The ultrasound

Argh! I am so frustrated by everything that I cannot remember! I asked my sister to help with details but of course she can't talk about what she wasn't there for. I am so frustrated that I can't tell you all the little bits I'm sure I vowed at the time to cement firmly in my mind. I feel like it's more of a loss, on a smaller scale, to have these minute details taken from me.

So I'll write what I know, which for now is how I kept thinking I'd be stuck in the hospital for the foreseeable future. I didn't have the knowledge of experience to envision any other outcome. So I'd ask the nurses about what it was like for women who were forced to stay in the hospital. I remember being so unable to picture myself confined to that bed for any length of time that the thought became a desperate panic. Even the news that one of the nurses ran a scrapbooking group did little to ease me.

At some point during the day, they also brought in two critical people to see me: The social worker who came to talk to me about what might happen, and a nurse from the neonatal unit to talk to me about premature babies. You know — the details about percentages of survival, of disability and so on. I didn't really process most of it.

My sister came that night (I think this is when she must have brought things for me.) She hung out for a while but the details are lost for now. After she left, the doctors came in to perform an ultrasound. (These doctors came and went in packs, as it was a learning hospital. I'd see a couple of revolving groups once or twice a day, when they made rounds, one for the morning, one for the evening.)

Evening Group Head Doctor squirted the goo on my belly and wielded the wand with all of her hovering fellow doctors and doctors-to-be playing witness. By this time, of course, I'd had my second Butt Shot. So this doctor was looking for evidence of its effectiveness, which she confirmed by excitedly proclaiming, "The baby is breathing!"

What she meant was that she could see the baby practicing breaths.

I guess this should be a happy thing, right? So why do I find myself crying right now? I never know what is going to affect me, what is going to steal my ability to remain aloof enough to tell the tale. I guess I cry now because ... because. I'm just at a loss as to why.

My baby breathing, so early, TOO god damned early, but forced to do so because I failed. Failed to carry to term, failed to be a good parent, failed in so many ways. Failed in this very true and basic essence of womanhood. I failed my child. I betrayed myself. I betrayed this baby, who somehow managed to rise about it all ANYWAY, to fight above the bitterness of the physical surroundings, to be so fundamentally there and alive and breathing. Why couldn't I have been able to celebrate that strength by not betraying and failing it? Why did I force my baby to fight for life instead of providing a hospitable and loving and protective womb in which to grow and thrive? Why couldn't I sustain the pregnancy instead of my failure of a body trying to end it? I cannot find forgiveness for myself. I cannot accept that some things cannot be explained, because I know somewhere deep inside me I am responsible for very base-level inability. In the end, I did not protect my child. Instead, I put my child in danger.

A safe, life-giving protectiveness turned vile and abhorrent.