How I Survived My Pregnancy Loss with No Doctor, No Health Insurance and Nowhere to Go
How do you say goodbye to someone you never met? How do you end a story with no beginning?
The car is moving and I’m quietly dying. Vehicles speed by with faces in windows — ordinary, well-fed faces, smiling big American smiles. They look content, smug in their normality. On their way to meet a friend for brunch or taking the kids to soccer practice. This is their domain and it’s just another summertime Saturday. I try to remember what it’s like to not wake up panicking. To not be consumed by dread and guilt and fear. To go about life like these people.
We pass a cemetery and my husband mumbles, “isn’t that appropriate?” Not helping my darling, not at all. And I die a little more.
Leaning back, I close my eyes, overwhelmed by the desire to cease existing, just painlessly, slip away into nothingness. If only I could summon up my own personal Clarence and declare, “I wish I was never born.”
But I did wish someone else had been born.
For three days I pace back and forth in the dining room. Please God not right now. We’d tried once three weeks before, just to see what happened, never thinking this could actually work, not this quickly. I’m 41 for goodness sakes, isn’t it supposed to take months? Years even? The media keeps reminding women that our eggs start dying as soon as we hit 30. Great timing. A few nights before we had a party, and we all drank. That’s not how I want a pregnancy to begin — with thoughts that I may have harmed my baby.
But God doesn’t hear me calling and I break down.
The anxiety is all consuming, so bad I can’t keep still. My mind races, dominated by one thought. I need to know that the baby is okay. I need someone to reassure me that all is well, that drinking this early on is not harmful to the zygote growing inside me.
I have no health insurance and no doctor. I have nowhere to go and nobody to ask. My panic is so profound I beg my husband to take me somewhere, anywhere. I want someone to give me something to stop the racing heartbeat, the sick feeling inside. My only respite is some kind of impromptu yoga pose I once saw in a book. It offers a few minutes relief when it doesn’t feel like my heart is about to explode. We go to some place I guess poor people, or crazy people, or people with problems go to. A place for the uninsured and the unhinged.
A nice youngish woman tells me not to worry, this happens. “The other day, someone else was panicking about taking strong medication just before she found out,” she assures me. “And these zygotes are resilient.” Many friends tell me it’s fine, it happened to them too, they drank in those first few weeks. Some even chain-smoked and casually ate canned tuna. Everything turned out just fine and their kids went to Ivy league schools. But the worrying consumes me despite these reassuring words. Others tell me not to stress out — stress is bad for the baby and can induce a miscarriage.
I go looking at baby clothes, delicately fingering tiny pink onesies somehow knowing my baby will never wear them. I talk to her a lot between panicking and hyperventilating. I tell her (I’m pretty sure it’s a girl) that I love her and will take good care of her. I go walking in the woods by myself one day and lose my way, eventually stumbling upon an old graveyard. One tiny headstone catches my eye. Another day I feel a shooting pain in my side. I look it up online and cry for hours.
The day of the ultrasound is here. Maybe everything will be okay now. Scrutinizing the screen, the technician mumbles, ‘where’s the heartbeat?’ before rushing from the room. We sit there confused and stunned. Someone finally ushers us into another room. A nurse comes in and says, ‘I’m sorry,’ and I answer, ‘sorry about what?’ She doesn’t reply.
Finally, a doctor enters and tells us in a cold voice that the pregnancy is not viable. Sobbing I take the piece of paper she hands me, explaining all about a missed miscarriage. I scan through all the possible causes and alcohol is right there, screaming its accusation. You did this. I ask the doctor if drinking can cause a miscarriage. Shrugging her shoulders, she says nonchalantly, “it could.” She may as well have stuck me in the heart with a scalpel. We’ve never met, she doesn’t ask me about my health or my circumstances, or how much I drank. It was only that one night. Maybe she was thinking it was every day. She doesn’t care, to her I’m just some irresponsible, uninsured foreigner, despite the fact I’ve been married to my American husband for almost 20 years. She doesn’t know I sometimes suffer severe OCD episodes where I believe I’ve caused others harm and that this condition can manifest in all sorts of ways. Causing a hit and run while driving, thinking the stove is on and the building will burn, thinking I’ve killed my baby because I drank one night two or three weeks after conceiving…
But we’re taking up time and the only thing they seem to care about is how we’re going to pay for this visit. I’d applied for Medicaid for pregnant women but haven’t been ‘with child’ long enough to get an answer. I guess I won’t need it now.
