There are few winners in the game of accidental pregnancy. According to Marie Stopes International, as many as half of pregnancies in Australia are unplanned. Of these, around twenty per cent end in miscarriage.
And like anything, they’re just numbers until you’re staring right at them. Our first reaction to the positive test was to burst into laughter. Maybe it was shock, or maybe we were just jerks like that. And then the crying started. Victoria Falls poured forth from my face.
The relationship was green, to say the least. I was fresh out of a marriage and had two tiny children to love and protect. He was fresh out of his mother’s womb. We lived in different worlds. Worlds where I had children and he didn’t. Ever.
At first, we talked like adults. We both knew what the options were and we flopped them all onto the table and moved them around a bit, humming and hawing. The years I had spent purporting my right to choose shouted in my ear, but I had, against all rationality, already attached myself firmly to a bunch of cells.
“I don’t want to have an abortion,” I said. “I don’t want to have a child,” he said. We stared at each other for a few minutes before trying again: “I don’t want to have an abortion.” “I don’t want to have a child.”
I found the process increasingly frustrating and tried using a louder voice: “I don’t want to have an abortion.”
“I don’t want to have a child.”
I wondered if changing the emphasis could change his response: “I don’t want to have an abortion.”
“I don’t want to have a child.”
For weeks afterward, we spent our time glaring at each other. I said things like, “I made you this lasagne,” but what I meant was, “I hope you fall in a sinkhole, you masochist.” He said things like, “Do you want to see a movie?” but what he meant was, “If you force fatherhood upon me I will call up the very fires of hell to inflict oceans of pain upon you.”
Sometimes I invited him over just so he could see how good I was at frowning. Often he wouldn’t glance up from his laptop.
It was a stalemate of truly epic proportions. Every time we spoke it was with an acrid tongue. Every day I came up with compelling new reasons not to abort the pregnancy. Every night I cried until I was too exhausted to stay awake another moment. Every morning waves of nausea reminded me to fight the good fight.
In late October we sat in his garden, in a brief moment of civility. “What do you want for your birthday?” he asked. I started to say ‘a baby’, but I saw the dark circles under his eyes and stopped. The life had drained from his body. We were both exhausted. I couldn’t remember if I’d been to work. Did we even eat anymore? What day was it?
“A holiday,” I said instead.
It was unseasonably cold at Phillip Island. He had booked a gorgeous apartment overlooking the water, and when the rain started to come in under our balcony we breathed its freshness until the colour came back into our faces. We drove out to The Nobbies and ten thousand seagulls dive bombed us in the cool afternoon. We stood at the edge of the world and wrapped ourselves around each other. Eventually, we laughed.
In the cover of darkness he slipped out for a walk, but came back with treasure.
“I told the kitchen you were pregnant and couldn’t go on without this chocolate mousse.”
That night he slept with his hand resting on my belly.
I felt the cramping start in the car as we drove home. “I need a toilet break,” I said, and found an angry red artwork in my undies.
It doesn’t mean anything. People bleed all the time.
Two days later, the pain started. “I think we should go to the hospital.” My uterus twisted and burned.
The ultrasound tech was very nice. She smiled and made light conversation as she went about her business. She took measurements and pointed at blurry white noise. But nothing on the screen moved or flickered. He knew; he took my hand and squeezed it until my fingernails popped right off. The room began to feel very small.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and I couldn’t hear her through the wave of tears but I saw her mouth moving: “your baby has died.” I felt his body shaking, a sort of hysterical laughter at the cruelest kind of joke.
After that, there was nothing to fight for. We barely looked at each other. He told me I cried in my sleep. I told him I had a dead baby in me, so it was probably fair enough.
A week later I miscarried in a friend’s bathroom. It was over. I didn’t have an abortion, and he didn’t have a child. We had both won.
Right?
Anna is the Digital Producer for Australia’s longest running TV show. She blogs here and you can find her on Twitter at @annaspargoryan.
