After a physical exam, Dr. Matt mentions possible dislocation. “You know, it doesn’t seem that serious to me,” he says, “but I am concerned that he can’t lift the arm at all. I’d like to get it X-rayed, just to be on the safe side.”
He tells me to take Jasper to the emergency room for the X-ray; otherwise, we’ll have to wait weeks.
I call Maud, who is in town today, watching a friend’s children. I explain the situation and ask her if she can meet me here at Dr. Matt’s office and take Noa home, then pick up Kevin from basketball practice.
“You mean you have to go to the emergency room?” she says, upset. “That’s going to be intense for you. You haven’t been back since Theo, right? Someone should go with you.”
I’m touched by her concern, though I don’t think I need someone with me. “It’s not like it’s a real emergency. I’ll be fine.”
“No, Cinda. Sorry, but I’m not letting you go alone. Listen, I’ll come get Noa, take him home, get Kevin, then meet you at the hospital.”
The emergency room is quiet. I check in, fill out initial paperwork, and then we sit in the waiting room. Maud and the other kids arrive. She hugs me, talks to Jasper sweetly, offers him some corn chips. Jasper says he isn’t hungry.
A nurse comes out, and Jasper and I are shown to a small examination room.
A doctor comes in, asks a few questions as he studies a chart, then does an exam. Jasper is chatty, asking his own questions, talking about how much he loves ice hockey. The doctor says he suspects a rotator cuff tear, which would require major surgery.
Hearing this, a dark shadow comes over me. I can’t bear the idea of Jasper having anesthesia, going under, being cut open. I try not to think of our friends whose son recently underwent a routine appendectomy and almost died from postsurgical complications.
“Let’s get an X-ray now,” the doctor says. “I doubt the arm is broken. He’d be in a lot more pain, but we’ll check just in case.”
After the X-ray, the doctor comes back and says to Jasper, “You are one brave young man.”
I feel a strange mixture of concern and pride.
The doctor turns to me and says, “You sure you haven’t given him anything for pain, not a single aspirin?”
“No, just arnica. Why, what is it?”
“He has a break all the way through the shoulder bone.”
“Oh my gosh!” I gasp.
Jasper’s eyes are wide. “Will I get a cast?”
I ask the doctor, “Does this mean no surgery?”
“I’m going to get the other doctor on call to take a look at the X-ray,” the doctor explains. “He’s an orthopedic surgeon.”
I take big breaths, then go into the hall and ask the nurse if I can use the phone to call Dicken. I give him the update.
“Wow, what a brave boy,” he says, his voice cracking. “Tell him I’m so sorry I’m not there.”
“He’s being a real trouper,” I say.
The orthopedic surgeon shows me the X-ray. I can see the clean, straight white line across Jasper’s bone.
“But look at this,” the doctor says, pointing to a dark mass below the white line. “This is a cyst, a long one.”
“What? I don’t understand. How did he get a cyst from being kicked in the shoulder?”
“Oh, he didn’t get the cyst suddenly. If it is a cyst, it grew there over time, and it might be what weakened the bone and made it prone to a fracture.”
I hate the word cyst. I hear tumor, cancer. The doctor is acting casual, like there is nothing terrible going on, like a mother isn’t standing in front of him hearing terrible news that will turn her life upside down. I am in shock, terror. I feel the ground being pulled out from under me. Why, oh why, is Dicken out of town?
We get a sling for Jasper’s arm and the name of a surgeon to follow up with the next day. When I see Maud’s concerned face, I’m too numb to do anything but grunt, “I need to get home.”
Maud calls all our close friends. Courtney drops everything and comes over, rubs my feet, says she’ll spend the night and make sure the boys are taken care of. Thank God she is there because I feel paralyzed, and collapse into bed with an excruciating headache. Another friend brings me an herbal migraine remedy, but my head pounds through the night, so loudly I can’t hear any thoughts, which is a kind of blessing. My knees ache for the first time in years; I have terrible neck pain. My body seems to be seizing up, refusing to move forward, using every bit of life force to grind everything that’s happening to a halt, willing time to stop. I do not want to find out what dreadful thing will happen next.
December 2
The next day, we see an orthopedic surgeon who a doctor friend recommends. He X-rays the shoulder again. The wait feels endless, the exam room claustrophobic; my breathing is shallow. I feel cold and shaky.
The surgeon comes back in, smiling. When he says, “From what I can tell, it’s a unicameral bone cyst, seven centimeters long, benign, and in the best-case scenario something he might outgrow,” I don’t trust his words, or his calm demeanor. My head starts to pound. Then the doctor says, “On the other hand, this kind of thing might require bone graft surgery, I’m not sure. I’d like to get a second opinion from a colleague down at Stanford.”
A second opinion. That’s what Rhione said after our first ultrasound with Theo. She said the odds were on our side, she just wanted to make sure. And now this doctor is saying the same thing.
