A Journey To Motherhood (working title)

Chapter 5

We start the journey to the ultrasound room. My brain is foggy as I get wheeled throughout the hospital. I'm mentally giving out commands to my body to make the time go by and to stay conscious through the pain.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Sit up.

Look around.

Stay awake ok? Stay awake.

I get into a rhythm and start trying to crack jokes with my husband and the nurse. It helps to alleviate mental fatigue I'm experiencing in my attempts to get through what's happening.

Man, this is a long walk. It started when they wheeled me out of the emergency room, down a long hall, up a ramp, to the center of the hospital, down another hall before I noticed that we were still not there. I started to get impatient and anxious. I squirmed slightly in my seat. I just wanted it to be over. I breathe to have patience so that I don't accidentally take it out on the people that are trying to help me. I try to focus on the nurse telling us that we're now approaching an old part of the hospital that is now a historical site and nod and give polite "oohs" as she points out the antique architecture and designs. She stops sharing and I try to focus on my surroundings. We pass by the chapel, I look at the people. I've always liked people at hospitals. The people walk with such purpose and focus, minimal resignation in their face. It comforted me to see that and hoped the people who take care of me will have the same purpose.

We finally pull into the ultrasound room. A friendly technician introduces herself and me my instructions to prepare for the ultrasound. The relief of taking the next action gives me the energy boost needed to change and wait for her to come back, ready with more lighthearted quips to pass the time. She giggles at a few of my one liners and starts to give me my ultrasound. Her face shifts to focus and things get quiet. I wait patiently for her to do what she needs to.

I start to notice the silence starts to get prolonged and I start to get anxious. I check in with her lightheartedly, since I knew my brain was trying to go to the worst case scenario. You don't know what's going on. Just check in. "How's it going?" my voice asks in my best attempt at a semi-cheerful tone. "Yep, just getting these pictures in," she responds lightly, but it came off as politely short. I shrugged it off as imagined. "Anything you see?" I lightly press, "I don't really know, what I do is that I'll take the pictures and then the doctors will look at them and then be able to tell how the baby is doing," she responds professionally and courteously. I nod. The quiet continues. There's a knot in my stomach that grows as the silence continues. I can't help it. She'd tell me if everything was fine? If she's not saying anything things are not fine. I don't know if things are fine. Oh no. What if they're not fine? What am I going to do? My anxiety spins tales of darkness and anguish and worst-case scenarios as I wait for the ultrasound to finish.

"All done!" she chirps. She quickly completes the process and lets me know the next steps and leaves the room. "Is it just me, or was she in a hurry?" I nervously ask my husband. "It's a hospital babe, I'm sure its busy here," he responds. I nod again and let it go while we wait for the wheelchair to come back.

I'm less quippy on the journey back to the emergency room. The knot in my stomach was rising up to my throat and I was feeling like I wanted to gag. My head was swimming from the energy it took to focus my mind to be away from the pain. At this point the blood felt like it was freely flowing out of me and needles were prickling outwards from my uterus and rooting themselves into my lower abdomen. My breathing kept getting more and more labored and I finally gave in and closed my eyes on the ride back. My husband put his hand on my shoulder, and it brought me back to reality. I opened my eyes again, looking forward to being able to lie down again.

I recognize the hallway to the emergency room and feel some relief at the anticipation of being able to lie down again.

Relief also at finding out what's going on with my baby.

Relief to possibly being able to get rid of this pain.

There's a part of me that deep down, feels like things are not looking up. But I try to ignore it. Until the doctors say so, we're still in the game. At least I try to convince myself that I am.

We finally reach my room and they help me out of the wheelchair to the bed. And we wait.

As we wait, the pain starts to escalate. I moan and groan and ask my husband to ask the doctors when will we get an answer and he quickly goes outside. They tell him they're waiting on the ultrasound and he comes back to let me know.

Another hour goes by. As we wait the needles start to turn into knives, branching out and rooting themselves now fully in my lower abdomen. My abdomen cramps in response, prompting the roots to pierce and I briefly cry out in pain before resuming my moaning and ask my husband to check again with the doctor. He tries to tell me we already asked but I finally snap at him and tell him that I'm in pain and I really need an answer soon. He nods and rushes out again, and they give him the same answer, along with the fact that they can't do anything about the pain until they get the results. I nod again, but my breathing is starting to get faster.

My husband attempts to hold my hand right as I feel my stomach get punched with a pain that shoots through my entire body. I immediately sit up and scream as I feel something slough out of my body. "No!" I cry out in tears and I continue to yell in pain and sit back again turning in hopes that the pain will subside but continues to escalate. "Baby, please, you can't be thinking those things ok?" my husband desperately tries to fix the situation. I turn to look at him and I just want to scream at him to stop, that he doesn't know what this is and to stop. His words hurt too. Everything hurt and was screaming at me. Alarms were clanging in my brain that something was going terribly, terribly wrong. I was trying to will the pain to stop and it just kept climbing. This is pain I never felt before. I want it to stop. SOMEONE STOP THIS PAIN. I kept screaming, and screaming, no longer cared who heard, who was next door. I couldn't help it. I lost every sensible thought other than SOMEONE. PLEASE. HELP ME.

Finally, the nurse practitioner walked in and walked toward me. I barely registered that her face looked sad. My tears blurred my vision and my brain was fogged with just the processing of the pain I was in. The searing, unbelievable pain. She sits on my bed next to me and calmly starts to speak, "So we got back the results of the ultrasound, and we found no fetal heart tones. This is a miscarriage, and the pain you are experiencing right now are contractions," she picks up my hand and holds it. All I can do is cry and nod as the truth of my situation starts to sink in. My heart breaks into a million pieces. The pain intensifies, and I scream more as she continues, "Your body is passing the fetus naturally now. Now that we're clear on what's going on, we're going to get you some morphine to try and alleviate the pain. In the meantime, just try to breathe through it. This is labor, and hopefully the passing will be done soon." She puts my hand down and quickly walks out to do what's next.

The door closes. The only noise that's heard is the sound of my crying and labored breathing. My husband holds my hand, and I see the tears well up in his eyes. "I'm so sorry baby, I'm so sorry," he presses his forehead to mine. I nod, cry, feeling my heart continue to dissipate. Now that I know this is labor, it's no longer a surprise when the next wave of pain hits. I turn my head to lay flat on my back and allow myself to finally roar in anguish, sadness, and pain.