A Journey To Motherhood (working title)

Chapter 6

The next few hours become blurred. I spent about 30 more minutes in labor when they finally bring in the morphine. They inject me with it and slowly the pain goes from being sharp and stabbing to dull and achy. I no longer feel the need the howl my experience away. I just focus on breathing. Exhaustion starts to set in. It's not like there is no pain. It's still there. It's just no longer thrashing its way into the lower half of my body. It's just sitting there. Heavy. Dull. Achy.

I'm numb. Not actually numb. But emotionally. I can't really process what just happened. I don't have a baby in me anymore. That's a strange thing to think. This wasn't what it was supposed to feel like when I didn't have a baby in me anymore. I should be holding one right? But I can't. Because it's gone. He didn't make it. He left. My face just stares at the wall in front of me. What. Why? Is this real? Maybe it's not real. Maybe I'm dreaming this and I'm going to wake up in a panic.

But it's real. This is real. Is this trauma? Is this what it feels like? I try to feel my heart, but it feels vacant. Empty. The dullness sets in. Part of me is relieved. No more pain. There's a suppressed side to me though. It's like I can hear it in the distance. Screaming in mourning, in anguish. It must be the drugs. I'm grateful again. I'm not ready to delve into those emotions yet.

More doctors start to come in, they're starting their post miscarriage procedures. I vaguely pay attention as they check my bleeding. They move my baby away from me to get evaluated at a lab, or something like that. Tears slowly trail my cheeks as I see the nurse leave with the container my baby was in. Gone. Forever.

I feel myself continue to deflate. I want to sleep, but I can't yet. They're doing....stuff. I don't know. I'm exhausted. Sore. A doctor comes in, checks to make sure everything went smoothly for me, checks my body, does what he needs to do. He's nice, polite, straightforward. He tells me that this was nothing that I did. No sex, exercise, food, or anything that I could immediately think of caused what just happened. "Sometimes," he says, "the body can tell that the fetus is not developing as it should be, and it chooses to pass it when it sees its not fit for life. There is nothing you could have done, and unfortunately, sometimes these things happen. It affects 1 in 3 women you know." 1 in 3?!? 1 in 3?!? Why didn't anyone tell me?!? He leaves to his next patient while I'm still trying to process what he told me. Why didn't anyone tell me?? I mean I had heard the stories of women miscarrying at home, and procedures called "D&Cs" but NO ONE, NO ONE, told me that what I went through today was a possibility. NO ONE told me that there was a chance I could experience what I went through today. More tears started to flow, but I just laid there as they fell. What does it matter at this point. I'm tired. I'm so tired. I just want to sleep.

2 more doctors apparently have to stop by. The second doctor does the exact same thing as the first one. Tells me the same thing. There was nothing I could have done. I know its hard to believe, but its true. Blah blah. I numbly nod my way through the conversation. I haven't really said much this whole time. I just hold my husband's hand as we wait. I wanna go home. Can someone let me go home? I try to sit up and an electric jolt sits me right back down. Okay, according to my body, it's not time for me to go yet. "Take it easy babe," my husband gently pushes me back down onto the bed.

We wait.

We wait.

And we wait some more.

I start to cry again and turn to my husband, "I just want to go home..." I plead. He just nods and makes his way to the hallway again. A trip he's grown familiar with. I see him talking to someone and my head just falls to its side and I stare at the wall. A sadness starts to creep in. I want to weep. Weep, it's the only term that seems suitable for what I'm feeling in that exact moment.

He comes back and tells me that the doctor that was originally going to come got pulled into surgery, and that another doctor is hurrying his way over.

I just nod. Numb. Again. My emotions just feel cyclical and repetitive. Sadness, anguish, numbness, and everything inside of that spectrum. I made no effort to get out of there. It would be fake. This is wrong. I should not have gone through this. I should be at home. Resting. Preparing myself for my newborn. This is wrong. This is not supposed to be happening.

But it is. And here I am. So we wait. A nurse comes in with a change of underwear and a new pad and tells me of what to expect in the incoming days. I listen politely as I slowly start to sit up and change. I'm ready to leave. "I'm hungry," I tell my husband. He smiles, "we can get Freebirds after this? What do you say?" I weakly smile and nod. I'm back in my normal clothes. I feel like I'm wearing a shell. On the outside I actually look normal. I'm impressed that my makeup held up (for the most part) throughout that whole ordeal. On the inside, I feel completely destroyed and vulnerable. I feel like I'm about to go out into the world and pretend like everything is together when in fact it's not. It's really not.

Finally as I'm standing in the room for the first time in hours the doctor arrives. He looks like he was getting ready to leave and allowed a stop so that he could clear me. For that I was grateful. I just wanted to leave. He tells me the same thing the other 2 doctors told me. Almost verbatim, except faster, since you know, he was in a hurry. It was nothing you could have done....nothing that you did....my mind checks out and just keeps nodding. I just want to go home.

Everyone finally gives me the all clear. I get handed my paperwork, the nurse practitioner gives me a hug. I have a thought about how kind everyone was during this time. I try to remember that. My husband gives me his arm and tells me we can go home.

We start walking down the halls of the hospital. My eyes well up as I realize....we're going home, with no baby of our own.