Remembered: What Cannot Be

Prompt: We all have them. Memories that we wish we could forget…things that we wish we could banish from our minds. Imagine that writing down your worst memory will free you of it.


December 8th, 2003. I was 19 weeks into my first pregnancy. I had had a headache for the past weekend, so I stayed at home that day. My mother-in-law picked me up and drove me to the doctor's office.

My appointment wasn't with my regular doctor, but with a very young man who looked like he wasn't old enough to drink. He was very nice as he took my blood pressure. He was very nice when he told me that I needed to go to the hospital because of my blood pressure.

I still hate that guy.

I hate that he was so nice.

Nice that day implied that my situation wasn't serious.

Nice did not convey the fact that I was in the process of dying.

That doctor was so nice that I didn't understand what he was saying at first, when he came to tell us that our baby was going to have to come out. He had to repeat himself.

Pre eclampsia. Which NEVER happens at 19 weeks, I have been told.

My husband got it; he understood what was going on. I was the one who had to hear it multiple times. I stared blankly at these people telling me what I didn't want to hear. Didn't this sort of thing happen a lot? Didn't they know what to do? People did this all the time. All I had to do was stay in bed for the rest of the pregnancy, and everything would be okay, right?

No. It wouldn't be okay.

My body knew what would happen before my heart did. Just as I was fighting to keep my daughter, Zoe, my water broke and the decision was made for me. I didn't even feel her dying inside of me. Shouldn't you feel something that tells you that a life is passing from your body, even if it's not your life?

And I was done. Finished. Whatever happened to me after that moment was white noise. I asked the nurses for something so I could lose myself in sleep. Maybe when I woke up, this would all be a dream. I just could not deal with the reality.

The next morning, my OB was there, standing at the foot of my bed with that Nice Doctor. I felt a small red burst of rage; if he had been there, this wouldn't have happened, I thought. That anger subsided as quickly as it flared; I truly had given up.

I knew that I was dying, and I guess that I didn't care. That was pretty selfish of me, because my husband was grieving, too, but as they wheeled me out of the room away from my family and my friends, I did not want to live. But I did live.

And I have a beautiful, wonderful, healthy son who lights up the dark places of my heart. I smile and laugh with him and I love him fiercely.

But still...

I live every day wondering if my daughter would have looked like me.