In the Pink

by Susan McBride

  What was left on the menu was my pregnancy, only that wasn’t going well at all.

  By seven weeks, the ultrasound did not show a fetal heartbeat. In fact, while they’d found a fetal pole on the previous scan, they couldn’t even find the fetus now. The radiologist who popped in during that dismal ultrasound rattled on about calling my doctor and considering a D&C. I didn’t want to accept that the pregnancy wasn’t viable. It was the day before Christmas Eve of 2010. Just four years earlier on Christmas Eve, Ed had proposed to me; and days after that, I had my lumpectomy. By God, I did not want the holidays to be filled with sadness again!

  I prayed that the radiologist was wrong. I didn’t want a D&C. If this baby wasn’t meant to be, I wanted my body to take care of it on its own.

  As it turned out, no amount of prayers could save the pregnancy. Over New Year’s weekend of 2011, I suffered a miscarriage. It was tragic and horribly painful and one of the most awful things I’ve ever been through in my life.

  It was enough to make me stop believing in miracles. I nearly gave up on the idea that Ed and I would have a baby before I was too old and all my eggs had dried up.

  Even though my doctor informed me, “You’ll be more fertile for the next two years so keep trying,” I kept thinking, But I’m already forty-six. How fertile can I be at this point?

  Apparently, fertile enough.

  Chapter Eight

  •

  There are two pink lines!

  •

  I BURIED MYSELF in my writing, so thankful that I had so many deadlines in 2011; although revising Little Black Dress during the first few months of the year wasn’t easy. One of the characters suffers a miscarriage in the story, and that hit awfully close to home. As I rewrote the book, I cried off and on, figuring it was good to let it out. My hormones were slowly coming down from the pregnancy, getting back to normal, and life was moving on.

  By mid-spring, I had turned in the final version of Little Black Dress to my editor at HarperCollins and had my proposal accepted for my next women’s fiction book. That one started out being called Little White Lies but soon became The Truth About Love and Lightning. Because of crazy scheduling, I had to put Love and Lightning on the back burner for a bit and start work on a young adult thriller for Delacorte. It was a nice change of pace, and I had fun slipping into mystery author mode again. By July, I had a rough draft of the thriller done and I’d begun Love and Lightning, which focuses on a mother who can’t tell anything but the brutal truth and a daughter who can’t help but lie.

  The novel also involves an unexpected late-in-life pregnancy, perhaps some wishful thinking on my part. It was good for my psyche to create a character who gets to have something I so recently lost.

  While I toiled on Love and Lightning, I also got busy promoting the release of Little Black Dress in late August of 2011. It was incredibly easy to talk up that tale with readers, as it was truly a book of my heart. I had a handful of local gigs lined up for St. Louis, including a fund-raiser at Saks Fifth Avenue with the St. Louis affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, for which I’d done several events since my breast cancer treatment. I love combining “books and boobs” whenever it works out. Additionally, my publisher sent me on the road, speaking and signing books at several trade shows in September.

  And I found myself agreeing to put on a second Wine, Wit & Lit fund-raiser for Casting for Recovery in late October. That would be my last event of the fall so I could hunker down to finish Love and Lightning.

  I was feeling good about my health and positive about the direction of my career and the books I was writing. I even mentioned to Ed that I wanted to do more fund-raising and volunteering as I needed “something more” in my life that felt equally fulfilling.

  In the meantime, my forty-seventh birthday rolled around in mid-October, and we celebrated by going out to lunch with family and then heading to Pumpkin Land to shoot the corn cannons, wander through the corn maze, and pick out Halloween pumpkins. I had a huge berry margarita at the Mexican restaurant that afternoon, although it tasted really weak. I’m such a lightweight that usually a drink that big will make me loopy. This one didn’t (luckily).

  It was a beautiful Sunday with a picture-perfect blue sky. Ed and I had spent a few hours at Pumpkin Land, acting like kids and having a blast. We left with two pumpkins and big smiles on our faces.

