My Miscarriage: The Story I Will Keep Telling

The next day, Husband and I took a cab to the East Side. We waited in my O.B.'s office. We flipped through magazines. We were called back. I peed in a plastic cup. Undressed. Slipped into a cotton robe.

The doctor squeezed clear jelly into the palm of her gloved hand and rubbed it over my middle, pale and rounding already. She placed the wand near my belly button and squinted at the screen, at the little shape.

I no longer see a heartbeat, my doctor said.

She told me I could wait to bleed or have a surgical procedure. The thought of waiting broke my heart even more, so that afternoon I travelled to Mount Sinai Hospital. I put on another gown. A kind nurse whose face I cannot remember asked how far along I was.

Eleven weeks, I said, all business, my eyes dry.

In the operating room, I lay flat on the table. Creatures in scrubs scurried about. As the anesthesia began to work, my doctor held my hand in both of hers and looked at me. She mumbled something kind, something wonderful, something I can't recall. And everything went black.

At home, I climbed into bed. I was crampy. I cried. And cried some more. I ate a tuna sandwich because I could. Now I can, I thought.

Mom was at work. She couldn't leave. But Dad came over. He didn't know what to say. There was nothing to say. Maidy-Bunks. My Maidy-Bunks, he crooned, his mustache quivering.

I heard Husband in the other room. He was on the phone with his parents. We lost the baby, he said, his voice cracking. He was sobbing. He went to my computer and unsubscribed me from my BabyCenter emails, but in a cruel twist, they still arrived week after week. Your baby is now the size of a plum. An orange. A melon.