Why, why, WHY!? How could this happen to
me again? My body lay
uncomfortably confined in a head-down, foot-elevated position on a rock-hard
hospital bed, while my mind reeling from the reality it was forced to rapidly
process. Nurses bustled too quietly around the room while my obstetrician, Dr.
Landry, attempted to articulate a medical discourse about my “condition.”
Chilled by the news he communicated, I tried to mentally shroud his gently
spoken, but decisive words.
Roused from a Sunday evening with
his family, he had shuffled slowly into my room five minutes earlier, hands
buried in his bomber jacket pockets, his face a picture of concern and caution.
Before he spoke, I instinctively dreaded his forthcoming appraisal. With a
sober voice and matching demeanor, he bluntly pronounced his diagnosis: incompetent cervix: The medical
community’s nomenclature for a cervix that opens prematurely during pregnancy.
“Surprise,
surprise!” I uttered inaudibly through clenched teeth. Hadn’t I questioned
him repeatedly about this possibility occurring? Although he had offered
repeated assurances, doubt, anxiety and unusual symptoms had plagued every
stage of this pregnancy. I sensed that he initially found my concerns amusing,
then—as I persisted in nagging him with them—a bit irritating. An ever-present
cloud of dread had stubbornly suspended itself over my head. Having previously
paid a catastrophic price for self-imposed silencing of my concerns, I wasn’t
about to pay that price again. Was it simply a mother’s intuition haunting me,
or something more?
“Your cervix is dilated to three
centimeters, and you are seventy-five percent effaced. If we can save this pregnancy at all…,” his voice trailed off as he
carefully considered the predicament.
I inwardly recoiled from his choice
of words. Several days ago in his office, he had spoken gently about “the
baby.” Now he referred to my condition as ”this pregnancy.” I wanted to bark
out a correction: “You mean this life
I am struggling to carry to term!” Perhaps he was giving me the blunt,
academia-style, medical-terminology version to make it more impersonal for him,
attempting to dilute the tension cloaking the room. Quickly assessing my silent
response, he continued his discourse by apprising us of possible treatments and
procedures, and the prognosis for each.
The blood test showed my white blood
cell count to be slightly elevated, so performing a cerclage—surgically drawing my cervix closed like the opening of a
marble bag—would have to wait until morning. They wouldn’t prematurely attempt
the procedure if my uterus harbored an infection since that might be the
underlying cause for labor. A closed infection could mean both fetal and maternal deaths. In the case of an
infection, he wanted to perform a D and E.
I just stared at him and dumbly bobbled my head up and down.
At the time, I didn’t fully
comprehend what that D and E entailed, or know the barbarity of performing one
when the end goal was an abortion. It certainly wouldn’t have been an option
for us if we had fully understood the process, even with an infection. With
rapidly waning energy, Chris and I dismissed the opportunity to question him,
and he proceeded through his option list without hesitation or explanations of
the gruesome details.
If labor progressed, the result
would be a severely premature baby delivered at twenty weeks—too early to
consider supporting on lifesaving apparatus in 1994. Our only hope would be to
survive the night, perform a cerclage the following day, and pray like mad that
the amniotic sac wouldn’t rupture, either during or following surgery. Surgery
alone could irritate the uterus enough to incite labor, taking us to the point
of no return.
Dr. Landry wanted to get a visual
picture of what was transpiring, so he ordered an ultrasound machine delivered
pronto to my room. He and Chris chatted while a glaze crept over my eyes.
Within minutes, he was pointing out numerous problems, all visible on the
monitor: the open cervix, the baby’s engaged position, the bulging of the
amniotic sac into the canal. Everyone else in the room concentrated on the
picture emitted from the screen, while I glared at the cold, ugly ceiling
tiles. I was angry, disoriented, terrified. And despite the other three humans in
the room with me, I felt so lonely.
Yes,
yes, I can see the baby! I wanted to sit up and scream at the two of them. I can see the precious baby I most likely
will not be carrying tomorrow night!
Instead, I managed a silent, terse nod before once again reverting my partitioned gaze to the unresponsive ceiling tiles.
The jarring vision on the screen
left me shaking, and doubtful we could really “save this pregnancy.” It felt so
painfully hopeless. Five months of dreams evaporating before my eyes on an
ultrasound monitor. Wasted dreams.
The God I thought I trusted so deeply suddenly seemed cold and silent, miles
from my heart and this hospital room. Maybe
God doesn’t care as much as I thought He did.
Disgust and self-protective
ambivalence latched onto my heart, and both my heart and soul quickly hardened
in response to the cold vacuum of truth sucking the warmth out of them. The pit
closed its mouth over me, and I couldn’t locate a dribble of a tear to shed. Maybe my prayers will remain unanswered.
Indefinitely. God’s saying, “No.”
Chris and I had given ourselves this one,
last chance to have another child. Now the odds indicated we would leave the
hospital with empty arms and an empty womb.
Again.
_________________________________________
NEXT WEEK: My night, and God gives me his first
sign that He’s still watching over me…
_________________________________________
Until next week,
Thanks for
joining me!
Blessings,
Andrea
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