The Big Fix

by Tracey Helton Mitchell

  After a few days alone bouncing off the walls in the house by myself, my mother returned from her vacation. I am quite sure she was shocked by my appearance. I had a chipped front tooth, I was weathered from the sun. She came up to my old room and brought me some food as if I was ten years old and home sick from school. I was so nervous, within a few minutes of small talk I blurted out the truth.

  “Mom,” I told her, “I am a bisexual junkie prostitute in San Francisco and if you can’t accept me, I am going to hop the first freight train home.”

  In her best ’70s-TV mom voice she told me, “I think you need some rest.”

  She slowly closed the door. There was nothing else to say.

  Because of that trip, she could no longer deny the truth. It was right in front of her. Within a week, she was driving me to the clinic to get an HIV test because I had contracted thrush, which was on the short list of illnesses associated with HIV. We waited a week to find out I was negative. She tried to get me to stay in Ohio, but I wasn’t ready to stop using drugs. As she kissed me goodbye a month later, she could never have imagined it would be years before she would see me again. At least when I returned again, I was nine months clean. Now, I might be pregnant around the age when she had first become a grandmother. I needed to get some answers before I talked to her.

  The next day, I was at work alone at a satellite site. No one else had arrived. It was 6:30 AM and still dark outside. I wanted to talk to someone. I felt different. Something was different about me. During my break, I walked nervously past the resident crackhead to the corner drugstore to get a pregnancy test. I did urine testing as part of my job, yet I fumbled with the test. I got pee all over my hands. As I dried my hands nervously with a paper towel, a matching pink line slowly appeared on the test. My mind had trouble comprehending what that meant. I hadn’t bothered to read the directions.

  “I don’t believe it,” I whispered aloud as if someone could hear me.

  I tried to regain my composure enough to get my pants up, wash my hands, and walk to go find my coworker, who I knew would be in the office by now.

  She took a brief glance as I shoved the test into her workspace.

  In her best nurse voice she told me, “Yup. You are pregnant.”

  Those words were the sweetest ever spoken to me, validating like nothing else. My coworker, the stoic nurse, was also in recovery. She knew what this moment meant for me. I was over the fucking moon.

  When I saw my baby’s lovely heartbeat on an ultrasound screen a few months later, it was as if the past was erased and everything in my life was focused on that moment.

  “Christian,” I said as he held my hand, “that is our baby!”

  I saw this man I love in a whole new way. It wasn’t but a few days later when he dropped to one knee and asked if I would marry him. There was no ring, no date, just a promise of our own little family. Everything was falling into a beautiful place.

  When I told my mother about my pregnancy, she was happy. Not just for me, but for herself. She told me she preferred being a grandmother over motherhood in many ways. When the kids were fussy, she explained, she could always hand them back. Over time, my mother had become my best friend. I called her every Sunday, as I did in my addiction, but on these calls I did not ask her for things. In my youth I’d never been able to communicate my feelings to her. She had that motherly disapproval that drove me crazy. Now, she was proud of me. Despite her fears of flying, she had traveled all the way to San Francisco for my college graduation. She said she had not been on a plane in probably forty years. Seeing the look on her face when I handed her my diploma was one of the happiest moments of my life. I had always been so selfish, so focused on the things that I wanted for myself. I never cared about the impact it had on her. I just assumed she would always be there for me. Now, as I matured, I realized that the relationship with my mother was a gift. She had always loved me, even when I could not love myself. Now, with my pregnancy, I could connect with my mother as a woman for the first time. I had a vision of things to come; my suffering now had meaning. It would manifest as the gift of wisdom that I would give my beautiful baby. If only I can be half the woman, half the mother, she was to me, I thought to myself as I rubbed my belly.

  But my vision ended in perhaps the worst thing to happen to me in my recovery. I was at work when I started to bleed. Red blood in the toilet. I am fucking dying, I told myself. Never, for one second, had I ever considered the idea that I would have a miscarriage. This pregnancy had happened so quickly. Surely, it was meant to be! I was in shock. A male coworker who had known me for years took me to the hospital. In the fifteen-minute ride to the emergency room, he tried to assure me that things would be all right. I was grateful he never tried to tell me the baby would survive. Instead, he reminded me that I was a strong person, that I had overcome many trials in my life. He helped me out of the car as if to remind me that someone cared for me.

