The Birth Day That Wasn't

The first thing I remember about that day was my coffee. I sipped it nervously on the way to our eight o'clock appointment, the Anatomy Scan. I'd just recovered from my first miscarriage and was miraculously pregnant again. I was painfully nervous. My co-workers talked about the anatomy scan like it was the pinnacle of pregnancy appointments. In addition to finding out the gender of the baby, I was on pins and needles about whether all would be right anatomically. 

I patted myself on the back for scheduling the appointment on my husband's thirtieth birthday. What better gift than to see your child on screen? When we parked, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. My leg bounced up and down in the passenger seat. 

"Relax," my husband said, checking the time on his phone. 

It was a sunny day. The hospital looked almost cheerful, bustling with morning appointments and procedures. We filed into the dark ultrasound room with blinking lights. My stomach tightened as I stepped up onto the table. My husband took the rickety chair beside me. A young dirty-blonde woman walked into the room. I placed her in her mid-thirties, noting the smile lines around her eyes. She wore her hair in a messy-bun, little wisps escaping in the front. I watched as she took out a device the shape of a deodorant stick and applied gel to it. She smeared the warm jelly onto my smooth, round stomach and moved it gently. 

She pointed to a spot on the screen, glancing our way with a grin.

 “It’s a girl,” she exclaimed. 

A girl. I had known it with my deepest of knowings. I smiled. It is true, what they say, that you fall in love. 

The tech measured other tiny body parts as the baby wiggled slightly on the fluorescent screen. 

“This is her head right here," she pointed. "And just below, you can see her spine. All looking good.” I stared in awe. 

She zoomed out, paused, and furrowed her brow. Her narration stopped. She continued clicking as my husband and I glanced at each other, noticing the shift of energy. 

“There is something a bit odd here.” Her pointer circled a large blob on the screen. I saw the baby tucked down underneath it in the bottom right-hand corner. She looked like a baby-bird, hunched in the corner of her nest. 

"So, this right here is the placenta. It's rather large, especially compared to the size of the baby." Her eyes avoided mine. "The baby is measuring a bit small. It’s like the placenta has taken over all the space in your uterus.” 

A whirling, unstable feeling filled my belly. My heart thumped in my ears.

 "I'm going to get the doctor to take a look. I have never seen this before," she said, placing the apparatus back onto the machine. 

She left. I turned to my husband. “Babe, something’s wrong."

“Let’s just see what the doctor says.” I threw my head back on the crunchy pillow.

The door opened slowly, and a slim, brunette woman entered in a white lab coat. She walked stiffly, her face unanimated. She nodded at me. "Hello, I'm Dr. Doom. I am the doctor here at Maternal-Fetal Medicine."

We nodded, eager. 

She looked to the ultrasound screen where my bulging, herculean placenta smothered my baby. She conferred with the tech briefly, who pointed to certain areas and whispered with her head turned from us. 

I stared at their lips while I waited for them to finish their conversation. I grabbed for my husband's hand, but he too was paralyzed. Time slowed to the periodic drip of a faucet. 

Dr. Doom turned to me with a short nod. "Why don't you get dressed and meet me in the room down the hall where we can talk,” she said, stone-faced. I turned my head. A talk. I struggled to control my breathing. 

I felt my husband's arm steady me as I sat up and scrambled for my clothes. My hands shook. The air in the room felt dense. I struggled to inhale as my feet moved down the hallway. Linoleum squares dotted the floor. Not again, I pleaded. Please, not again. 

To the left was a door, partially open. Inside lay a desk and two chairs. No framed medical degrees hung on the wall. The desk was bare, absent of the cheerful hum of a desktop. My bright purple sweater felt too festive for the bleak space. This room was special. It was the place where "talks" happened. Dr. Doom sat behind the desk in her white jacket, unmoving. Her face was solemn. I swallowed and kneaded my necklace tucked beneath my collar. 

"Bethany, your pregnancy is malfunctioning. The placenta has stopped nourishing the baby, and the baby is not growing." 

I stared at her, silent. Her huge, blue eyes bore into mine, willing me to accept her words. I opened my mouth and shifted in the chair. I felt the electric twinge of sweat under my arms. 

“What can I do? How can we fix it?” I glanced back and forth between my husband and the doctor. She stared at me. He looked vacantly at his lap. 

Dr. Doom caught my eyes again and calmly, slowly, shook her head. 

