Remembering

I remember my first prenatal visit like it was yesterday. According to calculations, I was about 16 weeks at this visit. (Irregular period and lots of denial made it so late...) I went by myself, I didn't want Daddy there. I was sitting in the waiting room across from this Arabic couple who were very near the end. She was beautiful, clear dark complexion, perfect features, wearing simple black pants and a burgundy maternity shirt. Her hair was covered by a matching burgundy and black...I don't know what you call the cover... She had her hand on her belly the whole time she was sitting there, her husband was uncomfortably reading the Reader's Digest. He looked older than her by a number of years, some gray sprouting on his sideburns and mustache. I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, couldn't even tell I was pregnant. At some point she and I caught eyes and she smiled at me. "One more week," she mouthed at me. I smiled my response. How excited she must be! In just a week she gets to hold her baby. I was happy for her. They called her name before mine, and she disappeared into the back. My name was called about five or ten minutes later, I was given a gown and the door was shut. I heard a scream from next door. Footsteps could be heard in the hallway, fast paced back and forth. "Get the other machine!" I heard someone call out. More running, tires squeaking as the screaming turned into sobs. My heart was racing, What the hell is going on? I thought. Doctors were being paged to room 6, I heard a man crying out in the hall. "NO! NO!NONONONO!" was what came from next door now, "FIND THE HEARTBEAT! FIND IT!" Tears were forming in my eyes, I knew this was the woman from the waiting room, I just knew it. God, no, why is this happening to her? I thought. "Call the hospital! Get the OR ready," I heard a nurse call out to another. I heard the wheels of a stretcher coming for her. She was still screaming NO! Her husband was still in the hall, I don't even think he was standing up. Some shuffling, I could hear the stretcher as it left through the back to a waiting ambulance. Then silence.
The nurse came into my room, stethiscope in hand apologized for being late. "Got kinda crazy in here just now," she said.
"It's okay," I said.
I was told to lay back, and open the gown. "We're going to listen for the heartbeat," she said.
Deep breath from me. Yeah, that just worked out really well for the woman next door.
She found Little man's heart beat in a matter of seconds, strong and hard. The sound made me cry, I was happy, it was finally real. But I was sad, too. Months ago this was her laying down, listening to her baby's heartbeat, feeling elated. So I cried for the new life forming itself inside me, and I cried for the life that was just lost. I left my doctor's office in a sort of daze, knowing that any time this could all end. No matter what you do, what you eat, how careful you are, it can all end just like that. She didn't know there was anything wrong, she was smiling at me in the waiting room. And it ended for her, just a week before she was supposed to hold her dear baby. That day she held her child, and I can't imagine what she felt, knowing her child will never know her. She won't be able to see it grow and walk and talk....
I still think about her. Every time I went to my appointments, I thought about her. When I gave birth to my Little Man i thought about her. I wonder if she ever tried again.
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Crazy/Hip Blog-Mamas
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