The Hardest Part

by Jodi McCormack

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001

I knew I was pregnant for a week and a half before my husband would
believe me. He wanted to see the test. I couldn't get it to come
up positive, but I knew my cycle and knew it was still early.
Finally on Christmas Eve, it came up positive, after about 20
minutes of waiting. We told everyone, our families, everyone. We
work together, so if one person knows, the whole office knows. We
were so excited, you should have seen my husband telling people like
he was the first man to create life.

Two days after Christmas, at work, I began to spot. Our office was
changing insurance, to top it off, so I could go to an old doctor I
wouldn't see again in three days or not at all. A pregnant coworker
who happened to walk in on me crying gave me the number to her
triage nurse and she told me they couldn't help me if they didn't
have a test on me, but that it wasn't uncommon to spot right off. I
went home and went straight to bed.

Five more people, including my mother, told me there was nothing to
worry about. I bled for three days. There was almost no pain, it
was lighter than a period, but I stopped feeling pregnant the
afternoon I went home. I didn't tell many people I was bleeding.

Afterward, I felt yucky, but not like before. I thought my body
would just need to catch up again, build up some more hormones. The
day after New Year's, I went for a pregnancy test at the clinic and
they told me that I wasn't pregnant. They said if I ever had been,
it would have shown up, that there was enough time the way they
figured it. It took the whole day for it to sink in, even though I
already knew I had lost it.

The hardest part is that people don't even think of it as
miscarrying. It's easier for my husband to believe I never was
pregnant than to think of his baby gone. People still congratulate
me at work, but I pass it off now as a rumour. Most people know
now, I think, but there's still people I have to call and can't yet.
I thought it would be harder to tell people and have them feel sorry
for me, but it's worse when they don't think of it as real.

I really lost a baby. I don't get the luxury of thinking it wasn't real.

Jodi McCormack 
jjhilla@hotmail.com