The End of the World as We Know It

Last year on December 21 I had my first scheduled appointment with my OB. It was supposed to be a happy time, but instead I got to see my doctor's newest most wonderful ultrasound machine giving me a clear image of the bean floating to the bottom of my uterus, it's sack collapsing upon it like a deflated balloon, no heartbeat in sight. It wasn't like it was a surprise or anything. I had started bleeding on the 19th and they showed me the fact that it had no heartbeat then. But I had been hoping, not for a miracle, but that there would be nothing there, so I wouldn't have to schedule a D&C. No such luck.

December 19th started my week at the end of the World. I am no longer the same person. I no longer have the same life. The bean died and it took a part of me with it. All year I have been dreading this time, it's like a twisted alternate Universe Advent, with little chocolates of pain behind doors of razor wire and glass. On the 19th I just broke down and cried, right there at the kitchen table. I didn't even have the decency to go into the bathroom and hide my tears. I sat there and dared my daughter to come in and ask me why I was crying, but she didn't, and I got up and washed my face and carried on. I don't want to carry on. I want to curl up in bed and wake up on Christmas morning and wallow in my children's happiness and love. I don't want to be here for one minute of December 23rd. I don't want to remember, not for one moment, the hard looks on the nurses faces...as if I was having an abortion by choice two days before Christmas. I don't want to think about the elderly nurse asking me if I was still bleeding in her heavy accent, and her telling me that it meant that it was not too late for me to have more children if I was. I don't want to hear them telling me it was not too late to change my mind. Then the icing on the cake, the anesthesiologist asking me the date of my last period, and then inquiring if I could possibly be pregnant? Begging the question, does anyone in a hospital read a fucking chart anymore? Why didn't it say anywhere, this is a miscarriage, handle with care, be kind? Because I need some kindness, here, at the End of the World.

Tragedy

On the other side of the state, a gunman walked into an elementary school and murdered 20 children and 6 adults. It is a town much like our town, a school very much like my kids' school. All of my heart, the most important part of my life, goes to that school each day, and I trust that they will come home safe to me. Today, 20 sets of parents and 6 other families had their trust shattered and their hearts torn apart.

My husband and I had our first apartment in Danbury 15 years ago. We lived within minutes of that school. There is a very good chance that people that both my husband and I worked with went to Sandy Hook, and have kids that go there now.

How can this happen? It took over six years to bring our sons into being...the thought that they could be taken away from us in just a minute by a madman with a gun....there are no words. I don't think I could survive it.

All my thoughts and prayers are with the families of the children, teachers, and the brave principal at Sandy Hook. I hope that our Governor and State Board of Education do something, anything, to improve the safety of our schools.