Due Date

My youngest daughter's due date is approaching — if everything stayed on schedule she would have arrived in mid-late April.

I am in my early 40s and getting pregnant last summer was unexpected and felt completely improbable. 

Took two...just to be sure. 

Before having a chance to feel much of anything about this enormous family news, I quickly fell victim to the clutches of hyperemesis gravidarum a la Kate Middleton/Amy Schumer. Within a week of learning I was pregnant, I was almost entirely bed-bound. If I managed to fold a load of laundry, that felt like a huge accomplishment. I was underfed, under slept and dehydrated — unable to engage with the world in any capacity. Visits to the ER and urgent care were both met with condescending (male) doctors who didn't understand why I bothered to come in. 

"Morning sickness is a good thing! It means the baby is healthy."

I went days without interacting with my kids. Their giggles or the smell of their dinner wafting up the stairs would send me into a tailspin of misery. I wished to exist in a sensory depravation chamber with no outside tastes, smells or noises.

It was terrible and lonely. Scratch that — whatever is lower than terrible and lonely is what I felt — depressed, despondent, hopeless. I knew there would be an end at some point, but it is supremely difficult to think of an end that's months in the future  when you are in the midst of debilitating nausea/vomiting with absolutely no relief. You wonder how you can possibly survive this terrible feeling. 

My doctor offered an early anatomy scan at the start of my second trimester in mid-October. She noted that there would only a few things they could catch so it wouldn't be super informative, but I decided to take it. 

From the beginning of my pregnancy, I joked that because I'm so old, my child might have an arm growing from their head. We just had very good results from the NIPT test, and I wasn't expecting much from this scan and so I went in completely unprepared for bad news. 

The woman who administered my sonogram was unfriendly from the moment she called my name in the waiting room. I packed up my apple slices and immediately began reassuring myself that this woman's tone had nothing to do with me. I was fine, the baby was fine (having had a previous pregnancy loss before my oldest daughter, I find scans to be pretty stressful).

When the sonographer was quiet during the procedure, and didn't crack a smile at my attempts to make nice, I convinced myself that it was all a part of her nasty demeanor and had nothing to do with what she saw. When she told me to go to bathroom and that she'd complete the scan after, it was apparent that this was more than surliness. 

She was missing for 10 minutes — there was no further scanning. I sat there confused on the paper covered chair. She eventually appeared in the doorway, not bothering to come in to let me know the scan was over and a doctor would come see me. More waiting. More knowing that something very bad was coming. When the doctor finally arrived, she told me that my daughter's skull never formed. She had a neural tube defect that was already in place by the time I saw the two lines on my pregnancy test. Her brain was exposed to amniotic fluid, and if she was born alive, she would only live hours to days. 

I had an abortion 48 hours later.

I live in a liberal state, but figuring out how to get an abortion was still very difficult. Receptionists wouldn't let my husband make the appointment so I found myself making phone calls while barely holding it together. If I went to a hospital it would be a more private experience, but I'd have to wait at least a week. I couldn't bear waiting.

Instead I went to an abortion clinic where they could offer me an appointment first thing the next morning. I needed to fast for the procedure, which exacerbated my nausea, and we were running late because I couldn't stop dry heaving into the toilet.

My husband drove me into the parking lot past protestors waving signs. We were both scanned for weapons, had our bags checked. No support people could leave the lobby, so I undressed alone in a room covered in post its from other women who left supportive messages for each other. When everything was done, I was released out of a back basement exit for privacy. 

The immediate physical relief was surreal in the midst of intense emotional pain. The minute I came home I scarfed a sandwich and ate a huge bag of salt and vinegar chips. I was ravenous for two days, relishing in the ability to smell food, walk upright, and sleep through the night. 

The emotional pain of what's been lost has been hitting me in waves since October. Because of my nausea, I missed out on ever feeling excited about the baby. Once she was gone, I mourned  her absence, and also the alternate reality that I never got to experience.

I was never the pregnant person who would've eventually been done feeling nauseous and who would have been excitedly preparing for a new life. Folding hand-me-downs and putting them in drawers, buying a car seat holder for our cargo bike, or continuing to watch my daughters' excitement for a new baby sibling (complete with their boy/girl name lists and vigilantly watching my stomach for growth). We called the baby Smoot, and my oldest would whisper good bye to her nearly every morning before school. 

When I was pregnant, I did find comfort in creating a family that mimicked my own. My sister was 3 years older than me and we have a much younger brother (9/12 years our junior). I loved the idea my family also having two big sisters with a much younger sibling. While I never meant for things to be this way, it felt natural because it was so familiar. 

Now my due date is so close. I can't stop myself from fantasizing about what might have been. 

It is still very hard to see pregnant people and babies. And when you've suffered a pregnancy loss or are dealing with fertility issues, pregnant people and babies are everywhere. Only this past week have I been I been able to return to our neighborhood playground and not be completely tormented by the infants in the baby swing and the expectant mothers chasing their toddlers. 

Our ofrenda for Dia de los Muertos includes baby Mari's hand and foot print. 

When my dad died over 20 years ago, I naively thought that I had paid my dues in the sad news department. Of course, that is absurd, and I should have paid more attention to the four noble truths when I learned about them in ninth grade. The losses keep coming — they will continue to keep coming. 

Perhaps the only benefit of new grief after previous losses is using what you've learned. 

I know my limitations and refuse(d) to push myself into social situations that I expected to be hard. I knew that I would feel lost, and gave myself some grace when I didn't accomplish in a day what I thought I should have. I understand that it's part of the experience to have moments of levity followed by harsh reality. 

I drew this cartoon a few months ago and I will share it here. It is a bit scary to post about abortion on my business blog. I imagine many would find it supremely unwise. But, I can moderate the comments section as is my supreme privilege as the official Here For You blog queen. And I've never been shy about sharing when it comes to grief. 

I think it's important to put my story out there, because I believe that a lot of anti-abortion voters don't understand the full spectrum of abortion care. Technically, this is my second abortion. My first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage and I needed an abortion to remove the fetal tissue.

I'm thankful that I did not have to travel out of state for health care like I would have done if I live in one of these states. I received comprehensive and compassionate care at Women's Health Services, and was especially thankfully for a particularly sensitive nurse-midwife who supported me during my procedure, got our baby's hand and foot prints, and hand delivered them to me afterwards along with a big hug. 

(BTW - here's the post I refer to above)

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