  The next day, as I procrastinated getting to the computer, I began cleaning out my bathroom vanity (it’s amazing how much laundry gets done and how often the rugs get vacuumed when I’m on deadline!). I happened upon a single pregnancy test stick left in an otherwise empty box, and I briefly considered just trashing it all.

  Instead, I decided to use it, and not because of intuition or a premonition or a gut feeling (although that would make for a better story!). It was one of those what-the-heck? moments. I didn’t have any pregnancy symptoms. I’d just gotten my period about three weeks before, as a matter of fact. So I had no expectations whatsoever. I guess I was ever-hopeful, having done the tests periodically during the ten months since my miscarriage. I kept praying I’d see a plus sign again. But so far that hadn’t happened.

  So imagine my surprise when I took the test and saw two pink lines appear in the tiny window. Holy cow! I was pregnant!

  Flabbergasted, I initially questioned if the test was expired or had malfunctioned somehow. There was a warning on the instructions noting something like “Women over forty may have a false positive reading due to fluky hormones.”

  Not sure how to react, I called my mother, who was as shocked as I was. “Don’t tell Ed, especially while he’s at work,” she advised, not wanting me to get his hopes up.

  But that was the very next thing I did.

  I phoned his cell, which he answered with a hushed “Yeah?”

  “Are you in a meeting?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  My heart thumping, I blurted out, “I peed on a stick, and there are two pink lines!”

  “What?”

  So I repeated what I’d told him, saying, “I think I’m pregnant.”

  He was so quiet that I wondered if he’d fallen off his chair and had to be revived.

  The next thing I did was buy another box of test sticks, a different brand this time. If I was pregnant, it was so early that I figured maybe other tests would show different results.

  Only all the tests were positive.

  I bought every kind of pregnancy test on the market and, over the course of the next few weeks, I used them all.

  Every single one said “pregnant.”

  I lined them all up on my toilet tank and stared at them day after day until the pink lines and plus signs slowly faded. I was too afraid to call my doctor’s office until I was sure I was at least seven weeks along. I didn’t want to go through what I’d gone through before: heading to the lab every other day for blood tests to measure my hormone levels, which never seemed to increase enough, and enduring ultrasounds that were disappointing from the get-go.

  Even before I saw my doctor, I started prenatal vitamins and read every article available on having a healthy first trimester. I stopped drinking green tea (it supposedly prevents folic acid from binding). I quit taking the lysine supplement I’d been using daily to help boost my immune system, which I’d felt the radiation had compromised (there’s not enough data about lysine’s effects on pregnancy so it’s safer to avoid it). I also ate as many fruits and veggies as possible despite the frequent bouts of nausea.

  At eight weeks, I phoned my gynecologist and agreed to have a blood test. Happily, the results this time were anything but marginal. My HCG level was through the roof at just under 150,000. “This is a good pregnancy,” my doctor told us at our appointment, and we saw a heartbeat on the very first ultrasound, something we’d never had the chance to see before. Ed and I were holding hands, laughing and crying at the s
ame time. It was so amazing that it was surreal!

  Before we left the doctor’s office, we were handed the official packet for mothers-to-be, chock-full of information, which is when I knew everything was different. We hadn’t been given The Packet the last time around.

  As great as things looked, I couldn’t help but be nervous. I’d read the statistics that said less than one percent of women over forty-five could get pregnant with their own eggs, so I knew I’d beaten the odds again (kind of like falling in love with Ed and getting married when I was over forty as opposed to being killed by a terrorist). This pregnancy was unbelievably precious, and I did not want to suffer another loss if I could help it.

  Ed and I waited to share the news with family and close friends until we reached eleven weeks and had another good ultrasound. We put off telling the rest of the world for two weeks more until I was safely through the first trimester.