  I entered the hospital in a panic, only to be told to have a seat. I had no pain, no cramps, just blood. I told them I had just seen the baby’s heartbeat a few weeks ago. My baby was alive! I couldn’t help repeating this to medical professionals as if to counter what I knew was coming. I had to repeat my age, my weight, my addiction history, and my condition over and over in painful detail. With every disclosure I felt my heart sinking into my body. I am a fucking junkie and God doesn’t believe I deserve a baby. How could I have fooled myself into believing otherwise? Look at my history: eight years of heavy drug use. Is this someone who deserves a baby? My shirt was covered in tears.

  I didn’t have a cell phone, nor did my fiancé. The process at the hospital dragged on for hours. I had hours to cry on a cold examination table while my dream of a family slipped away from me. Waiting was the hardest part. I had to prepare myself for what I already suspected. It was confirmed on the ultrasound. The technician was not supposed to tell me, but I forced him to as he continued his search for a heartbeat by waving the wand back and forth over my abdomen.

  He told me softly, “I should have found a heartbeat by now.”

  “I saw it two weeks ago,” I repeated.

  I noticed how the baby had grown from the last appointment. My baby was still in there!

  “The doctor will come talk with you . . .” he trailed off as he walked out of the room.

  He had been instructed not to talk to women like me. He’d been told not to give us answers. He was to speak in vague terms and let the doctor play the role of the hero or the villain.

  After an hour the doctor emerged from behind the curtain. According to my urine test, my pregnancy hormones had evaporated like my hopes.

  “This sometimes happens with a first pregnancy,” the doctor told me in a sympathetic tone.

  This didn’t help me. Nothing could help me now. I had lost my baby. I had sucked too many dicks. God was punishing me for all my poor choices. I knew it.

  They reviewed my options. I could go the natural route, waiting to expel the “tissue” (no one uses the word “baby”). I could take a pill that would finish the process at home. Both of these presented the risk of blood clots or not fully expelling the “tissue.” Or, I could get a “procedure.” The D&C was going to require some sedation, but the chances were good they could get all the “tissue” the first time. I wanted to throw up. I went from looking at onesies to selecting how to complete the end of my pregnancy in less than twelve hours. I opted for the procedure. I couldn’t bear the thought of having this drag on for weeks.

  “We’re going to give you some meds in an IV,” the nurse told me.

  I immediately asked, “What kind of meds?” It started with drugs. It ended with drugs. My life was fucked by drugs.

  They explained that they were going to give me a cocktail of benzos to help me “relax,” just like the kind I used to take by the handful. I couldn’t refuse, I didn’t want to refuse. I didn’t want this to be happening. I felt so powerless.

  Christian arrived as they were about to w
heel me into the operating room. They took off my engagement ring. It used to be my mother’s—she had given it to me years ago when she finally believed I could stay off drugs. I finally had a reason to wear it. I was going to be married! Now, I was a washed-up old whore who couldn’t even carry a baby.

  Before they put me under, I told my nurse I was an addict. He poked around my arms looking for a vein.

  “Those veins are gone,” I assured him.

  He pulled my arm up to search the other side. Suddenly my mind clued in that they were going to inject me with drugs. I had not even taken a pain pill when I had a tooth extracted! Now, they were about to shoot me up. Just like old times. For that split second, I was in that old familiar place of searching for a vein. I was anticipating the deliciousness of drugs. Then I remembered why I was here: my baby. When the needle slipped into my skin, I felt the sting. What stung more was the fact that I really wanted to get high for the first time in many years. The loss of my baby was too much to bear. I had never been in this place before, and it was ugly. I needed to ask for help.

  I begged the nurse, “Please tell them I am in recovery.”

