Mommy For A Day
For one day I was someone’s mother. Specifically, March 2nd 2004. For one whole day I was pregnant and happy. I told all my friends and family, I surfed baby websites and imagined the things I would buy. I looked at my stomach in the mirror and for once didn?t see something fat and ugly but instead the amazing home that would hold my baby. It was beautiful. I was beautiful.
I had a good idea I was pregnant, there are signs that are pretty hard to miss, but I was afraid to be optimistic. Like if I let myself believe something good could happen the Fates would take it away from me. So when I took the test I really expected it to be another dud but to my surprise I got a little pink line. Sure it was light but it was there, and as the girls as Baby Dust say, a line is a line. I couldn’t believe how lucky I’d gotten. I mean, I have no reason to believe I would have fertility problems but with all the health problems I have and all the bad things that have happened to me in the past I really just kind of expected things to be tough. But no, for once the universe had chosen to give me something I deserved without a big fight and a lot of drama. Maybe, I told myself, things will be all right.
That’s when I started to feel bad. My stomach hurt and I felt…well I felt not right. So that night I took another pregnancy test and it was negative. A couple days later I tested again, and then again…all duds. The culprit? A chemical pregnancy. That’s were the woman ovulates (produces an egg) and the egg is fertilized by the sperm but for some reason (usually chromosomal damage or poor uterine lining) the egg doesn’t implant so it dies. Basically, a very early miscarriage without many symptoms.
I won’t lie, I was crushed. And worst of all, no one seemed to really understand why or feel the need to be supportive. When I told my mom her voice got all skeptical and I could tell that once again I wasn’t going to have any credibility, “Are you sure you were ever pregnant?” I wanted to yell “No mom, I made it all up just for the attention!” Then of course other people seemed to think it shouldn’t bother me because it happened so soon. They say things like “Well at least it wasn’t a real baby” or “Well at least it happened early on” or “You can always try again”. Is that supposed to be comforting?
It’s hard to explain why I was so upset to someone who hasn’t been there but I’ll try. Imagine that you’ve bought a lottery ticket. You?re poor and working someplace crummy and generally down in the dumps when you turn on the TV and OH MY GOD! The numbers match your numbers! You’re a millionaire! You can quit your crappy job, you can finally buy a house instead of living in the ghetto, you can pay off your student loan, finally see a doctor about your back and take all your friends on a vacation! For the rest of the night you are flying high, everyone is excited for you and you feel lighter and calmer than you have since you were a kid. Now imagine you wake up and find out that the winning ticket is missing…or you find it but the numbers are wrong. How shitty do you feel? Sure, you never actually had the money to begin with, and maybe you never even really won, but you thought you had. It doesn’t matter how you lost your bliss, only that it’s gone. If someone said “Well you didn’t really win” or “Are you sure you ever had the right numbers?” or “Well you can always play again” wouldn’t you just want to sock them in the face?
Because for one day you were a winner and the next day you?re a loser. It doesn’t matter if you really won or that you never got to hold the profits in your hand, it’s the idea that counts. Tell me is doesn’t hurt. Tell me that you can just let it go, I dare you.
So yeah, I’m hurt and I’m angry and frankly I feel cheated. I’ll get over it, I’ll go on and I will try again and when I finally get my baby I will be happy. But I’ll never forget the day I saw that pink line and for one shining moment I was someone’s mommy.