I’m writing this February 25, 2003, over four years after it happened so this is all as I recall it. Some parts may be unintentionally embellished. Some parts may be flat-out wrong. But this is how I remember it.

On September 27, 1998, my 2-year-old son, Aaron, and I were visiting my in-laws in South Carolina. I was two or three months pregnant. My husband was on tour with the (Orchestra he plays with) in Japan. We were going to visit some other South Carolina relatives who lived about an hour away.

We stopped about halfway there to let the pregnant lady go to the bathroom. I was astonished to discover blood. My brain immediately grasped that that was A Problem. I ran to the cashier at the convenience store and gasped, “Where is the nearest hospital?!”

I went back to the car. My father-in-law went back in for better directions while my mother-in-law helped me sit on one of my son’s diapers for the bleeding. She said she had known by looking at me that something was wrong as I approached the car but figured someone had been rude to me in the store or something.

We went to a little hospital in Gaffney, South Carolina. I was scared.

There were a couple other patients in the emergency room and no visible staff. I wrote my name on something. We waited impatiently. I believed I was having a miscarriage and that precious seconds were being wasted when someone could be giving me the magic medicine that would make the baby stay where it belonged. My mother-in-law got a nurse’s attention and I was admitted.

The ER doctor was very nervous. I got the idea that since an ER doc probably deals with a lot of death and severe trauma, blood wasn’t his problem. I thought maybe he didn’t usually have to deal with a lot of “female complaints”, though, and that was what had him so nervous.

A female nurse was present for the internal exam. She came back later and I asked her if she had ever seen a woman bleed so much and still carry the baby to term. She said in an all-things-are-possible kind of voice that she had. “Sometimes there is a tear in the placenta that bleeds a lot but then heals up and everything is fine,” she told me. I am still deeply grateful for her kind words and the hope she offered me.

They took me for an ultrasound. This was a Sunday at a small hospital and I had had to wait for the ultrasonographer on call to come in. She was a full-figured lady with beautiful black skin. She was very professional and also very nice. I think she was wearing purple, my favorite color. I was comfortable with her.

While she was doing the ultrasound I watched the screen. I didn’t see anything distinct and I asked her, “what are we looking at?” “Your uterus,” was her reply. I muttered, “I guess I don’t know what I’m looking at,” and turned my head away. I wasn’t sure but thought I was far enough along for there to be something baby-ish on the screen, too. I think my statement and turning away was denial.

The ultrasonographer couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me anything. She said she had to wait for the radiologist doctor to come (he also had to be called in) and give me the diagnosis. When he arrived, he wanted to do another ultrasound with a full bladder. They were planning to catheterize me. I asked if I couldn’t have a drink of water instead. “Well…that will take 45 minutes to go through your system,” one of them replied.

“Won’t catheterizing me require giving me antibiotics?” I asked. They looked at each other for a second and one of them said, “Would you like a drink of water?”

So I drank a lot of water and waited. They gave me another ultrasound and sent me back to ER without a diagnosis. The poor nervous ER doctor had to deliver the bad news. My father-in-law was with me.

The doctor told me it was a molar pregnancy and probably told me what that is. I have considered midwifery as a possible profession and therefore had read a lot about obstetrics. I said to him, “I know this can be a pre-cancerous condition. You seem very nervous. Is there something more you’re not telling me?” “No,” he chirped. He left. My father-in-law held me and I sobbed.

They admitted me to the hospital and summoned the OB-GYN. His name was Dr. Johnny Neighbors. He was a little man who had a presence that filled up the room. He told me what they were going to do (a D&C) and was completely no-nonsense about it. He told me straight-up, “If you hemorrhage badly and are bleeding to death, I’m going to have to perform a hysterectomy.” I really appreciated his straight-forward manner but it was a little too much for my mother-in-law.

Dr. Neighbors told me that he had previously treated four women for this relatively rare condition. He said, “I don’t know why I’ve had four. Just lucky, I guess!” “I think I’m lucky,” I said.

My information about how to get in touch with my husband was out in the car. My father-in-law thought I shouldn’t call him until after the final concert of the tour, so I didn’t. I did call and leave vague messages for my parents and my sister after my in-laws took my son to their home.

I waited. And I prayed. “Please, God, I don’t care if they have to take my uterus. Please let me live so I can be here for my little boy.”

On the way to surgery I must have been asking the nurses about the drugs they were going to give me because one woman suggested, “well, maybe now would be a good time to wean (your son.)”

I guess my in-laws had just gotten home when they got the call to come pick me up. We went to their home and poor Aaron didn’t get to nurse until mid-morning the next day after I spoke to a lactation consultant who said all the drugs were fine.

I called my husband in Japan. He was taken aback at first. Once we all got home to Minnesota, though, he acted as if nothing had happened. After two weeks of that I wanted to know what the hell was wrong with him!

The first defense was, “well, you were so nonchalant about it over the phone, I thought it didn’t matter to you,” or something like that. After some probing the “truth” came out.

“I did a lot of thinking in Japan and I’m not sure if I want to be married to you anymore.”

Oh really? Well why didn’t you say so?

“I didn’t want to add that to your problems.”

right.

So I didn’t take the time then to deal with the “miscarriage” because I had to deal with the mis-marriage. I’m dealing with it now, four years later. Making the cross-stitch sampler helped a lot. I had made one for my son, Aaron, to commemorate his birth. Making one for my Not Baby helped because it was a tangible symbol of her existence in my heart.

I was disgusted by the idea of the molar pregnancy growing inside me but that has worn off over the years. From what I read at the time, I believed that it was caused by a defective ova. That made me feel kind of like I was defective and I worried that it might happen again. Information I've read putting together this site has suggested that it is just caused by a fluke of nature. That feels a little better.

One day about two years after the "miscarriage", I was at the park with my son. He was playing with a little girl with long blonde hair who would have been about the age of his sister if she had been born. That pulled at my heart.

Now I am married again. We are building our step-family and, God willing, are hoping to add a new member sometime soon.

UPDATE 4-4-04: Yahoo encourages me to update my page or they'll shut it down. Nothing like a little kick in the pants!

I am pregnant. Baby is due in September and we are really excited. I went ahead and got an ultrasound at my first appointment even though I would like to avoid unnecessary tests. It felt really necessary for me to know it wasn't a molar pregnancy.