weeks in, I went to Ikea with my friends Mark and Heather.  I had Mat in the Moby so he wouldn't run off.  I was exhausted all the time and queasy.  He wanted to nurse CONSTANTLY.  If he wasn't nursing he was sobbing.

I had to pee, so we trotted off to the bathroom.  I remember wiping, and seeing brown blood.  It was scary, but I knew my stuff.  Red blood bad, brown blood okay.  It didn't stop.  Days of that.  Just a little, though.  I had a 12 week appointment, so I didn't make a faster one.  Besides, I was already feeling a few flutter kicks.  My mom went with me to watch Mat.  We tried a Doppler, because she knew I didn't want ultrasounds.  We couldn't find the heartbeat again, but she wasn't worried.  He was in a weird spot.  I agreed to an ultrasound.

I waited for a while, in this room full of pregnant women.  Big, gorgeous bellies surrounded me.  Soon that would be me again.  I got called back, and mom stayed with Mat again.  They put you in this big room, and coat you in cold jelly.  I got to see my baby, not just on a little screen, but HUGE.  Half a wall.  I was excited.

I saw it right away.  I was 12 weeks pregnant, and that was an 8 week fetus.  I only had an 8 week with Mat, and Jack looked exactly the same.  I didn't even notice there was no heartbeat.  I just knew he was too tiny in my gigantic womb.   I did the math.  He died the day I agreed to the 8 week abortion.  There had been no baby flutters, just my uterus starting contractions to expel my dead baby.

I asked for a picture.  My midwife told me it was really sweet.  I walked back in to the waiting room.  It was still full of bitches.  Hugely pregnant bitches who would be meeting their babies in a few weeks.  Bitches rubbing their tummies.  I could see the kicks through their shirt.  I hated them.  I hated every single goddamn last one of them.  I remember walking to mom and Mat, and I showed Mat the picture, and I remember saying, "This was going to be your baby brother."  Then I lost my fucking shit.  I was screaming and sobbing.  My poor mom looked horrified.

We were going to Thailand in two weeks.  I didn't want to miscarry in a foreign country.  I also hate being sedated and surgery, so I opted for misoprotol.  I took it the next day.  It was a Thursday.  Chris took the day off.  I took the first pill early.  Mom came over.  I ached.  It was early labor.  We went to the library, and it was starting to get very uncomfortable.  I asked him if we could please go, but he kept putting me off, and getting irate that I kept asking.

By the end of 12 hours, I'd made no significant progress, so I took the second pill.  Chris told me he had to go to bed because he needed to work.  Half an hour later, I was nearly screaming in agony.  It was so insanely painful.  Mom stayed with me.  I remember getting up to go to the bathroom, and when I sat down, my water broke.  Did you know you have an amniotic sac at 12 weeks?  I sure as hell didn't.  Then I spent the next four exhausting, excruciating hours pushing out everything I'd grown to nurture my baby.  I passed fist sized clots of tissue.  I bled constantly.  And I was covered in blood.  Covered, because I caught every last thing I passed, to frantically look for my baby.  My mom, bless her, was handed things as I desperately asked her if she thought it was my baby.  She never flinched.  At around 1am, I found Jack.  Tiny, but clearly a baby,  I held him in my hand, and kissed him, and told him I loved him.  Then I gently wrapped him up and put him in the fridge so we could bury him the next day.  By 2:30 or so, it calmed enough so that I could sleep.

Chris went to work like normal.  Mom and I picked out fabric, and made a shroud.  We buried Jack in the back yard when Chris came home.

I was numb.  Patrick and Timmy sent me flowers.  A few days later, I was spiking a fever, and still bleeding and passing clots.  I was worried I had retained placenta.  My parents watched Mat, so we could go to St. Joe's.  I waited for hours, only to be told no one would perform a D&C because I might have had an abortion that went wrong, and they were a Catholic hospital.  After 6 hours, they found a doctor who would.  By that time, they found out I had the flu, and was almost done bleeding out tissue.

But what if I never drank all that Coke Zero.  What if I'd gotten more sleep.   What if we'd wanted the baby.  It took me two years to get over it.  I'm tearing as I write this, but I've taken this out of the box so, so many times that I can do it without sobbing.  I miss Jack.  I was supposed to still be married, and have two wonderful children.  But I don't, and I have to move on from there.  I have a beautiful son, and I have finally stopped blaming myself.

I love you, sweet angel.

Chinese dolls, boxed in boxes...

I've been sitting on this post for a while.  I just have been busy and lazy, and really, had no good excuse.  I was trying to explain to someone the other day (trying seems to be the keyword for 99% of the shit that happens when I try to explain the inner workings of my brain) how I manage to keep from being overwhelmed by things that upset me.

Every painful event I experience gets felt intensely at the moment it happens, and then it's allowed a chance to run its course quickly.  If I still hurt as strongly the first day as the third or so, I pull out an empty mental box, stuff all of the emotion related to it in that box, label it, and tuck it away.  I just don't think about it or process it, or I never let myself heal.  I can sit and beat myself up about every fraction of every possibility of everything that might have been done differently.  If I just...  If I only...  Maybe if...  If I was stronger...  If I was better...  It's amazing how much I can blame myself for.

When I have a strong moment, or forget to watch how much I drink, I can take one off the shelf, open it up, and let the emotions come streaming back out, and feel it all over again like it was the moment it happened.  My goal isn't to deal with it, so much as it is to process it until the pain is manageable.  I've found that after 15-20 rounds of taking things out of their boxes, they become deal-able.  I can start to logic through them instead of just feeling the intense agony of it.

I could probably go to my therapist, and tear through a lot of it a few sessions, but I've become proud of my ability to deal on my own.  I'm pretty sure this is some version of compartmentalizing, but really, I like the boxes idea a little better.  A good visual explanation for a girl who's not really visually oriented in her mind.  Go figure.

And suddenly, this rambling, and pointless post got to the point in my head.  I need to write out Jack's story.  I've mostly forgiven myself, but I want to write it down, so I can have it saved somewhere, and take the last of it out of my head.

Well, that was silly.