I am working away at the computer when I feel something slip out of me. Like the sensation I sometimes have when I get my period and pass a blood clot. A tight little panic hits me but I turn it away immediately.
"Almost ready?" G asks.
"Yup; just a moment." I briskly walk to the bathroom, close the door. Pull my underwear down. See blots of red. It's okay, just a little spotting. My heart is racing and I cover my mouth with my hands.
We're about to head out to meet friends for dinner in the city, a 20-minute drive now that rush hour has passed. It's okay, nothing, it will pass. Nothing to cancel over.
I return to our home office and shut the door. Google "pregnant, spotting." I scan the questions from women-Is it normal when?-and answers from pseudo-doctors-indication of miscarriage. Some posts note that in some cases, it can be just a little harmless spotting. I go with theory #3.
"Ready."
We're on the highway when I feel a heavy flow. I do a kegel but it keeps coming. I sit on an angle, resting on just half a cheek, hoping it doesn't bleed through my pants.
"You okay?"
"I think I'm having a miscarriage. I'm bleeding."
"Want me to turn around?"
"No. Let's just do this. I'll deal with it when we get home."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. I'm fine. Don't worry."
When we get to the pub, I wave hello and head straight for the bathroom. The flowing sensation has stopped and I'm wearing a big thick sweater around my waist to cover my hips until I can assess the damage.
In the sickly fluorescent lighting of the bar bathroom, I can see that my jeans are soaked in blood. Thank God for the sweater.
I dry my pants the best I can and wash up, joining the revelers at their booth, grateful for my oversized charcoal sweater and the dark upholstered chairs. G looks up to me as if to say, okay?
Okay, I nod back. I make it through the meal, smile along. We don't stay long, just enough to get through the paces.
Out the door, out of ear shot, I say "It's over, it's stopped."
But G drives me to the hospital anyway. We don't talk. Each of us processing it internally. Holding hands.
Finally I am ushered beyond a hospital blue curtain. When the doctor arrives, he tells G to wait outside.
I stare at the ceiling. The doctor abruptly goes in, tugging at my insides. And I can't believe this is happening. Like this. Practically in front of everyone. Just a few feet away, people are biting their nails, sipping their coffee, picking their noses. While I lie with my legs wide open and the doctor scrapes away at the deepest part of me, a curtain tentatively hanging between my dignity and a room full of people, the spaces between the curtain panels teasing me: What if I were to move a little this way?
I don't like public displays of affection. It annoys me when people cry in public. So I stream rivers of tears. Silent.
It's only when we're beyond the swinging doors of the O.R. and G takes me in his arms that I let out. The guttural, primitive cry of millennia of women before me.
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