Writing Exercise: Pain

My great grandmother gave birth to twin girls but only one survived. My grandmother.

My grandmother was pregnant ten times and had five living children. My mother, my aunt and my three uncles.

My mother was pregnant six times and had three living children. Myself and my two brothers.

I was pregnant four times and have two living sons.

…

I was 11 weeks and 5 days – only two days before I crossed the coveted line into my twelfth week of pregnancy, where the risk of miscarriage drops considerably. I was sitting on the couch, talking to my friend. Mid-sentence, I froze. I looked at her. Then down at my lap. I said: I’m bleeding.

I did indeed. Bleed. I got up and bled with every step I took. It spilled out of me. Warm. Running down my legs. When I reached the toilet the blood spilled over my pants as I pulled them down. Strangely, as I sat down on the toilet, I only bled a few drops into the bowl. And then came the almost inaudible sound of a tiny fetus hitting the water. It looked like they do in the books. Big head, big eyes. Tiny arms and legs. Fingers.

A real human being.

And then not.

…

Desperate phone call to retrieve husband
Granny to come fetch 3 year-old napping in the other room
Awkwardly wearing son’s diaper
Ambulance
I am so ugly when I cry

…

I was standing in the hospital shower with the water running and the diluted blood covering the floor. It kept pouring out of me. A nurse came in and gasped as she saw the bloody floor. She looked at me with all the sympathy in the world and said: “Oh, no. You poor thing, I am so sorry for you”.

If I had had a gun, I would have shot her on the spot.

Instead of screaming “BE A PROFESSIONAL!” I just looked her in the eye and closed the door in her face.

Her sympathies were not wanted. I found it rude.

No, I much rather preferred the professional doctor, who didn’t say anything, just poked and probed and searched my entire uterus for a sign of life with her dildo-scanner. My legs were in the stirrups – everything out in the open. They put a bucket under me to catch the dripping blood.

I was probably never more pathetic or less beautiful in my life. To emphasize this, I had to fart. I gave them fair warning and farted. And started laughing hysterically. The doctor didn’t even flinch. Just went back in to poke around some more.

…

In the bed next to mine lay another failed mother. She was angry as hell. They had told her that her ectopic pregnancy needed to be removed or it could kill her. Something about the way they had told her this made her so furious, she kept yelling at the nurse, who then called for her superior, who then called for the doctor. “Why did you have to tell me like that?” “I WASN’T READY!”

She scolded them all. The atmosphere of pain was palpable. They talked to her like you talk to someone standing on a ledge. They finally left her alone. She was wailing. I got that this was her 7^th failed pregnancy.

…

In my own bed, I was dizzy. Rested for a couple of hours. Sat up to go to the bathroom and pressed out a lump of coagulated blood the size of a big steak. The color and texture of liver. The smell of iron. I staggered to the toilet where another fist-sized lump of liver fell out of me. It was as if someone turned the TV on really loud. Then I passed out.

When I came to, two nurses were splattering cold water in my face, yelling my name and rubbing me. It was highly annoying. I was surprised to find that I had vomited all over myself.

When morning came they finally decided to operate. The bleeding didn’t seem to stop and it needed to.

Anesthesia felt like nothingness. Void. Quiet. Death.

…

The next Sunday, we went to the baptism of our friend’s boy. My husband was the godfather. As he was about to hold the baby over the baptism font, I took my three year old by the hand and went closer, so he could see.

At the sight of his father holding the chubby baby, clad in a beautiful, white long dress, my son looked up at me and whispered: “Is that our baby?”