  He told me to relax as I felt the drugs go in. That was the last thing I remember for a few hours. When I snapped out of my drug haze, it was time to go home. I was shaky as I heard them explaining the post-operative instructions to Christian.

  “Thirty Vicodin,” I heard from the doctor.

  “No. I can’t,” I whispered to Christian.

  They were about to send me home from the hospital with thirty pills. I wanted to die, and they were giving me the means to kill myself. In fact, I wished I had died. I was so fucking sad. I told myself these feelings would pass. If I take all those Vicodin, I thought, it will set off a dark place, and I may never recover. I needed something for my pain, but I knew drugs were not the answer.

  We came up with a plan. Someone else would hold the medicine for me. I would get a script for ten pills and call if I needed more for the pain. I was not a martyr. If I needed medication, I would take it. But I was also not going to set myself up for failure.

  I made more plans. A day or two later, I was back on the Internet, Googling how long I needed to wait before we could try for another baby. I was obsessed with this thing that had been so elusive. I had succeeded in every other thing I had tried to do in recovery. Was I being punished for the sins of my past? Was I not worthy of a child? The fears and inadequacies began to eat me alive.

  The worst part was that in my exuberance I had been foolish enough to tell people I was pregnant. Now I would have to explain to all of them that I had lost the baby—though “lost” was not the right term. I did not lose the baby. The baby died inside of me. I was not a worthy host. I was angry and bitter. On top of that, I had pain medicine.

  When I was a depressed young adult, drugs provided me with a means of survival. They numbed my emotions so I could make it through the day. The drugs had worked at one point in my life. That time was over. There was no situation in my life that would be improved by drinking or using drugs. I knew that now. The prescribed medications complicated my situation, but not my goals.

  I had to stay clean.

  When people say they will never get clean, I tell them “never” is a strong word. Instead of saying, “I will never get clean,” why not say, “I will stop using drugs one day, but today is not that day.” It’s better to leave yourself room for the possibility that things will be different tomorrow from how they are today.

  In the middle of those tough weeks after my miscarriage when I was struggling to make it to the next moment, I constructed a similar story for myself. Yes, there was laundry. Yes, there were dirty dishes. Yes, I forgot to feed the animals. I was simply doing the best I could in a difficult situation. Instead of berating myself, instead of thinking in absolutes, I re-framed my thinking and poured my grief into action. I learned about my body. I learned about steps I could take to increase my chances of pregnancy. I did not let the pain push me back into active addiction. Instead, I channeled it. I was a woman with a mission. If there was one thing I knew about myself, it was that I am determined. I would find a way . . . one more time.

  Chapter 9

  CRISIS IN A MINIVAN

  When the epilogue of my life is written, no one will ever be able to say that I wasn’t determined. One night I was sucking down a carton of saag paneer and rice. The only thing to come out of having a miscarriage that is not completely horrible was being able to eat sushi and spicy food again. Indian food numbed my mouth and my pain. I knew I would regret all this garlic and spice tomorrow. Tonight I was in the mood to say “Fuck it.” There was a place close to my house that delivered. The proximity of that place and my mood made for a perfect storm of indulgence and isolation. Despite pleading from my fiancé, I couldn’t bear to leave the house when I was not at work or school. Everywhere I went, it seemed like I ran into someone who wanted to discuss the progress of my now-lost pregnancy. Since I’d been stuffing my feelings with food, I could see where I would still look pregnant. But I was sick of explaining myself: I am no longer “with child.” Now I just look, feel, and eat like I am fat. I was oh-so-bitter. One day I might take a few steps forward, the next it was a few steps back.

