Joey
My husband and I have two wonderful children. I desperately wanted a third, he did not. “Why roll the dice again?” he asked logically. “We’ve gotten so lucky already to have two healthy kids, and I feel stretched thin as it is.” But I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was missing from our family. There should be another little bouncing head in the backseat, another squirmy kid at the dinner table, a third sibling in the pack to be there for each other once Mum and Dad are gone. Life would be harder with three, for sure, but I knew I would regret not going for it. After over a year of arguing about it, he relented, and we got pregnant with our beloved baby girl in October 2019.
We currently live in Australia, but we were going to the US for the holidays to visit family. I had the blood draw for my NIPT at 10 weeks, less than a week before we left. Honestly, I had no expectation that anything would be wrong, even though I was 37, since it felt like we had gone through so much just to get here, I figured I had done the hard part already.
Less than a week into our trip, on my son’s 6th birthday, I randomly checked my email while we were waiting for the bill after his pancake breakfast, and saw ANEUPLOIDY DETECTED on my NIPT results. I stared at it dumbfounded, and then panicked, willing the words to change. They had tried to call me but couldn’t reach me on my Australian mobile number, of course, so my GP emailed the results. I flew from my in-laws house to my mom’s house by myself a couple days earlier than planned to have the CVS right before Christmas. My ultrasounds looked normal, which of course got my hopes up, but by Christmas Eve, before we even got the FISH results, I knew in my heart that we were going to lose her. She wasn’t going to be a lucky false positive. I said goodbye to her in church that night.
The next couple of weeks until the termination were a blur. I alternated between being completely numb to being filled with rage about everything. It felt so unfair. The required paperwork for the abortion was heart-wrenching and patronizing. There is a required 48-hour waiting period in my state, and I had to scroll through page after page of anti-abortion propaganda on the state’s website before I was presented the one page to print and sign and bring to my doctor. I chose to terminate at the same hospital where I had the CVS, rather than a nearby Planned Parenthood clinic, so I wouldn’t have to deal with protestors on top of everything else. I’m lucky to have had that choice, although each medical bill that arrived afterward twisted the knife further, charging us thousands of dollars to end our daughter’s life. I was a terrible mother during that time. I had no patience for my children’s typical antics and I withdrew into my own grief. I locked myself in the bathroom and screamed uncontrollably one morning while my husband was getting our kids ready for school and I first opened the card with our baby’s footprints on it. I must not deserve another child if I couldn’t even handle the two that we have.
We got on the plane to fly back to Australia two days after my D&E. Medically I was fine, but emotionally I struggled more than I thought I would once we got home. We hadn’t told anyone before we left that I was pregnant. So now everything is the same as it was when we left, except totally different. I’ve only told a couple of close friends what happened; the town we live in is very small and close-knit, so gossip spreads quickly. My husband didn’t want our intensely personal story being spread around at work. On good days I feel grateful that our situation wasn’t worse; on bad days I feel sad and angry that other people seem to be having healthy babies all the time, seemingly without any effort. Why not us? I don’t regret our decision, but I will feel guilty about ending her life for as long as I live.
The what-ifs are never-ending. What if she hadn’t been sick? What if we had gotten pregnant one cycle later? What if I had been eating better? What if I had done more to get our marriage to a better place and I had gotten pregnant at 35 instead of 37?
After the termination, my husband flatly refused to try again. I pleaded, and eventually he changed his mind. But then the pandemic hit, and our upcoming move was indefinitely postponed, and he balked. I was angry, even though I knew his hesitation made sense. We did eventually start trying again, but each month my period arrived I panicked, convinced that I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant again. Thankfully I am now pregnant again, although it’s too soon to know whether the baby is healthy. The anxiety is difficult, and it’s hard to go to the same doctor’s appointments without crying. I’m sad that the age gap between the older two and the baby (if he/she even gets here) will be so large.
The night skies are phenomenal here in central Australia. On a camping trip the winter after our termination, I looked up in the sky at the Southern Cross, and followed the pointer stars to the left to see a set of stars arranged in a large, somewhat lopsided heart. Surely it’s a real constellation of some kind, but to me it’s an image of her, no longer on earth but forever in the stars.
A few days before her estimated due date, I woke up crying and felt unsettled all day. I realized the date and wrote her a letter:
July 5, 2020
To my darling daughter,
Today is the day we should have been overjoyed to meet you, to marvel at your tiny toes and see the excitement on the faces of your big brother and sister. You should have been our precious number 5, our little caboose. But several months ago, we found out you were sick. Untreatably sick. And it felt cruel to sentence you to that life, in that body, with that limited mind. So after many appointments, and tests, and agonizing weeks of waiting for results, we made the heartbreaking decision to say goodbye. I don’t regret the choice we made for you, but sometimes the ache of missing you, of missing what could have been, is so heavy. I wish so much that things had been different for you, for all of us.
My tiny sweet girl, my little joey who lived in my pouch for only a brief time, I will carry you in my heart forever.
I love you always,
Mama
~MAH