When I found out I was going to lose the baby, I doubled over and howled. No. When I found out I was going to lose the embryo, the fetus, the little cluster of cells the size of a raspberry (according to the pregnancy app), my throat clenched and I whispered into the phone, For sure? Yes, for sure, said the midwife. There was nothing I could do. No herbs to take, no foods to eliminate, no bed rest or kegels or acupuncture would make the little being stay. The little being was not even alive anymore. A tiny heartbeat never heard, two weeks ceased. Deceased.
I trust my body, I trust my body, I trust my body, I’d gone to bed whispering the night before, hand over my womb, hand over my heart. I trust this little soul. I trust them to do what they need to do. But why are you abandoning ship?
Trusting is not the same as understanding.
They had been so quiet. Not like my daughter whose presence was felt so soon after conception. She was vibrant and strong, hormones coursing through my body making me tired and ill. No meat (now her favorite), no broth, nothing but crackers and cheese and rice would my body tolerate.
I did not feel this one. I wanted to. I tried to. The prenatal vitamins made me nauseous enough to think I had morning sickness. I was tired, but of course I was tired- I have a 21-month-old who'd been cycling through various community illnesses for a month. I wanted to feel something and didn’t. Or barely. I felt guilty for feeling good. I felt anxious about the silence. Did I already know?
Subconscious knowing or not, I still wasn't ready to hear what I heard. My hormone levels were dropping. They were incompatible with sustaining a viable pregnancy. Clunky words could not express what was happening inside my body. Non-viable fetus. Miscarriage. Pregnancy loss. Spontaneous abortion. Due date canceled. Life gone gone gone.
Tears. Gasping for breath. Wet chin and splotchy cheeks and puffy eyes against my husband’s shoulder. His face mirroring mine, standing in the kitchen clinging to one another with our sleeping daughter in the carrier on his chest. Does she dream of salty ocean water and howling wind?
We cry for days. We dig a hole and wait for the blood. We care for our child sick with the flu. I meet with the midwife for what would have been our first prenatal visit and she says there is nothing wrong with me as far as she can tell and we should start trying again as soon as possible if we are emotionally ready and there was nothing I could do, really, nothing I had done to cause this to happen. This happens. This happens to so many women. Yes, I know. I cry. Wipe my tears. We can try again. My heart lifts as I drive home. Let’s try again. I could be pregnant in two weeks. Or not. But the possibility is there.
The next day the bleeding increases. The cramps ramp up. From what the midwife said, I expect to be doubled over in pain again, this time physical pain. I prepare. I go for a walk to the store with my daughter bundled under blankets in the stroller, an apple in her hand. I can feel the muscles working in my pelvis and I walk and stop and breathe in with the sharp pains. My pelvis is softly set jelly, I tell myself and laugh, thinking of my husband teasing me about my mantra during my 68 hour labor with my daughter. Relaaaaax, I say dramatically to myself, still laughing, cervix softening, opening, releasing, just like in labor. My body knows what to do and it feels good to allow it to contract and release. I surrender. Just as I did in labor, just as I did with the grief, just as I do with hope bubbling through the disappointment.
I trust my body, I trust my body, I trust my body.
Back at home I do farm chores, back aching. After I’ve carried five gallon buckets of water to the goats and sheep, fed the chickens and ducks and barncats, I tell my husband I am going to the hole we dug so we could plant a tree for the little departing one. I want to bleed into the hole, let my animal body take over, let the earth absorb the remnants of this womb nest.
Walking toward the hole, I howl.
The moon pushes through me.
I stop, start walking again, howl again.
The stars fall from me.
Sounds I have never made before, not even labor, startle my husband. And me.
Are you OK? He asks.
Yes? I say. I just... I think they just came out!
I walk to the hole, pull down my pants, squat to the earth.
A perfect pale orb of ocean threaded to a crescent constellation of nourishment.
The midwife said not to expect to see anything. That not seeing anything but blood clots was normal. This was not the case. This was a whole universe of possibility fallen from my body. Complete and magical and delivered with such ease.
The universe falls from my hand onto the soft dirt. Words and prayers and compost follow.
We bury the possibility of that particular world under a dogwood tree.
We water the roots, surround the trunk with soft woolen mulch, gingerly touch tightly furled buds.
Together we tend our farm, our family, our bodies and wait (wonder) for the bloom of another (possibility).