Not wanting me to suffer the trauma of the baby passing, my husband enquires about a D&C. The hospital charges too much so he calls Planned Parenthood.
We’re almost there. They warned us about the possibility of protestors outside but thankfully the parking lot is empty when we pull in. But the waiting room is full. An attractive twenty-something fills out a form, long blond hair obscuring her face. A young black girl and her mother sit together. She’s just 15 and they’ve told daddy they’re at the dentist. I like the mother. Strong and capable. And when she smiles at me, I feel less alone and comforted beyond measure. I’ll never forget that smile.
I wonder how all the girls and women here are feeling. Are they sad? Worried? Scared? Guilty, like me? After her procedure, the young girl returns, half collapsing onto the floor. Concerned, I forget about my own worries for a moment. It turns out she’s okay, just a little dizzy. Everyone’s relieved.
It’s my turn. I beg the nurse to check in case my baby’s actually alive, and it’s all been a terrible mistake. ‘There’s no activity,” she tells me gently as she watches the ultrasound monitor. My last hope is gone as I see the doctor approach. In my eyes he looks like Mengele. He scares me. I clutch my husband and call out for my baby. In no time he says, “it’s done” and walks away. When the nurse asks him, he’s nice enough to prescribe anxiety medication. I guess it’s not quite the norm.
In the recovery room we’re given ginger ale and some plain cookies. The lady next to me chats with the nurse. She’s plump and appears older than me, with short dark hair. “We can’t possibly afford another child,” she says in a firm yet sad voice.
I look at the girls and women in the room, wanting to shout, “I’ll take your baby, give it to me, mine’s dead, not fucking viable, like the bitch doctor informed me,” but I don’t know their story. They don’t know mine. It doesn’t matter. In this room, and for now and always, we’re bonded together in a sisterhood that few can ever understand. Whether it’s loss or relief, we’re all feeling something, the air is thick with it. And I’m sure others are as weathered and battered as I am. We’re all glad it’s over.
The nurses are saintly in their compassion and patience. I call countless times during my recovery, worried about the stuff coming out of my body. Worried about the persisting morning sickness. There’s nobody else to ask. The doctors’ offices I contact tell me they can’t offer advice. “We didn’t do the procedure you see,” they explain in a mechanical voice, that I’m sure they believe is clinical and professional.
Wrong time. Wrong place. Wrong guy. No insurance. Party three weeks before. There’s no gender reveal balloons for us. Our dreams or mistakes die in the womb, on an operating table or the bathroom floor. I call her My Potential and light a candle in her honor. When the flame is extinguished, like her short little life, I bury the candle in the front yard near some flowers.
In time pain subsides and we get back to life. Grief is a lonely journey. Nobody can travel with us, they can only hover nearby, offering kind words and a strong hand to pull us out when we’re ready. A famous spiritual teacher said it best: “this too will pass,” and it does, mostly.
I’m now the mother of a precious eight-year-old daughter, who, like most kids, is inquisitive and strangely perceptive. “Is there a baby that died?” she’s asked a few times now. “Did I once have a brother or sister?’
One day soon I’ll tell her about My Potential and the part of my soul which will be forever missing. But not now. I’ll save it for when she’s much older and beginning to understand that it’s often very hard to be a woman, but if we take care of ourselves and each other, we girls will always pull through.
This article was originally published in MsMagazine.com
https://msmagazine.com/2021/11/10/pregnancy-loss-miscarriage-health-insurance-abortion/
