Just Sitting Here, Waiting

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I’m just sitting here, waiting for the nurse to call me back. Smiling at the pregnant women I’m surrounded by, pretending to be one of them, pretending I didn’t just get the news everyone dreads. I wonder if they’ll get me in earlier than I was originally scheduled for. There was supposed to be an hour between my ultrasound and my OB appointment; I don’t know if I can do it.

An hour of sitting in this waiting room, watching as moms-to-be come out clutching ultrasound pictures and texting their families. Does no one come in here anymore for a routine check up? Are Tuesdays the day they schedule all of their pregnant patients? Is this some kind of cruel joke that they make miscarrying women come out and wait again in the waiting room with all of the pregnant women? I debate being jealous of these women — angry, even — but for once, I’m not. I’m too disappointed to be jealous; too sad to be angry. I wonder which of these women have had a miscarriage before. Or a stillborn. I wonder how long it took them to get pregnant. I wonder if anyone here did IVF. I wonder how many others were in my shoes once before, sitting here waiting for an OB after getting the there’s no longer a heartbeat news. I wonder if they once felt like I do now.

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I’m just sitting here, waiting for the OB. I try not to be angry at her, for keeping a little bit of hope alive when I knew deep down two weeks ago this pregnancy wasn’t going to end well. When I was measuring a week behind, when she requested another ultrasound in two weeks only because I wanted one, only for my own “peace of mind,” like it read in my notes. People are off on their dates all the time, she said. When you’ve gone through infertility and miscarriage, you’re not off on your dates, I wanted to say. But I get it; people probably are off on their dates. And I just want someone to be mad at, other than my body. At least I can say I told you so to all of those people who told me a week behind was nothing to be worried about.

What should I tell all those people now? My extended family, my friends. My husband was right: We shouldn’t have told anyone yet. I don’t know why, when I’ve miscarried before, I was so confident about this one until that first ultrasound. It just felt right; everything seemed like it was falling into place — almost like I deserved some happiness — after a rough spring dealing with severe pain and back surgery. I silently vow that if I ever get pregnant again, I won’t tell anyone until after 12 weeks.

I’m just sitting here, waiting on hold to see when they can fit me in for another appointment, in case I don’t miscarry naturally. Wondering why I decided to call at work in the middle of my planning period. Wondering why I’m choosing now to be sad, why now, at work, is when my eyes are choosing to fill with tears. Wondering why it’s so hard to get in for an appointment, wondering why they’re telling me if I don’t come in this Wednesday in the middle of the school day, they don’t have openings for another three weeks.

Wondering why God is having me miscarry again. Wondering why I can’t just be like everyone else and get pregnant accidentally without having to take all of these supplements and do all of these diets and see all of these specialists and spend all of this money. Wondering why such a thing is so difficult for my body to figure out. Knowing that I’m getting older — you are not old, people say — but knowing that if pregnancy is already hard enough at my age, what will it be like in another couple years? Impossible?

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I’m just sitting here, waiting for my students to walk in and class to start. I was supposed to be off school from spring break until the summer, every teacher’s dream. I somehow miraculously have almost the exact number of sick days left I would’ve needed, with a couple extra just in case. I’ve always said if I could plan it, this is the exact due date I would choose: The first day of spring break. My due date. Good Friday. Somehow that’s what happened. It seemed too good to be true. I didn’t plan it, I would tell coworkers when they would say how perfectly we planned it. No, really, we didn’t plan it. I thought that just this one time, my timing might be aligned with God’s. Just this once.

I should’ve taken more time off with my son. It didn’t seem to make sense at the time; I’d take off more time in another year or two when we’d have the next one. I needed to save my sick days. But what if that was my only chance? Why didn’t I just take the whole year off? Why didn’t I appreciate every single second? How could I have naively assumed that he wouldn’t be my only baby?

I’m just sitting here, waiting for dinner. Watching as my son spots a baby across the restaurant, pointing her out in her mom’s carrier and saying baby out. You want the baby to get out of there so you can play? Yes, he says. He loves babies, even if he’s not sure what to do with them. It would be so sweet to see him as a big brother. I think he’s forgotten there was a baby in mom’s belly, or at least doesn’t mention it anymore. Maybe he knows.

I wonder if we’ll ever be able to give him a sibling, my dreams and plans of two kids as close together as possible almost laughable now. Now it will be three years at the very earliest, if he gets a sibling at all. I don’t know why I thought I’d get pregnant again right away after my body did it once; I just thought it had figured it out. I’ll never forget my first follow-up appointment after giving birth, when my OB said, “You’re totally one of those people that will just have another right away.” I had hoped so.

I’m just sitting here, waiting for a miscarriage. I wonder if it will start tonight in the middle of the night, if I’ll have to get sub plans ready for tomorrow in the midst of it, or in a few days, in the middle of reviewing past tense verbs with my 5th hour Spanish 3 students, or in two weeks. Or I wonder if it will happen at all. If I’ll have to decide between the pills or the surgery. How do you even make a decision like that? I don’t want to decide. I choose the only thing I know: Waiting.

And so I sit here, waiting for the miscarriage to start. Waiting to start cramping, to start bleeding, and then waiting to stop. Waiting for my HCG levels to go back down to zero. Waiting to get my cycle back, waiting for ovulation. Waiting for another two weeks. And then maybe waiting for another cycle, or another, or another.

I’m just sitting here, waiting.

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