No baby

We had our ultrasound today. There was no baby. There was a sac that had grown for about 7-8 weeks and stopped. The tech was very kind and comforting. The were some other complications with patients so it took the doctor a long time to come in. The tech came in again and apologized. The doc came in and confirmed what the tech concluded. They did a transvaginal and an HCG just to be sure. My last HCG was at 7 weeks and all was well numerically at the time. 

The doctor made me laugh which I would have thought was impossible in that moment. "There’s your right ovary, there’s your left, there’s your bladder….wow, you’re about to bust." She was nice and thorough and stayed and answered every question I had. I liked her far better than my midwife.

I think one of the hardest things about suffering any misfortune is that life keeps going on. You learn you’ve spent the last 10-12 weeks falling in love with, planning for, and naming a mass of cells that never got a chance at life and there’s still blood work that needs to be done and a drive home to make. You have to call out of work, think about the math homework you have due, whether you want to wait it out or have your uterus scraped clean. There’s family to tell. There’s a guy coming in an hour to fix the broken swamp cooler (air conditioner). People keep asking you how your day has been. What do you say? You give the standard socially acceptable answer because people don’t really want to know how your day has been. They want bite sized pieces of impersonal information. That’s what I want when I ask.

I don’t really know how I feel. I think I’m okay until I see something about a friend’s baby or notice my name list open on my desk. Then I swallow the lump and take a deep breath. Close the window, close the book. I’m sure there will be a baby eventually. But it won’t be due on March 31, 2012. Dad won’t be flying out to hold his first grandkid in April. And that makes me sad.