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The Quicky
Top Comments
Thank you for sharing, you made me cry... In this period I cry often. Because:
...Had a similar story in the same period of yours. I'm 27 and I've been together with my bf for 8 years. When we found out I was pregnant (accidentally), my 28yr-old bf got really upset. And during the next weeks he still couldn't accept the situation. He cried... Idea of abortion. He saw everything in black colors. ...After couple of weeks he was ready to make sacrifice, stay with me and keep the baby. But he was not happy. And my heart was crying for him. ... And then it came, the gynecologist said that it was a non-evolutive pregnancy. ...And then I had to wait for two weeks until I miscarried... ...Natural selection? Had to go this way. No?
... Now the problem is, that I'm not able to see my bf as I saw him before. I don't love him as I did before. I wanted that baby so much. He instead still doesn't want to have a baby, and doesn't have any ideas when he will be ready for making a family. My feelings are vanishing day by day. I don't know what to do. I was so sure about him, loved him so much. We had so good relation-ship. After this experience, everything is changed.. Gotta move on.
Ps. We are an Estonian-Italian mixed couple living in Italy.
...I add myself some lines...
I knew in the beginning of my pregnancy that during the 9 months he would get used to the idea, even if the pregnancy wasn't planned and he wasn't mentally/economically prepared (he is in the beginning of his career and here in Italy there is crisis). I was ready, because I know that there is always a way. You can grow together - you and the baby. Me and my bf are together since so much time that I just know him throughly. He would have been a wonderful father. Caring, present and warm. He is just too insicure.... Now. ... But the time we were given was just too short. The memories what I have of the time of my pregnancy are not nice. Even more, as everything happened so early, we preferred to keep the "news" to our-selves. We wanted at least to hear the babies heart beat before telling our parents and friends (he always, always accompanied me to the gynecologyst). ....And now, I still have only him to claim with, because I haven't shared the real problems with anyone. I put him under horrible pressure because in a way I still hope that the feelings will come back. About my difficulties with my bf I can tell YOU, but not to my parents/his parents/our friends. Maybe we still can resolve our things... I don't want our dear-ones to know about his fears and difficulties... Right now I've come to the point where I'm not even able to make love with him because making love reminds me the baby (we had started to call it "gamberetto"=shrimp). Last time I ended up in tears...
Even more. After the miscarriage my gynecologist saw two big ovarian cysts, that give me menopausal symptoms, hormonal level is typical to menopause (nice to know! Hope it's just that!). And I'm cureing it with contraceptive pills. Hope the cysts are vanishing by now...
Every time I see a young happy family I get sad for myself... For us. ...It's the beginning of June. It would be 4 full months since the conceivement now. So few time has passed, but this period seems sooooo looooong.
Ps. Only for the strong-ones. I miscarried in the toilet at work. The amniotic sac, 2-3 cm long, was still entire, just as you can see in the pictures. Had to help it come out from my vagina, because of-course it had all kinds of fibres around it... It was another emotionally very... ...Yeah, I can't find the right word to describe what I felt then. Tears. Again.
What a sad situation. You now have to decide whether you want to stay with him, or end it and try to find someone who wants a family. That's not to mention your problem with your hormones.
I know... Thank you. ...Let's see, time will give the unswer. I must not make so important decisions too fast. He loves me a lot. He always has. I don't think I'd be able to fall in love with another guy, not in the next couple of years at least. And believe in him enough to want to create a family with him. So the next future is gray anyways. With or without him... Will see, we are discussing and discussing and discussing... Maybe we still can get through it together...
And of-course, ironically different strong things happen exactly at the same time. It's about my closest collegue, a young italian woman (31yrs old). A week after I found out I was pregnant, she got the results of the analyses that her bf (same age), with whom she has been for 11 years (!), has a metastasis of the melanoma that had been removed 2 years ago. This young guy might dye soon, maybe in the next months, certainly in the next very few years. They don't have children.... And their story makes me think even twice if not 3 times if leaving my bf now is the most right thing to do... Compared to their problems our situation seems a no-problem. But... But it is.
Was that your first pregnancy by him?