‘90s FAMILY : Recalling the Joy, Reflecting on the Pain

The doctor was friendly but not very encouraging. He walked into the examining room and greeted my wife and me with a matter-of-fact, almost clinical tone. We expected something a little more congratulatory.

Two days before we had caught ourselves in the bathroom mirror breathlessly laughing as the two blurry red lines materialized on the home pregnancy test.

We had been trying for a couple of months and wondered if it was going to be possible. We were starting late in life. I’m 39 and Margie is 38.

That night we lay together in bed, holding hands. The giddiness had subsided. Suddenly we were no longer alone. Somewhere between us was now a new life. It was one of the few times in my own life when all directions instantly changed course. Rivers flowed upstream. The sun set in the east, and I was terrified. How could others make this seem so simple? And how could something so simple be so difficult?

The paradoxes overwhelmed me. The problem with starting a family late in life, I told myself, is that I know more than I should, and at that, I still don’t know very much. Forget about changing a diaper; I’m talking about just holding a baby, talking to it or making those silly faces. I have never done that. And self-sacrifice?

I was suddenly thinking about the expense of college, to say nothing about my other dreams for this kid.

Now, before I even had a chance to find out, the doctor was telling us that with the bleeding and cramping, this may not be a viable pregnancy. He took Margie’s blood and said he wanted to do the same in a couple of days.

Driving home, I was surprised that I was nearly in tears. We poured such energy into the thought of becoming parents. The day before at lunch, I had ordered beef-vegetable soup, thinking I needed the protein--as if I were the one pregnant. I started to see children as if I were somehow inside of them and the world was suddenly very big. I wanted to reach out to them, talk and protect their innocence and sense of possibility. I wanted to plaster our refrigerator with their drawings of the sun, moon and stars in the sky over our house.

Most of all, I wanted to recapture the silly happiness, the wonder, the hand-holding fright Margie and I had shared just two days before, but all that was gone. There were now so many if onlys. Blame no one. Think of God’s will or nature’s purpose, but still we wondered. Was it my fear and reservations? Or a day without folic acid? A waistband one notch too tight? Can life be so precarious?

Margie’s disappointment seemed palpable. She said as much. Her greatest sorrow was to have recognized this new life within her only by this slow, intermittent bleeding. And she knew she was losing it. Her breasts were not as tender. She felt the feeling inside of her slip away, and our hopes drifted with it. Never had we found our lives--really quite happy and peaceful--so empty. When she cried, I held her.

My own emotions have few words and fewer affectations. It’s easy for me to figure out how we will support a child or how we will organize our lives and working routines. Give me Excel and I’ll make a spreadsheet--genius that I am for bringing order to a world sadly intent upon disorder. Such is my arrogance and, in equal proportion, my fear. Forget having a baby; it’s living so close to happiness and loss that scares me most.

I sometimes think that my life is like a large house, and I know it pretty well, too. Here’s the entry; I might later show you the living room, and if we get to know each other, maybe the kitchen. The bedrooms are upstairs. But in the last three days, I had found a hallway I never knew existed. Doors opened to rooms on either side, and I wondered what was in them. At best, I imagined, answered promises like home runs sailing over the fence on warm summer nights. At worst, a bicycle run over by a car, a balloon rising out of reach.

Two days later, I found myself in one of these rooms when the doctor gave Margie a hug, shook his head and told us the pregnancy was terminated.

Studies may show that more than 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage and stillbirth. Among women over 35, the risk may be significantly higher, but nevermind. The light that filled our home that afternoon when we got home was white, the light of a world bathed in the shadow of the sun. The curtains were pulled. It felt soothing and quiet. Margie slept and I listened to the noise rising from the street outside our windows.

I wandered back through my thoughts over the last week and I realized how alive I felt at the prospect of being a father. I saw how quiet my life is and I felt ashamed that I was even relieved to be free of this new responsibility. Perhaps it was more than I could handle. I felt the borders of my life re-establishing themselves and rather than being comforted by these familiar feelings, I felt the sadness deepen. I wanted so much that challenge, that hand to hold, that screwy face to make.

How do you grieve for something that at four weeks was more of an idea than a reality? I don’t know. I just remember seeing us laughing in the bathroom mirror, and like many lovers-turned-parents, feeling the mysterious spark between us become our hope, our fear and excitement to be starting a family.

I went to awaken Margie. I sometimes wish I could see the invisible tracks that connect us, the traces of our dependency and love. I find myself looking for proof that we are not entirely alone, that the greatest moments of disorder and loss are neither lonesome nor perilous.

To our unborn child: You existed. We know that. You were our energy. You were the meeting of us. You were the magic of our love and the excitement of our dreams, and we were dreaming with you. We lay awake knowing that you were going to change our lives and we miss you.

Today I am accompanied by Margie, guided by her love and courage, and a belief that still someday a child will give me the strength to try those other unopened doors and connect me to a part of life that I have never known.