  I had to be out of work for a few days to heal. Plus there were the pain meds. Seeing me with pinned eyes certainly would not be inspiring to the methadone patients seeking my assistance. I felt like I was having the worst period in the history of womankind. I was having cramps. I was tearful. I wanted to eat everything. Eating was my way of dealing with depression. The food gave me a way to shove down the feelings. I was still trying to process the shock of the event. I had felt so powerless lying there on the gurney as they wheeled me through the halls. I had felt so empty at home knowing there would be no “special delivery” on March 31. My friends wanted me to talk, but I didn’t know the words to describe the pain I was feeling. I just wanted to pass the time without feeling anymore. I spent hours researching the nuts and bolts of getting pregnant using an ovulation tracker. With a click of the mouse, I transported myself to a new fantasyland where having a baby would be possible again. The fantasy allowed me to block out my painful reality. It was not just the loss of the child that threw me into a state of despair. I had an utter loss of hope. The world seemed as cruel as it had before I had quit drugs. I had fallen into the trap of believing that I could be a “normal” person. I had started to believe that I would be able to have a family, to have a house filled with love, unlike the one I’d had as a child. The loss of the child was the death of my dreams.

  Before the pregnancy I was going to meetings sparingly because of my heavy course load at school. I found that getting to one meeting a week could be a struggle. Now my attendance had been even more sporadic. I found it difficult to hear a room full of mostly men explain all the things their “higher power” had done for them, when I felt like he, she, or it had let my baby die. I really began to notice the gender disparities in those meetings. It seemed as if there were at least five men for every woman. In the past, I had been going to the one women’s meeting every week in my area, but I could no longer fit it into my schedule. My miscarriage also wasn’t a topic I felt I really wanted to share at a group level. Instead I was sitting in my dark bedroom, clicking away, hoping that somehow I could find an answer to my spiritual crisis.

  I was trapped in my own thoughts, with the healthy exception of calls here and there from concerned friends. But it was still too hard to talk to anyone who knew me. They tried, they really tried, to help me. But I just felt as if there was no one who understood the depths of my pain. Miscarriages, though very common, seemed to me to be taboo. The lack of information or discussion about them made me feel like a failure as a woman. I was so inept, I couldn’t even carry a baby to full term.

  When I took to the magic of technology to find out how long I needed to wait in between pregnancies, I also found support from strangers. On the Internet, I felt I could share
my pain without judgment. There was a whole community of women who had experienced the same thing. Those women found solace from behind their avatars. I had nothing fancy to offer. I created traceyh415. That would be my new Internet identity.

  “How are you ladies tonight?” asked babyfever1970.

  “I am okay,” I typed. “Finally stopped crying.”

  “Don’t worry,” added AngelWings2006, “we understand. Let it out.”

  “(((HUGS)))” said sugarbearinTX. There were sparkles in her avatar. I suddenly loved sparkles.

  Somehow, I felt this hug. For a split second, I felt a tiny bit better.

  I was asking anyone who would listen about my chances of getting pregnant again—nurses, doctors, and counselors. I got a lot of “I can’t answer that question.” I suppose that was normal since they worked at the methadone clinic, not in the field of reproductive technology. But that didn’t deter me from asking. I was a professional. I had a degree. How could there be no possible way I could take control of this situation? The loss of control was sending me spinning like a top on the ledge of a skyscraper. I was thirty-six years old! I could not wait much longer.

  In a moment of complete desperation, I made an appointment with a fertility clinic. Even my fiancé gave me the “I am going along with this, but are you fucking crazy?” eye roll. I paid $350 for a doctor to tell me the equivalent of Your eggs are fine, chill out. I went from heroin addict to baby addict. Is that even a thing? I wondered to myself. If not, I have invented a new addiction.

  This obsession was slowly starting to take over my life. All I could think about was how horrible my life would be if I could never have a child. Why was I so stupid? Why did I believe all that garbage I had seen in women’s magazines telling me I could have the family and the career? Why did I wait so long? It all seemed like such bullshit now. I just wanted to have someone call me “Mommy.” I wanted to know I would never be alone again. I wanted to have that feeling of being part of a family, my little family. I was incurable. I felt a little saner when I immersed myself in my plan. I constantly practiced my new language: cervical mucus, ovulation tables, luteal phases, and basal body temperatures. It was as if the pursuit of a baby was the only thing that could help me manage the pain over the one I had lost. I knew I was running from my feelings. I was running the way I ran with drugs. I was going to drive this car until the wheels fell off.