A Masked Miscarriage

Getting bad news sucks nuts. Getting crappy news while your bare ass is propped up on the crunchy paper of a doctor’s examination table, feet in stirrups and fully exposed, takes it to another level entirely.

My doctor rested a kind hand on my knee and even behind her face mask, I could see that something was wrong.

“Your pregnancy isn’t progressing. There’s no heartbeat.”

Her words felt like Bruce Lee straight blasted me right in the uterus.

I found myself in the awkward situation of feeling compelled to reassure my doctor that it was okay while I was literally caught with my pants down. I’m not an overly emotional woman, so I often find myself trying to comfort people during the moments they are trying to comfort me. I prefer to tough it out and cope with sadness by myself, away from the sympathetic and pitying eyes of others.

So I put on my go-to positive front, telling her everything was okay. After all, it was a good sign that I could actually get pregnant considering I had been trying since 2018 without luck. Fortunately, my face mask concealed the involuntary lip quiver that would’ve blown my cover for how I was really feeling. Hope evaporated the moment I saw the ultrasound screen.

We discussed the next steps and my D&C surgery was scheduled for the following week. Many of the surgery centers were closed because of COVID so the availability of appointments was very limited. I took what I could get which just so happened to be on my wedding anniversary, proving it would certainly be a memorable one.

My husband, Jeff, was waiting in the car since he wasn’t allowed inside due to coronavirus concerns, and even through my masked face and sunglasses, he knew. I could see his shoulders slump and concern spread across his face as soon as he saw mine.

A little over a month prior, I pissed on a stick and couldn’t believe my eyes. It was positive. After a year and a half of negatives, I stopped believing I would ever see the double lines indicating pregnancy. I gripped the pee stick with both hands, held it to my heart, and laughed out loud.

When we first started trying to get knocked up, the negatives would sit on the counter and torture me, taking my hopeful 3-minutes of anticipation and pinching it out like a flame. After a couple of months of this, I noticed a change though. I inadvertently stopped hoping. When you start to expect a negative result, it slightly numbs the pain of disappointment. I no longer allowed myself to daydream of a future child, no longer let myself imagine what they would look like, what their nickname would be, or what it would be like to share my passion for travel as a family.

As soon as I got that positive result, everything came pouring back. Hope, joy, and excitement took over–proving it was never gone, just waiting behind the scenes. Jeff and I would go on walks and let our imaginations run wild for how our life was about to change. We started dreaming again.

Because of my history with infertility, my doctor had me take two blood tests in week 4 to confirm HCG levels were rising appropriately, and once confirmed, I had my first ultrasound at 6.5 weeks. At that appointment, she could only see the gestational sac and yolk sac, but no baby which can sometimes happen since the timing might have been miscalculated. We scheduled a second ultrasound a week later and although I was still hopeful, I began to mentally prepare for the worst.

It seems like no matter how much you try to brace for misfortune, it never takes away from its sting once it actually happens. Nothing I had experienced came close to the news of a failed pregnancy after the pure elation from the possibility of a family coming to fruition in the mind’s eye.

A few days before my D&C surgery, I had to get pre-op COVID testing at the surgery center. I was given instructions to call when I arrived and describe my vehicle before approaching the emptied-out parking garage where the screening was being performed. I drove up to the second floor and parked next to a large beige tent surrounded by orange traffic cones. Plastic face shields, latex gloves, and light blue medical masks laid strewn about on folding tables next to the tent.

A nurse covered head-to-toe in white protective gear asked me to stay seated in my car and gave me a tissue in case I sneezed, coughed or my eyes started to water. She pulled a six-inch-long swab out of a plastic tube and stuck it so far up my nose I thought she was going to poke my brain out. She wiggled it around for what felt like 5 hours as I closed my eyes to counterbalance the insane discomfort of having something rammed inside my face. The relentless watering of my eyes betrayed my reputation as a non-crier no matter how hard I tried to persuade my tear ducts to keep it together.

