september, pregnancy and me

They just don’t mix. It was this very week four years ago, while I was pregnant with Stella, that my body began to shut down. The level of protein in my urine indicated kidney malfunction. I had gained over ten pounds in two weeks, all fluid. Soon I was lying in the hospital, vomiting and claustrophobic from the magnesium sulfate, my blood pressure suddenly 170/110.

But last week, I was actually feeling good. I was too busy, stressed with work and a freelance article and wondering how I would pull together my Loft syllabus and get a grant proposal written, but other than that, I felt good. I even had a moment of thinking, oh, this is what it’s like for all those other women. I barely gave a thought to preeclampsia, determined to try what my doctor suggested: not worry for twenty whole weeks.

One of my friends who has had more than her share of pregnancy tragedies recently said to me, “You never know exactly what to be afraid of. You worry about one thing and then all of the sudden this other horrible thing happens, and you realize that you never can know what to be afraid of.”

As you know, I have a vivid and neurotic imagination, and I am afraid of many things. But what I wasn’t worried about, what didn’t even cross my mind, was this: waking up at 4:30 on a Sunday morning, my pajamas covered in blood. What I didn’t think to worry about was a blood clot behind my placenta. Which could mean what? Placenta previa? Placental abruption? Just a clot that might reabsorb?

I don’t know yet, but now preeclampsia seems like a ball. Get me to 32 weeks and I’ll swell as much as you want. Get me to 32 weeks and I’ll lie in a hospital bed with magnesium sulfate pumping through my veins for weeks, and I won’t even complain. I swear.

I didn’t think it was possible for me to believe that a 32-week preemie could be my best-case scenario, that it could be something I would shoot for, after all we’ve been through. But here I am, hoping for it.

I go in tomorrow morning for another ultrasound, a stronger one. The big gun. Maybe they’ll be able to tell me more—I hope so. And I hope the little bugger is still there, heart pumping. I want this baby, goddammit. Can’t we get a break?