“So we have to go down to Stanford?” I ask.
“Oh no, sorry if I didn’t make that clear. I can send him these X-rays and get his opinion over the phone. He’s probably seen hundreds of cases like this.”
“And you haven’t?”
He shakes his head, smiling again. “But from what I know, it’s not a serious condition, and often reverses as the bone grows.”
This pleasant doctor is acting nonchalant, and in the past I would have relaxed and taken his words at face value, but I don’t trust him. I am back in the Theo pregnancy, hearing doctors and midwives give me hopeful odds, reassure me that we have very little reason to fear a serious problem.
I am trying hard not to cry in front of Jasper. He looks worried, asks the doctor, “Can I still play hockey?”
“We’ll see,” the doctor replies. “Let’s find out how you heal this up over the next few weeks.”
I am not worried about whether he can play ice hockey or not. I just want him to survive this. Please God. I’ll do anything. Just let Jasper be okay.
Dicken will not be back until tomorrow, so Gabriella comes over and spends the night. My head pounds for hours. I can feel my whole body bracing, waiting for a terrible blow.
*
Over the next weeks, Jasper’s fracture will heal well, and he will play hockey again. Every six months we will re-X-ray the shoulder to check the status of the cyst. The shock and worry will fade, but the underlying terror that something will happen to Jasper comes from the part of me that no longer trusts doctors or fortune or statistics or life. That part of me will remain.
CHAPTER 28
January 27
Group e-mail to women friends:
I have been doing a lot of soul searching and processing about the baby question. I got some powerful insight over the weekend, mostly in favor. I just can’t seem to rest in the “we’re done” place, as hard as I try, and I don’t think it’s my biology talking (as my sister-in-law warned me it would as I approached forty, saying I shouldn’t fall for it). I told a couple of you that I’m in this place where not trying again is starting to seem scarier than trying again, even though on a core level I am utterly petrified of what will come up if we go for it.
Meanwhile, Dicken is now pretty keen to try, so we are contemplating an attempt next cycle (gulp!). I’m scared to even write that. It makes me cringe with fears of going back on my word to people and feeling completely flaky if I lose my nerve again—like backing up from the end of a diving board and climbing down the ladder, the walk of s
hame. But I have to say, right now it seems that everything is leading me to this, and of course it seems natural that in the process all my fears and reasons not to are screaming at me (including, oh my God, the economy is tanking, this would be a terrible time to bring a child into the world! And Dicken’s back is in bad shape, he won’t even be able to lift the baby, and all my friends are turning into potheads—they’ll flake out on you when you need them! And Dicken will have to go on the rafting trip without me, and he’ll fall for one of the girl guides!). Etc., etc. It’s actually pretty amusing when I stop believing all this.
The good thing is that I’m in this place where if it does happen, I’ll know it’s my path, meant to be, an evolution in the long pregnancy story of my life so far. And if it doesn’t, I feel absolutely fine about that. From all this work and processing, I’ve come to a place where I feel really happy with my life, and having a baby feels more about sharing all the love rather than filling an empty place.
April 2008
Dicken and I make love several times during my most fertile week. One time, we are lying in bed afterward, and I hear something across the room fall. When I get up a short while later, I see that it’s the small plastic statue of an archer, a knickknack I found that reminds me of Theo because of his resemblance to Cupid in my mythology. Of course I take this as a sign.
About two weeks later, I find my period is a few days late, so I take a test. It doesn’t come out one way or the other, but looks like a funny hybrid of yes and no. I call my midwife friend, Jennifer.
“If it’s showing any color at all, that means there’s hCG in your system. So I would say you are pregnant. But take another test first thing tomorrow morning to make sure.”
*
“Looks like I might be pregnant,” I tell Dicken.
His eyes are big.
When we realize it’s April, the month we conceived both Jasper and Theo, we laugh.
In the morning, the test is negative. I call Jennifer again.
“Probably a very early miscarriage,” she says.
I’m not too surprised or disappointed. But I cry a little that day, feeling compassion for myself and my body, thinking I deserve an easy, straightforward road from here on out, not a bumpy one.
June 2008
I am pregnant again. Weeks pass, and the dollar store tests I keep taking continue to come out clearly positive.
During these weeks, I am content but not excited. Dicken and I rarely speak of my state; we only tell my workmates so they understand why I’m a little distracted. I feel well physically, which is suspicious. But I am not worried. I stay very much in each moment, convinced that whatever is happening, or not happening, is perfect.
“Will you want to do prenatal testing?” Dicken asks me.
I shake my head. “I can’t see how it would help. I trust this pregnancy. If we have a baby with problems, then we have a baby with problems. Testing ahead of time won’t change anything. I love and want this baby, whoever it is.”
*
When I start to bleed, first dark brown spotting, then bright red clots, I cry a lot. But I don’t resist my feelings, and I am proud of myself for being able to stay with what was and is happening, proud that I didn’t get caught in fearful stories.
