Julie P.

It's gone. Isn't it?

The recovery room nurse hesitated, her eyes flitting to my chart. 

Yes... It is. I'm so sorry.

Throat thickening, I swallowed hard. I hadn't cried about this. At all. Not even the moment we discovered that my pregnancy was ectopic. Or even when we were informed an emergency surgery was imminent. No tears.

As I'd often been ambivalent about having children, I'd guiltily began to wonder if it had even mattered to me. But now post-surgery in some inexplicable way, my body felt empty. Alone. A singular being once again. It was unnerving. 

"I knew it had to go..." I croaked, "but...." and then suddenly the long repressed sobs came flooding out. I finally felt the true weight of what I'd lost. 

It was a baby. Our baby. The only ever physical embodiment of my husband and I together. A piece of us. A little life. And now she was gone. How did I know she was a "she"? I didn't really. In that moment though, I knew that she DID matter to me. But did she know I was ever on the fence about her existence? Did God know? Is that why this had happened? 

The doctors told me it was just unlucky. That there was nothing I could have done differently. But it was hard not to feel like it was all my fault. Like my body failed at the one thing it was biologically meant to do. Yet in some twisted way the loss was simultaneously a relief and a gut wrenching heartbreak. A tug of war between my head and my heart. 

But maybe my body didn't fail. What if God wants me to give birth to something other than a child? Maybe my old instincts were correct, that motherhood in that form wasn't the right path for me? That I'm meant to do something else with my time here on Earth? I know I'll never have concrete answers. I guess I just have to keep trudging forward with this one wild and precious life I have. 

Some things are over

Some things go on

Part of me you carry

Part of me is gone

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Walls