Ahhh, don't think I'm not scared. I am terrified, only this time, knowingly because I am very aware what could happen. But fear never stopped the good girls in the 50s from getting knocked up, so it shouldn't work here. I keep thinking about my subconscious sabotaging our best efforts, but I think that's nearly impossible. I was terrified the first time and the second time, whenever that is, will be no different. But I'm tired of thinking about all of this. I need to be grateful that I have the luxury of time.
Anyway, I exhibit a few very telling habits when I'm anxious (we're now avoiding the use of the word "stress"). I've never bitten my nails, but I will bite, pull, tear and scratch at my hangnails. I will create hangnails just for those purposes. My fingers are usually in some state of disrepair and I've torn off the skin around my thumbs more times than I can count. It's become such a habit that I won't realize I'm doing it until C slaps my hands or it starts to hurt. Then I become responsible and go cut the hangnails and bandage my fingers. I'm surprised by how fast the area around my thumb heals (and how many times).
C has tried to tell me that it is self-mutilation, but I think that is just him assigning an alarming word to a bad habit. Sometimes I pick at my fingers because I'm bored or tired, so it doesn't represent some underlying issue to me. He even says that that's why Bella chews at her feet - because she sees her mom pick. Right, C. The escalation of this habit is what bothers me. And we don't need to talk about that right now.
Class was interesting last night. I probably embarrassed myself. The book we read dealt in part with a mother who had twins and her husband, the doctor that delivered them, told her that the baby girl was stillborn (The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards). The baby girl had the markers for Down's and he sent her with his nurse to a home and instead the nurse raised her. So, in a nutshell, even though we know the little girl is alive and the doctor dad knows, the wife is essentially dealing with the loss of her child for the next 25 years (until she finds out). I am a little sensitive about miscarriage/stillborn issues (I am also aware that they are different, but for my arguments in class, loss is loss).
I started talking about the lack of a standard of care for miscarriages and stillbirths. It resonates because I had a conversation with a coworker recently. She had a miscarriage in the mid-80s and they knew it was going to happen due to an early sonogram. She kept the tissue that she identified as the baby and her doctor asked her if she would put it in a jar and bring it in. She said that she did it with no questions asked and she trusted the doctor to do the right thing with it. She later spoke with her sister-in-law, who had a stillborn baby in the early 70s. What is haunting that woman now is that she never saw the baby and she has no idea what they did with it. I've heard stories and I'm under the impression that unless alternate arrangements are made and vocalized, miscarriages are treated like abortions (that's what they call them) and either incinerated or disposed of as medical waste. I'm sure they used to do the same with stillborns, but I am sitting here hoping to god that most hospitals now have policies in place that give these children some sort of respect. Before either of those stories came to me, I had begun to wonder what the tiny baby they took from me looked like. I want to read the report for details and clues. I really want to not think about my baby, the child we rested our hopes and dreams on for a few short weeks, being treated like trash. But who is thinking about that as their entire frame of reference tilts 180 degrees?
Some hospitals and doctors are working on a standard offering of care in these cases. The clinic I used to work for has a very important policy that bleeding obstetric patients are our primary concern. Always. If I still lived in that town and called in bleeding that morning, they would have had me in the office for an ultrasound in less than 4 hours. I don't think that would have ultimately changed anything, but the fact that they were concerned and ready to do anything to help me would have let me know they cared about me and the baby. And without a whole strategic outline, that's what the medical profession needs to adopt as a standard of care: a caring attitude towards the hurting, lost, disgraced and grieving. Maybe throw some empathy and grace in for good measure, but with those, I'm probably asking for too much.
3 comments:
Nicole works for a charity that takes pictures of stillborns at the hospital when they are lost for the parents. Most of the babies she photographed had funerals, dependent upon how far along they were (I think, dont quote me tho). When she had her miscarriage, they got foot prints and a certificate for Ethan and had the opportunity to see him and hold him (I think that she lost him at 20 weeks). She would be a good resource for any questions you may have. Love you!
I've thought about this a lot and I've come to what seems like a counterintutive conclusion: that, while the hospital and doctors weren't particularly caring in my case, it wouldn't have really helped if they had been. In fact, (and again, I realize that this sounds odd), I think that I might not have been able to hold myself together if people had been too caring.
But, I realize that this is just me and that most other people undoubtedly feel completely differently.
Self-mutiliation is such an ugly word anyway. I prefer the term "subconcious body modification."
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