by Sheri Davich
he r s ay
I love being a mom. I have been blessed with three sons. I wish I could have 30. Husband Jim and I had always planned on three children. Life has a way of surprising you though, and when I was 41 I became pregnant for a fourth time. It was unexpected. It was surprising. It was wonderful. I had no reason to think this pregnancy would be different than the others, uneventful, up until the delivery any way. Those were always exciting. I had all the usual symptoms. Even though I am a coffee fanatic I can’t stomach it while expecting. The taste, the smell, just the thought of coffee would make me queasy. One morning I woke up and I felt too, well, normal. I remember feeling a pang of anxiety, like something wasn’t right. But I had no cramping, no spotting, nothing to indicate anything was amiss. Soon afterwards Jim and I went for our 10-week ultrasound. I was so excited to see this little one for the first time. The technician spread that cold jelly across my stomach and slid the device across my abdomen. We watched the screen expectantly, waiting for 20
our first glimpse of the newest little Davich. There was only blackness. She slid the instrument around and around, searching, silent. And I knew. I knew it was wrong, all wrong. She laid the device down and excused herself. I looked over at Jim as the technician walked back into the room with the doctor trailing behind. He picked up the probe and again slid it over my abdomen. There was nothing there. I heard him say something about a blighted ovum, a type of miscarriage. My ears stopped working. Sitting on the examining table, I instinctively bent low over my knees. His words finally registered, and my reaction was like a physical pain, so extreme, for a moment I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe. I heard him say something about the virus that I had had before I realized I was pregnant. I had run a high fever, 104 degrees. He thought perhaps that had stopped the ovum’s development. When I could breathe again I began to gasp uncontrollably, big gasping sobs.
Anguish. Maybe it was the first time in my life I had experienced it. It is worthy of its own category. Jim led me out to the waiting room to schedule a follow up appointment. Another expectant mom sat waiting and I tried so hard to stop crying, aware even then that I was experiencing probably her greatest fear for herself. It was useless. Jim took me to our car. We drove by a Caribou coffeehouse and he asked me if I wanted to stop. I couldn’t. The idea of coffee just made me nauseous. I still felt pregnant, and the reality that I wasn’t flew in the face of how I felt. We went home, and Jim held me in his arms for hours. I cried until there were no tears left, and then I sat. We waited for a week for nature to do its work but I never did have a physical miscarriage. We scheduled a procedure to end what had barely begun. This procedure is virtually the same as what women experience when they choose to end a pregnancy. That day, as the medical people did what they needed to do, I lay there. I was aware of the sights and sounds of what was going on,
WINTER 2010 | her voice
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10/20/10 3:09 PM