Up late, kitchen table, listening to Magnetic Fields (programmed and burned a greatest hits mix), drinking a beer, wondering when and if I’ll fall asleep. Long story short…we found out Wednesday M had a miscarriage. Now, I don’t think I mentioned here that M was pregnant, so let me back up some. We thought we’d have one more kid, although, honestly, initially I was kind of freaked out by the idea. However, I really grew to like the prospect of another child. We thought we were past the miscarriage danger point, so all the neighborhood knew, our friends at work knew, and most importantly, the boys knew. M and I, along with N, went to the doctor’s office on Wednesday to hear the heartbeat. The doctor couldn’t hear anything when she was running the Star Trek speaker over M’s womb. She also said M’s ab muscles weren’t as tight as they should be were she pregnant. We both were stunned. We’ve never had a miscarriage before, so I guess we assumed everything would be fine. The clinic’s ultrasound machine was broken, so we had to drive to another clinic for an ultrasound. The woman showed us the ultrasound and told us the baby stopped growing at eight weeks. We looked at the ultrasound and say the tiny form and all the black space around the baby. N played on the chair. Still stunned we drove home. M was her usual strong self, too strong, really. We decided to tell the boys after school. T, as expected, cried a lot. N, even at four, seemed to understand. He cried and said, “I want a human baby.” S was interesting. He listened, looked sad, then went back upstairs to play video games. Yesterday he said, “I didn’t want the baby anyway, I didn’t even want N, T and I were fine without him.” There you go. Today M went through the D and C (not sure for what that stands), the post-miscarriage operation. She was wavering as to whether or not she wanted the operation, but I’m glad she went through the procedure. She cried in the waiting room, the first time I’ve really seen her emotional over the last few days, and I’m glad she found some release. I stayed in the waiting room during the operation and read Newsweek and listened to Sparklehorse on my Mp3 player. Later I picked the kids up from school, got a pizza, and played a lot of computer pinball. I also worked yesterday. The action research students were presenting, and I pretty much run that show, so I went. I found myself very angry, or even angrier than usual, with people at work. My dean, one of the coolest people I know, has a lot of patience with me, and she let me talk through it. I’m not sure where I’ll end up with this. However, I did lose it on a colleague on the phone today, and I almost never lose it on anyone. She was kind of freaked, and she didn’t deserve the treatment, but she’s very kind, and I hope she forgives me.
I get emotional about the miscarriage at weird times. I’ll be sitting on the chair in the home office and visualize holding a baby, and I’ll come close to losing control. I haven’t cried much either, actually. I could probably use some release as well. I got very drunk Wednesday night. Does that count? Tonight after the kids went to sleep I made a Magnetic Fields greatest hits mix and started answering email. I should probably get to sleep soon. I don’t want to decimate my relationships, both professional and personal, but something isn’t working now. Good night.