“What does that mean?” I pleaded. Numbness crept up my neck and face. 

“Your body is preparing for delivery. It recognizes the failure of the pregnancy.”

My gut filled with acidic panic. I shook my head, eyes shut tight, and swallowed. 

 “You will not have this baby in April. The pregnancy is over.” Her words softened as if she was talking to a small child. 

I paused. My ears rang. 

 “But the baby is alive. I saw her move!” I gasped. I pushed forward now, leaning in to make my point.

"The baby has stopped growing and will soon die. You will deliver her, but she will not live." She crossed her legs. Her gaze broke mine, returning to a robotic state. Her words fluttered on the surface of my consciousness. I shooed them away like an unwanted pest circling my psyche. The buzzing of my ears grew louder. 

She pulled her chair closer to the desk.  "You can deliver her today, or you can go home and wait for your body to do it naturally. But she will not live, Bethany. It's too early, and she's not strong enough. I'm sorry.”

I took empty, fleeting breaths. No air could bypass the knot that calcified my sternum. My husband sat stark still, a soft crimson color creeping up his neck into his face. He swallowed and dropped his eyes to his lap, his composure fragile. 

She will not live. The wiggling spark of life that danced before me on the screen, who turned and kicked with life, would not survive.

 My stomach dropped so suddenly it hurt, like the rush when a rollercoaster descends. As I let the gravity of the moment sink deeper, I ached everywhere. My knuckles turned white from the pressure I placed on the chair. There was a clock somewhere, solemnly recording the moment. With each sharp, mechanical tick, the room grew smaller. 

It dawned on me that I would have to deliver her. I pictured myself going into labor, the mechanics and emotional tumult. If I chose to stay at the hospital, I would have to be present  the moment my baby, too small to thrive, would come out of me. How did I turn off my heart? Tears bowled over my eyes and hit my cheeks. 

"You will have to be induced. You can choose to stay here, under medical supervision, or you could go home and wait.”

Blood rushed to my head. I stifled sobs. I pictured myself at home, on the bathroom floor, delivering a dead baby. The contents of my stomach, acidic coffee, and milk rose slowly in my throat. I swallowed hard. Next to me, my husband succumbed to his tears. 

"If I have to lose her, then I will do it here." I sobbed. I hated the doctor. I hated this room. I hated this hospital. But mostly, I hated my body. If I’d had one day more, I'd have soaked in my child, talked to her, apologized. 

 I stood and gathered myself.

“I need to call work. I have to tell them I won’t be coming in today,” I declared. My husband looked at me, mouth open. It was the only thing I could do to control the situation. I needed to grasp onto something concrete. Autopilot kicked in, and I went into action mode. Clear schedule. Call boss. Get induced. Disengage from emotion. Deliver baby. Survive. 

A nurse knocked softly on the door. She held a wheelchair. It took a second to register it was for me. I sat down shaking and surrendered. I heard the blood coursing through my veins as I gripped the armrests. She wheeled me through the doors of Labor and Delivery. The title of the ward mocked me. Maternity Ward, it read, each letter rattling like a machine gun. 

I retreated to a hard, unfeeling corner of my brain. You breathe, and you survive, but you do not feel. You keep the edges fuzzy to prevent the scrape of reality on your skin. I don't remember the hospital bed or the IV. I don't remember nurses coming in to offer me blankets and pillows. I vividly remember watching the nurse place a sign on the door. It was a picture of a butterfly, a signal to other nurses coming and going that this would not be a happy delivery. Tread lightly, it warned. This woman will not leave a mother. There will be no balloons, soft blankets, smiles, or pictures in the lobby. Instead, she’ll be wheeled to her car with empty arms. She'll return to her old life a shell of her former self. Never will she allow unfiltered hope to fill her heart or fully trust the joys around her. She'll stand guarded as the tide pulls against her feet, only to retreat when it surges back. 

-Bethany Cunha

Bethany Cunha is a Baltimore-area teacher, writer, and mother born with a crippling uterine defect that caused seven miscarriages and countless surgeries in her quest to be a Mom. Her writing, a letter entitled Lonely War Vet, has been featured on Cheryl Strayed's podcast, Dear Sugar, and on the popular podcasts Beat Infertility and Your Fertility Hub. She loves to look out the window and see green and has an affinity for the Florida Keys but can't convince her husband to move there. She can be found on Twitter @CunhaBethany and Instagram @goldfishboxers.