Surgery day began with Jeff and I wishing each other a happy anniversary. He was not allowed into the building, so he pulled up to the roundabout as I put on my mask, gave him a hug, and hopped out, much like a kid getting dropped off for their first day of school.

The huge waiting room was completely empty and it felt like an eerie dream. Every other chair was taped off and couches were pushed against the wall like a makeshift furniture fort.

The nurse called my name and I followed her to room #4, where she asked me to remove everything and put on a gown, a hairnet, and some sexy beige non-skid socks. When she came back, she asked where my mask was and told me it had to stay on the whole time. Apparently, taking off everything did not include my most-used accessory from the last few weeks.

The next 15 minutes were a chaotic blur. Two rushed nurses simultaneously asked me medical history questions while hooking me up to IVs and electrodes and then I was left to watch the wall in silence as I waited for the surgery to start.

After an hour, my doctor came in and asked how I was doing, a gentle smile behind her mask. She gave me a brief rundown of the surgery and said we’d be starting in a few minutes. A friendly, less rushed nurse came in shortly after and said she’d be helping out during the D&C. She expertly pushed my gurney through the hospital hallways, dodging corners and medical equipment like a pro. She lined me up next to the surgery table and I tried to move myself over without ass-flashing the anesthesiologist standing behind me. I could tell by the draft I felt that my attempts were in vain and he may or may not have gotten a wink from the brown eye.

I looked around and saw cushioned leg straps resting above my head and I dreaded the thought of me being knocked out cold, legs in the air under the bright fluorescent lights. As the anesthesiologist began to connect to my IV, the nurse removed my face mask before quickly replacing it with an oxygen mask.

After what felt like just a couple of minutes, I blinked my eyes open in the recovery room and was given a glass of water that I tried to drink through my mask, not realizing it had already been placed on my face.

A nurse helped me get dressed as I clumsily tried to guide my limbs into uncooperating sleeves and pant legs–my lady bits popping out of the gown like they had an exhibitionist mind of their own. I was wheeled outside where Jeff was waiting in his truck for his wifely curbside pick-up.

The days after the surgery were a total mind fuck. I felt perfectly fine physically–no pain whatsoever. Everything on the outside carried on as though nothing happened. The sun was shining, work continued as normal, and the earth continued to spin. The only tangible reminder of my D&C was my bruised arm from the IV. The external seemed like a lie, and I wished that the physical pain matched how emotionally thrashed I was.

I felt undeserving of the depression I was experiencing. I was only knowingly pregnant for a little over a month and was angry that I let myself get so excited in such a short amount of time. Trying to rationalize with feelings is nearly impossible though. In order to recover from such heavy sadness, I had to let myself grieve without judgement from my harshest critic–myself.

I tried to be compassionate as I was repeatedly slammed by the tumultuous waves of grief. Anger, regret, heartbreak and despair engulfed every aspect of my being, knocking the wind out of me, and left me feeling like I would never get back up to the surface. At times, acceptance would come and I would briefly be at peace, knowing that if I had attempted to mute the joy I felt after becoming pregnant it wouldn’t have taken away from the pain of loss. Instead, it would have just muted the vibrant and authentic parts of life. I knew that to feel fully was to live fully.

I wanted to shut myself off from everyone and everything. Instead, I did something completely out of character. I sent an email to a handful of close friends and family informing them of the pregnancy-turned-miscarriage and was honest about how devastated I was. I didn’t sugar coat it or comfort them as I had done with the doctor. It was raw vulnerability about a subject that was rarely discussed, yet very common.

My inbox was flooded with sincere words of love and support. Some even opened up and shared intimate stories of their own miscarriages, while others dropped off care packages filled with cookies and alcohol. Consistently though, each expressed their empathy with such genuine kindness that I no longer felt so alone.

Unexpectedly, I felt an immense amount of gratitude and joy. My heart was full during a time when it should have been empty, and the crushing disappointment that consumed me began to subside.

My suffering began to heal through openhearted connection with others.

As I leaned on my loved ones, I started to approach the surface and I no longer felt like I was drowning.