  Not surprisingly, the baby was all I could think about. My energy focused on this new life inside me, nearly to the exclusion of everything else. I had trouble concentrating on The Truth About Love and Lightning. Every blog I wrote and every Facebook post was about this miraculous bun in the oven. I noticed each tiny change as the months went along: the growing curve of my belly, the nausea, the exhaustion interspersed with bursts of energy, the way I began to huff and puff going up and down the stairs.

  I developed a skin rash in the second trimester that drove me insane. My dermatologist diagnosed “pruritis of pregnancy,” which normally doesn’t show up until the third trimester. But, you know, I just love standing out from the crowd. I tried to deal with the rash without a prescription, until it went on for over a month. Every piece of clothing irritated me. Lying down in bed was uncomfortable. Sitting up was uncomfortable. After about six weeks of misery that lasted through the Christmas holidays, Ed found me in the bathroom in the middle of the night, witch hazel–soaked Kleenex all over my arms, legs, and chest. I was sobbing, saying, “I can’t take it anymore,” which is when I caved and told the dermatologist, “I’ll take the steroids!” Two weeks on a tapering dose of prednisone, and the rash was gone, never to be seen again (hallelujah!).

  Though sometimes I wish I’d caved sooner, I like to tell myself that I gave my baby six weeks to grow without any medication interfering with her development.

  We had the fetal anatomy scan in early February, not long after I finished my course of steroids. I was beyond excited to see the baby on the big monitors at the hospital’s wellness center; but I was nervous, too, because the scan is very thorough and can often take an hour to complete. There’s a huge checklist they go through, looking at baby’s skull, brain, chest, heart, lungs, etc. They search for the most subtle of abnormalities, such as the thickness of the nuchal fold at the back of the neck, which could indicate Down syndrome.

  I wondered if being an older mother would cause any problems for the baby. All my blood tests had been great. I knew I was in good shape and had done everything I could to ensure this was a healthy pregnancy. But there are no guarantees in life, as I kept learning time and again. Still, Ed and I had decided that we would accept whatever God gave us. We loved this baby already. We could deal with the rest.

  The tech was also able to discern the sex of the child, something Ed and I really wanted to know. My mother had been confident from the beginning that the baby was a boy. I had ordered an over-the-counter “gender test” that had suggested the baby was a girl. So we were curious which was right.

  The ultrasound pictures were incredible. We were used to the grainy images in my doctor’s office, but this equipment was much sharper and we were able to see more of the baby at once. We marveled at her beautifully formed skull, her spine and ribs, and her incredible beating heart. We even saw her little hands and feet! And, yes, I say “her,” because the tech pointed out the “three lines” (also known as “the hamburger”) that proved she was a girl.

  We already had a name for her: Emily Alice, because I’d always loved the name Emily, and Alice is Ed’s mom.

  Both mothers were invited into the exam room at the end of the scan so they could see their granddaughter for themselves. It was a wonderful moment, a real gift. This was it, I realized then, the “something more” that I’d been looking for. I was going to be a mom!

  Nothing could have dampened my mood at that point, not even the radiologist popping in to see Ed and me before we left and reminding us that we hadn’t done an amniocentesis so we couldn’t be sure if there were chromosomal abnormalities. (This was the same doctor who’d suggested no hope with the last pregnancy, for which I’d dubbed him Dr. Doom. Hey, if the nickname fits . . .)

  Except for a brief stint in a hyperbaric chamber after our old furnace leaked carbon monoxide in the middle of the night, I suffered only typical side effects of pregnancy: peeing a lot, swollen ankles and feet, bloody rhinitis. Though some days were better than others, I felt pretty good throughout and was energetic enough to tackle my editor’s revision notes for The Truth About Love and Lightning in about a month. Is it bragging to say I’m so proud of that story? The book exceeded my expectations on so many levels, particularly since I wondered if it would even be coherent, considering all that had been going on while I’d written it. My editor seemed equally in love, which made me pleased as Punch.

