My First Pregnancy

         When our boys were 12, 13, and 15 I got pregnant.  I know the exact date, too.  Memorial weekend – May 28, 2002.  Only I didn’t know I was pregnant.  And I didn’t figure out until just before my child was aborted.  I still cry about it.

          It was the 11^th of July (I believe) when I’d gone upstairs to use the only toilet in our house.  Sharp pains I’d never felt before.  I didn’t know why.  At first I tried to ignore it.  I went back downstairs to lie beside my husband.  No – I was in pain.  I went back into the bathroom – but it wasn’t a throwing up pain.  It was different.  I can’t remember what it felt like now – I had never experienced pain like that before or since.  It wasn’t until later – much later – that I learned my belly had been filling with blood

My husband shot out of bed and announced he’d take me to the hospital.  That was a little dramatic I thought – I didn’t understand until much later on why he had responded that way.  The boys’ mother had told him she hadn’t felt well.  He dismissed the idea and she lay down and never woke up.  She died of heart failure.

There’s really not too much about that night that I actually remember.  I remember checking in.  I remember receiving an ultrasound and listening to the heart beat.  I remember being told to move myself from the gurney to the operating table.  That’s actually the last thing that I remember.  Being told.  Whether I actually moved on my own or not remains a mystery. I don’t know what kind of drugs were used on me, but I was gone.  I was in and out.  I don’t even know how long I was in the hospital.  At least two or three days.  I felt like I was in a coma for two weeks.

There were needles stuck in both of my arms.  My right arm was hooked up to IV.  My left arm?  That needle wasn’t connected to anything.  It was just there.  I remember wondering why.  I would think I’d ask.  But then I would forget about it. 

Upon my release I was given a wheel chair.  I’m assuming that I somehow managed to sit in it myself – though I don’t remember.  I do remember the nurse bending down just before I was wheeled out of my room.

“Almost forgot,” he said as he bent down to remove the needle that had been pushed into my left arm.

Oh, yes.  I had forgotten about it myself – many times. 

“What’s that for anyway?”  I asked, still feeling the sensation of the drugs that were in me.

I don’t know how slurred I was or if I sounded slurred at all. He answered, “That was in case you needed a blood transfusion”

A blood transfusion?  That sounded serious.  But I was so drugged up I just let it sink in and didn’t question it any further.

I had an appointment to go back and see the doctor.  I don’t know if it was during those two weeks or if it was right after.  I was alert enough to know I shouldn’t be driving.

My sister-in-law kept asking me questions.  They were all good questions but I didn’t have answers.  I selected her to come get me and take me to the doctor and then she could ask him all the questions as I suspected he would probably have the answers – obviously more answers than I could provide.

I learned that if we had waited another hour (before going to the hospital the day of the unusual pain) that I might have bled to death.  Wow.  So that’s why I needed a transfusion.  She asked another question (actually lots of questions – that’s actually the only one I remember) My doctor turned to me and asked if I didn’t remember.

“I was kind of out of it,” I confessed – still in a fog from whatever medication was in my system.

“Yes you were!” he said matter-of-factly embarrassed about having even asked me if I remembered.

Chicken Soup for the Soul had sent me a manuscript about the mature women.  One section contained stories about older women giving birth.  I could relate to some story beginnings and wept for our unborn child.   

Roland thought we should give her/him a name.  Not knowing the sex of our unborn baby, we named her/him Tracy.