Advent

The ultrasound technician might have been twenty-three, but--as the last tech had been hard on my nether regions--I was glad to see this girl...until she asked me in her chipper little voice, before I'd even undressed: "Have you already scheduled your surgery?"

I stammered around, as I always do when someone stuns me with her lack of good sense. But I wish I'd asked: "Why? Are you planning to assist?"

Then she told me she saw no evidence of a yolk sac. "I had one, last week," I informed her.

"Oh, really?" she asked. "Maybe you did; I didn't look at last week's report. But I don't see anything, today, but an empty gestational sac."

Jim told me on the drive home: she corrected herself while I was in the bathroom putting my pants back on, but--after I emerged--she didn't bother to tell me she'd seen a yolk sac, after all.

This sort of thing will make a patient reconsider the experience of having her womb jabbed upwards--over and over, for at least fifteen minutes--by a much older tech who took seriously her attempts to find something (someone).

Just so you know: I really like my doctor, else I would never put up with such cockemamy.

Bottom line: the images showed no change from last week to this, so we wait.

I know I won't have peace about miscarriage unless I at least start the process naturally, so, for now, I've turned down D&C. My doctor walked us through every possible scenario, including the (unlikely) one that nothing will happen, in which case I'll return to his office, in January, for another ultrasound.

"I hope I'm wrong," he said.

And I do, too.

I've prayed so much that I can't say who's responding to me: God or myself. I can say that, yesterday, I heard--plain as day--in my head: You need to decide whether you're waiting for a dead baby or a live one. I breathe life into everything, and I'm not a baby. I'm not helpless.

I stared at myself in the mirror, shocked. "Was that really You, God?" I whispered. But I didn't hear anything else, and I'll admit: I looked crazy as a bed bug to myself.

Still, I'm oddly calm to be stark raving mad. It's looking like--for the first of 38 Christmases--I'm not going to see my dad over the holidays. Having given up what little control I had (i.e. when this pregnancy will end), I could miscarry at any given moment. But it's ok, and I really do mean that.

I'm planning to sing "O Holy Night" during Fine Creek's Christmas Eve service. It's the second of only two songs on my bucket list. (I've already crossed out the first: "The Star-Spangled Banner.") But I've opted not to sing the second verse because I don't think I can keep from breaking down over these words: "The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger; In all our trials born to be our friend. He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger, Behold your King!"

I mean, I do have my limitations.