  Once Love and Lightning was headed to the copy editor, I’d hoped to get a little time off to relax and concentrate on Emily’s arrival; but apparently there is no rest for the weary. At nine months’ pregnant, I began writing In the Pink. I couldn’t put it off for fear that Emily would make her debut before I’d had a chance to finish.

  As I sit here now, pounding away at the keyboard with tingling fingers (thanks to pregnancy-fueled carpal tunnel), I’m so large that I can’t pull my chair up to my desk. I have to sit back a ways and balance my puffy feet on a stool underneath. But even the discomfort is worth it. I’ve never written any kind of memoir before, just snippets of past events for blogs or articles. Dipping back into the last seven years has been quite an emotional roller-coaster.

  I’m proud of how much I’ve done since I turned forty, how thoroughly I’ve lived my life, going through the best of times and the worst of times in equal measures.

  I’ve come to understand the true definition of the word “courage”: facing something frightening and pushing through it. It doesn’t mean you aren’t scared. It simply means you do what you must to survive, taking each step one at a time. And when you have doubts that you’re not up to the task, you consider the women who’ve done it before you and who will do it after you. They’re heroes, every single one of them.

  Being told you have cancer is terrifying and changes us forever in ways we could never imagine. The scars it leaves on our bodies aren’t nearly as deep as the ones carved into our minds. As another survivor once sarcastically remarked, “Cancer is the gift that keeps on giving.” The memories of what we’ve been through—the physical aches and pains—will never vanish entirely; but, hopefully, they will make us stronger and wiser, and cause us to appreciate our lives all the more.

  No matter what fate throws at us, we should never forget that there is always hope.

  There is always room for love and happiness and, yes, miracles.

  If you ever need proof that miracles do exist, just think of this forty-seven-year-old survivor giving birth to her first child. That’s the beauty of life, isn’t it? Anything can happen. We just have to stick around long enough to see what’s next.

  IN THE PINK Q&A with Susan McBride

  (1) How do you feel now about the doctor who diagnosed your cancer as a cyst?

  I adore her. She’s been my doctor for about sixteen years, and I can’t imagine ever leaving her care. My rare type of cancer (pure mucinous carcinoma) manifests as a blob of mucus with cells trapped inside. As I mentioned in the book, the pathology showed a benign growth on the tumor. So here’s how I look at it: if m
y doctor had not felt this “cyst” on exam and alerted me to its existence, I never would have focused on that breast and followed up the way I did. What if there had been no palpable growth in conjunction with the negative mammogram? I might not have found my cancer until it was much bigger and more frightening. So I credit my doctor with alerting me to a situation I otherwise would have ignored because I was so busy at the time. I am forever grateful, too, that I followed my own instincts and pursued an answer rather than just letting things go.

  (2) What about the doctor who insisted on chemo?

  I stopped seeing her a few years past my treatment. She and I just did not click. And it’s true that my blood pressure went up every time I had an appointment with her. I know other patients who think she’s great and she’s well respected by the medical community. So this was absolutely a case of patient and doctor not connecting.

  (3) The man on the plane who helped lift your bags couldn’t have come to your aid at a better time. Were there other instances in which you were saved by the kindness of strangers, or surprised by their apathy?

  Thank goodness, most folks I encountered were as kind as could be, unlike the rude flight attendant. The loveliest surprise came when other authors I knew—or in some cases, hadn’t known before—heard about my situation and got in touch to share their stories, offer advice, and cheer me on. These were women who’d been very private about their own treatment (and still are); but their reaching out helped sustain me through my treatment. I consider them angels who appeared right when I needed them and I will always think fondly of each. I also heard from complete strangers who offered hope and inspiration, who sent homemade quilts, stuffed animals, and cards. It still amazes me to recall all the incredible displays of generosity. I will remember those acts of kindness for as long as I live.

  (4) Could you give us an update on your mother and aunt?