Back to the beginning

When M and I were trying to conceive, I am ashamed to admit I was a bit jealous of bloggers who had miscarried. It wasn’t specifically because they had miscarried, of course; it was more because I was jealous they had been able to become pregnant in the first place. In my warped mind, they were closer to having a live baby than I was—even if they weren’t currently pregnant—simply because they had already been partly there.

How foolish I was.

What I didn’t understand was that when you lose a baby during pregnancy (I say “lose a baby” because, of course, I still don’t know what it’s like to miscarry), you not only don’t have a child in your arms; you have experienced a glimmer of hope, only to be pushed back down. It’s like you’re in prison, digging a tunnel to freedom. You’re near the end, you can see the light—and suddenly there’s a cave-in, and you’re right back where you started.

Or, to use another analogy, it’s like the children’s game Chutes and Ladders. (M, unfortunately, never played that game as a kid, so I’m counting on you guys to get what I’m talking about.) In that game, you slowly make your way along a board with 100 spaces. Sometimes, you land on a ladder, which allows you to jump ahead a few spaces. Sometimes, you land on a chute, which sets you back. At the top of the board—just a few steps away from the end—there’s a gigantic chute which, if landed upon, will send you sliding all the way back to the beginning. For a competitive child such as myself, it was heartbreaking to land on that space.

I’m not so arrogant as to think that with my pregnancy, I had reached the gigantic chute. That’s reserved for women who carry their babies to term, only to find out at the end that something has gone wrong and their baby has died. But I had ascended rather far—at least for me. I could see the end; I was choreographing my victory dance. I was contemplating nursery decorations and crib styles. And whoooosh! suddenly I’m back at the beginning. In fact, now, I feel almost silly for actually believing I would have a child in my arms next spring. I feel like a poser.

It has now been a month since Zach’s death. I mourn the loss of my son, but I also mourn the loss of what was “supposed to be.” I was supposed to deliver in March, three months ahead of my friend A, who is now nearing the end of her first trimester. I was supposed to experience pregnancy and then motherhood first. Instead, she will be leading the way, gazing back at me with sympathetic eyes as she caresses her growing belly and signs up for labor and delivery classes.

I am immensely grateful for the joy Zach gave me for a few months. But I am heartbreakingly sad that that joy had to turn into sorrow, landing me squarely back at the bottom of the board—again.