How to Carry: Tiny True Stories #2
On the language of miscarriage
Welcome!
to the second edition of Tiny True Stories! If you’re new here, hello, and thank you! I’m so happy to see you.
If you’re here but you’re not sure why, you can read the first edition of my newsletter here, where I talk about what it is I’m doing here.
As promised, I’m going to keep it tight. I hope you all are breathing clean air and finding someplace that isn’t so hot (or that you can do both soon).
Today’s Tiny True Story
I tried to write this three different times, and each one seemed wrong in some way. This one probably is too, but it feels the most right, for now.
TW: miscarriage. Please take care of yourself and skip to the letters of recommendation if you do not want to read about miscarriage today.
How to Carry
Miscarriage (n): 1580s, “mistake, error, a going wrong”
At the first ultrasound the heartbeat was low. The doctor said, “Do not panic!” But she wanted to see me the next week. I made a mistake. I listened to her.
Miscarriage (n): 1610s, “misbehavior, wrong or perverse code of conduct”
At the second ultrasound, the heart rate was even lower. And I could hear it, too: an error in the heartbeat, one extra thump, repeating. The doctor said, “It’s not good news.” Her voice was very quiet. She did not give me the ultrasound picture. She said, “You can have the room as long as you need.” I did need.
When I finally made my way out of the exam room, I had to pass through the waiting room to leave. There was a very pregnant woman there, I guessed 8 or 9 months along. She looked pale and scared. I hated her.
Miscarry (v): 1300, “go astray”; mid 1400s, “come to harm; come to naught, perish.”
We just have to wait for the baby to die. My body still thinks I’m pregnant. Am I still pregnant? My brain does not know what to think. I am in my body and not. I move myself like a video game, step forward, sit, smile. I am standing in front of two paths: pregnant, not pregnant, and both dissolve in front of me. There is nowhere safe to step.
Miscarry (v): 1520s, “deliver an unviable fetus.”
All of the earlier meanings of miscarriage include the idea of failure, either the word itself (“fail to reach the intended result”) or implied. Everyone keeps saying “it’s not your fault.” I know it’s not. But I think about the word miscarry. I failed to carry them. Like, I dropped the baby. Or, I “lost” the baby. As if I left them somewhere and forgot. As if I would ever, could ever, forget.
It’s not my fault. Okay. Hurricanes, tornadoes, are not our fault—and yet, we always look for why. It feels better to have someone to blame, somewhere to put down the wrongness, the violence, the unfairness. It might as well be me. This is my job, I think, as a mother. To help carry my child’s pain.
There is no word that does not blame me. This is okay with me.
Abortion (n.): 1540s, “the expulsion of the fetus before it is viable,” originally both deliberate and unintentional.
We have a family vacation already scheduled so, with my doctor’s okay, we go anyway while we wait for our baby to die.
Every second I wonder if the baby is dead yet. I didn’t know miscarriages could be like this. I always assumed it would be like a car accident—blood, and then it would be over, sudden. But even car accidents are not car accidents.
I feel like a leper, a monster, a hearse, until my therapist tells me I am sitting vigil. “Vigil” comes from the Latin vigilia, originally a word for a soldier’s night watch. “Vigil” also has roots in “awake,” watchfulness. I am not a very good watchman. I cannot warn anyone when death is coming; I know it’s coming but I don’t know when. So instead, I’m sitting with the knowledge. All I have is the certainty of death. It’s not peaceful, exactly. But it is somewhat better to know how the story will end.
During a vigil, you sit beside a dying person and wait, watching, keeping them company. I sit next to, around, outside, inside my baby, with them while they die. It is an honor to watch this short life we wanted, to know it was here for a little while. I stay awake, so they can let go.
If you only had a week to live, what would you do? I take my dying baby on an airplane. I say, these are clouds! I take my dying baby to meet my family. I say, This is love! I take my dying baby swimming in the lake, playing with my older daughter. I say, This is fun; this is a sister! Dying baby, this is a s’more! Campfire! I breathe with my dying baby the bad air quality from Canadian wildfires, then the next night, clear air and stars. This is the world, I tell my dying baby.
Abortion (n.): 1540s, “the expulsion of the fetus before it is viable,” from the original Latin stem aboriri, used for deaths, miscarriages, and sunsets.
One night my cousin offers to take my older daughter for ice cream with her kids. It’s the first time I’ve let someone who isn’t my husband do this—take my daughter somewhere in a car—that isn’t school or home. I say yes, go.
My daughter leaves to eat bright rainbow ice cream with her cousins. Everyone else goes for a sunset boat ride, and I stay behind. I sit on the dock, alone, and think This is orange, pink, blue, sunset. I wait for one child to come home, and wait for two suns to set. My heart breaks. The light is spectacular, while it lasts.
Today’s Letters of Recommendation
Letters of Recommendation:
The Bear. If you haven’t watched it yet on Hulu, run. My friend Amy said that, even if you aren’t a chef, haven’t worked in a restaurant, even if you aren’t grieving a death, even if you don’t have a dysfunctional family, somehow, this show seems to give everyone what they need. Me included.
Humphrey Slocombe’s malted milk chocolate ice cream. I’ve had many of their flavors since moving to the Bay Area (even their famous secret breakfast, with bourbon and cornflakes), but I keep coming back to this one.
This short piece, “One in Twenty Three” by Helen Rye about loss and about beauty. I cannot stop thinking about it.
If this was meaningful to you, please feel free to share it with others. People talk about miscarriage more than they once did, but so much of this was still a mystery to me, despite what I thought I knew. Everyone’s experience, both physical and emotional, is going to be vastly different and I do not intend to speak for anyone for myself. I am staunchly pro-choice, and this experience made me even more so. But if this is you, I am sitting vigil alongside you.
This was beautifully written and I think it is good we are talking about miscarriage more. Sending love ❤️.
Thank you for sharing this. Sending love.