I could have a 10-year-old

The due date with my first pregnancy was October 18th, 1999. Instead of a  10-year-old child, I have a tattoo in honor of the unborn baby.

I found out I was pregnant in late January of that year. I don’t recall the details very clearly, but I do know that I was more devastated when I lost the baby then I was to discover I was pregnant.

Unplanned pregnancies certainly change your perspective on life, and love. At first, I was in shock. I told my roommates before I told the baby’s father. I wasn’t sure how he would react. Before I even told him, I had it all figured out. I would finish school, have the baby and that was that. Little did I know that this experience would uproot me in ways I could never have imagined.

After making plans, sharing the news with friends and family and figuring out a way to make it all work, I started spotting. I was taking five courses in school, staying up late at night studying, and ignoring the signs warning me to slow down. Finally, I started feeling some very sharp pains that I had never experienced before. I denied what was happening but I knew that my body was rejecting the pregnancy.

Sure enough, when I went in to have an ultrasound performed, they found nothing. Absolutely nothing, in fact, the technician made a snide comment while I lay there, expecting – hoping – to see a tiny image of the baby. She said, “Were you even pregnant?” in a tone that sounded accusing, as if we had played a practical joke on her, wasted her time. I was speechless and with those words she left us there as I waited, breaking slowly on the inside.

My boyfriend silently sat next to me as I began to cry, knowing that the baby was no longer inside me, feeling alone, confused and humiliated. She called the doctor on the phone and then handed it to me so that he could explain that I had miscarried.  This was far worse than getting dumped via e-mail. I hung up not knowing what to do, or what could possibly come next.

My roommates were sitting in the living room when I got home. I must have looked a bit shaken when I came in because they stopped talking and just stared. I said it as quickly, and nonchalantly as I could. “I lost the baby.” And with little hesitation, one of them said, “Wanna drink?”

The D&C was scheduled on my birthday. I turned 22 in the hospital, celebrating a life that would never be, crying through the fog, waking up just long enough to have the nurse push a button to numb me all over again. That night was a blur for a reason. They put me on the same floor, in the same wing as the new moms and their babies. The morphine ensured that I wouldn’t cry louder than the infants. My boyfriend stayed with me and I often wonder if his experience was as painful as it was for me. He didn’t have any drugs to keep him sedated.

My bedroom was my sanctuary for several days afterward. Perhaps weeks went by, I don’t honestly remember much from that time period, other than the fact that my boyfriend changed his mind about living with me and decided that maybe we shouldn’t be together after all. I wasn’t able to feel a thing. I was uncomfortably numb and I made no effort to do anything other than sleep. I didn’t even pretend to go through the motions and by the time I was ready to go back to my classes, it was too late. I was so far behind that I was told there was no way I could possibly graduate as planned, or pass the courses that I missed for those two weeks.

The fact that no one brought up the miscarriage or mentioned what I had just been through made the entire thing that much worse. I kept waking up at odd hours of the night, thinking it was all a bad dream. There was never anything to prove that it ever really happened.

The one person I wanted to reach out to more than anyone else was not available and I decided to leave chose to run away.

I moved to San Diego less than two months later, picked up my life and started all over again, over 2,000 miles away from everyone and everything I ever knew. My story doesn’t end there, in fact, that was a new beginning for me.

Life leads us in different directions and each path we take provides us with challenges we’re never quite prepared for. The road I traveled on led me  to a place where I could finally be free. I have grown and changed  so drastically in these last ten years. I now have a 5-year-old son and truly understand what it means to love unconditionally.

This experience taught me quite a bit, about myself, about others, about life. and love. I look in the mirror every day and see the permanent reminder. While my tattoo shocks many people, to me, it is nothing more than a glimpse of the past, a piece of history that will never be forgotten, and forever be honored.

Happy Healthy Hip Parenting
Peace Begins in the Home