Empty
The past few weeks have been devastatingly difficult for me and my family. I apologize for the prolonged leave of absence and I would like to believe that I am on the road to recovery, but there are still more mornings than not that I want to hide under my covers and pretend that I am 6 years old again. A wise old friend offered the suggestion that comfort and solace (both for myself and others) might hide in writing about my experiences, so I share my personal experience writing with you. I am sorry that there is not a trace of sarcasm detectable, but there is a small portion of my heart (mostly the part that houses the bitter little troll that usually vents on this blog) that is hibernating.

My stomach has felt as if I had swallowed a rock for at least three hours. Being the mom of six kids means despite the heaviness in my heart and my body, I have to carry on with the scheduled events of the day before I can start attending to the medical unpleasantness I know looms on the horizon like an impending storm.

The sun gently warms the late summer air, but I feel cold and distant as I wait for the last lingering soccer parents to retrieve their son's uniform and listen to my nervously rehearsed monologue about hydration, practices, and game days. But, all too quickly, it is time to face the morbid reality, I am no longer going to have a new baby, I am a defective empty shell – again.

Our neighbors, quieted by uncertainty about what to say to comfort such a horrible situation, welcome my six beautiful children, the ones that had come so easily to my waiting arms, through their front door and my husband and I bustle off to the gaping jaws of the hospital emergency room.

I know that water and fish in waiting rooms are supposed to calm the tension in anxiously awaiting patients, but the brightly colored fish make me envy their ignorant and simple environment. The crime drama on television is far too intense to hold my attention. So, I sit with my hand tucked tightly under my husband's bicep, knowing that his thoughts are clouded also.

The admissions process is excruciatingly drawn out and I can feel my anger rising each time I answer the same monotonous set of questions. Yes, I am pregnant (at least for a few more hours). Eighteen weeks (a deceptively safe number). No, I don't drink or smoke. No, I have felt nothing abnormal, although, perhaps it would pad the blow each time this nightmare happens. There is nothing worse than living a nightmare that is totally unexpected and not being able to control anything about the outcome, only watch it approach like an oncoming train.

We wait with baited breath while they prepare the correct room, ironically much like hungry diners wait for a table at a restaurant. The ancient attending doctor, as tongue-tied and awkward as our well-intentioned neighbors, parrots back the same string of inquisition that I had just answered three times before meeting him. He mumbles his orders and recommendations like an judge delivering sentencing and abandons us to wait for the next conspirator in our execution.

My body trembles and quakes, partly because I sit robed in a scant cotton gown, and partly because my body is nervous and shocked to be sitting in this terrifyingly familiar wheelchair. The gruff middle-aged ultrasound technician feably attempts to make small talk, probably more to ease her own discomfort than my own and I lie down, spread eagle and vulnerable on a padded table blanketed in crisp paper to await the verdict which I know stalks me like a predator.

The black and white nebulous image is unmoving – painfully, dreadfully, hopelessly still. “There is no heartbeat, is there?” I say with a clinical sterility that surprises me to hear. “No,” comes the robotic reply as she continues pressing the wand painfully into my sepulchral and faulty womb to continue measuring the lifeless mound of cells that until this afternoon housed my hopes and dreams of a beloved friend.

I wipe the suffocating slime from my abdomen, replace my gown, and place one tentative foot on the icy floor. I am surprised by the strength my limb displays despite the weakness in my heart. I lower my world-weary body into the waiting vinyl seat and sneak a look at the sagging face of my sweet husband. He had been the optimist, sure that if there was something wrong that God or the universe would have given him some ethereal sign to prepare him. I know better, somehow being blind-sided by devastation is supposed to build spiritual character, although I still don't understand how.

The ride through the labyrinth of hospital hallways is interminable with my mind buzzing over the inevitable events of the next few days. Tomorrow I will experience the anticipation of sitting in a familiar room, draped in warm curtains, floored in honey-colored woods, peppered with furniture to provide comfort for helpless companions, and dripping in electrical cords and medical monitors. Rooms just like this have smiled at me six times before in my life, as I wait to hold another tiny warm body in my arms and kiss the delicate skin of my new child's forehead. But twice now they have sneered at me as I feel my impotent body clench and fight to welcome a lifeless shell that once clothed another beautiful spirit. My mind drifts back to holding another perfectly formed little body, dressed in beautiful clothes that some nameless and charitable soul labored to create to ease my pain, in the palm of my hand and knowing that another cold tiny little hand will perch on my seemingly huge finger all too soon.

My mind flutters helplessly as I ponder how to tell our brood of anxious children, knowing that they don't understand the pain of losing someone that they have never met. And finally, how can I face my partner again, knowing that he biologically performed his duty, but somehow my body just didn't understand its role in the process. I feel like an utter failure to my gender.

How will the weeks of grieving go? He and I have suffered twice before. Once we allowed our grief to evolve into anger and resentment and we nearly lost each other. It took months to reunite and recommit, but some veil of bitterness still lurks on occasion. The other was a staggering battle to not repeat past mistakes and to hold onto our precious marriage. How would this latest, and most painful loss impact our fourteen-year friendship? Were we strong enough to help each other, or were we going to ease our heartbreak apart? My weak and clammy hands crumple and straighten my discharge papers as I lift my heavy body into the passenger seat of our gigantic vehicle, which seems surprisingly empty as if it knows that there will remain one more frigidly vacant seat.