Our Miracle Girl (Part 3)

It was a Monday in mid October, days until my husband's 31st birthday when I went in for a routine pre-natal exam. I can't remember anything about the details of the day, who kept my son for me or whether my parents were already in town or not. There was nothing spectacular going on in life, just daily routine in the lives of young expectant parents. The wait in the lobby went normally; the exam went normally; the doctor was his usual jovial self and I was most likely thinking through my to-do list for the rest of the day as he took measurements from the sonogram machine. I wasn't far enough along to make out any form of a baby just yet on the monitor and so the whole thing was pretty much just procedure. Until the doctor's face showed just a half second of confusion before he turned the monitor away from me and quickly excused himself without any fanfare.

I thought it odd, but not alarming. A few minutes passed and Dr. S. returned with a nurse, the one particularly skilled at sonogram interpretation, who took a seat on his spinning stool. She picked up the handled thingy-ma-do and picked up where Dr. S. had left off. She had this funny look of, I don't know. Just, like she was trying her mask some other look. The two of them said nothing to each other and nothing to me except "now, just relax" one time. That was the first indication that perhaps I had some reason NOT to be relaxed.

Slowly, I started to make some guesses within me. The two of them left again and after a couple of more minutes, they returned, Dr. S. closing the door behind him. I felt sorry for him. We had such a great repoire, almost as much like friends as doctor and patient, and I could see he was hesitant to break the news. "I lost the baby," I stated more than questioned. He nodded his head yes. I can't remember how the conversation progressed from there. I only remember the sadness that no one was there to ride home with me and that I would have to spend several hours trying to be happy for a toddler whose only understanding would be fear for Mommy's change in demeanor if I sulked.

Before I left, the doctor explained to me my options and I chose to have things happen naturally at home. Part of that had to do with routine use of medical terminology. "Spontaneous Abortion." I hated that term. I understood it. But this was so different from the abortion I was familiar with and it just reminded me too much that no, I had WANTED this baby. My thoughts at that moment were rational enough to understand that the words had no comparison, but frustrated enough to not care about what did or didn't make sense. I just sort of needed to be angry. The doctor actually warned me before I walked out that this would be the term listed on my medical chart. He knew it may conjure up hurtful feelings for me and so he told me ahead of time this is what would be written. He also called up to the front desk to tell them to erase all my charges......