I bleed heavily for days. Dicken says, “I’m not putting you through this again. It’s too much.”
“I guess we’re not supposed to have another baby,” I agree. “We’ve given the universe a chance, and the answer seems to be no.”
October 2008
Just before my thirty-ninth birthday, Dicken gets carried away during lovemaking.
“Oh boy,” he says. “Where are you in your cycle?”
“I think it’s too late this cycle for me to get pregnant. And I’m obviously not as fertile as I used to be.”
*
Later in October, I spend two weeks in Ireland with my father and Maud. While we’re there, I tell Maud my period is a few days late.
“Could you be pregnant?”
I shake my head, then stop. “Actually, we did have a little unplanned ending a couple of weeks ago.”
“Oh my gosh, take a test!” Maud says.
In town that day, I go into a chemist’s, but the tests cost ten times what I pay for them in the States.
Maud laughs when I report back to her. “I can’t believe you’d be so cheap at a time like this!”
“Wouldn’t it be amazing,” I say to Maud. “I mean, I asked the universe to tell me what to do. I didn’t want to have to make the decision myself to try or not try, and so on. If I am pregnant, and it was unplanned, it just seems like such a perfect cosmic joke or something.”
“Oh, I really, really hope you’re pregnant!” she says. “I would be so happy.”
Maud comes back from a morning bread run and hands me a brown paper bag. I look inside and see a pregnancy test. “You may be too cheap,” she says, “but I need to know!”
I do the test, and it is positive. I take a photograph of the test with my new iPhone and e-mail it to Dicken.
I think of the international flights and the X-ray machines, but I quickly let that go. I’m determined not to worry, not to get ahead of myself. I will just take this moment by moment.
It’s Election Day in the US. Maud and I stay up through the night to watch the returns. We scream and cheer when Pennsylvania goes to Obama, ensuring his victory. Life feels both safe and exciting in every way.
*
I fly home and try not to think about being pregnant. Again, I feel well physically, so I am doubtful. I take a pregnancy test every day for weeks. It comes out strongly positive time after time.
December 2008
In week nine, I notice some spotting. Within a few days, the spotting turns to heavy, bright red blood, and I know it is a miscarriage.
I cry. I also feel blessed, because I’ve been able to have the experience of being pregnant again, and I’ve witnessed my own courage in the face of that. I know now that I’m strong enough and trusting enough to believe that whatever happens is for the best. I was pregnant and not terrified, not eager to get testing and find out as much as I could. I slept well, I stayed calm, I stayed with the moment day after day. That is a huge blessing in itself, and a testament to how much I have moved through in the past few years.
CHAPTER 29
January 23, 2009
I am with my sister Cecily, who is one week shy of eight years younger than me, which is the exact same age difference between Jasper and Theo, as she gives birth to her first baby in the hospital where Theo was born. It is just past midnight, so my niece is five minutes too late to share Jasper’s birthday. Cecily calls her baby girl Lucia, a name that came to her in two dreams, and which, like my name, means light.
The anesthesiologist who took such good care of me the night of Theo’s birth is part of Lucia’s birth, and a hero to Cecily, giving her an epidural after thirty hours of labor.
Our mom asks the nursing staff if Cecily can have the room we had when Theo was born. No, there is a couple in there already; they have just given birth to a baby boy.
My mother goes into that couple’s room, greets the family, and announces, “I want you to know how lucky you are to have this room. My grandson Theo was born here and died in this room. It’s a very special place.”
August 2009
I’m reading in bed at our house in the Adirondack Mountains. We’re spending a whole month here. This morning, we looked at a nearby boarding school that has a renowned ice hockey program. Jasper, three years away from ninth grade, the earliest he could enroll, is eager to attend this school, saying he’d sign up this year if he could. His greatest passion in life is hockey, has been since he started skating soon after Theo was born and died.
Dicken comes in from putting the boys to bed and starts to undress. “It’s raining,” he tells me.
I look up from my book and discern the sound of light rain outside. The door to the sleeping porch is open and I can fe
el the fresh air blowing in, a nice relief from the humidity.
Dicken climbs in bed beside me. He doesn’t grab his crossword book as usual.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I was just thinking, though, about having another baby.”
Now? After all I’ve been through the last couple of years? I want to tell him he’s a little late, but I don’t. I take a big breath.
“Is this about Jasper wanting to go to boarding school?”
He nods.
“It is crazy to think of Jasper being gone so soon.”
“I don’t even like it when he’s having a sleepover at a friend’s house,” he says. “I miss him so much.”
“He’s the center of our lives.”
I look over at Dicken and see that tears are spilling silently down his face. I move closer to him and try to put my arms around him. It’s awkward in this bed. The mattress is hard and Dicken is a lot bigger than me.
“Why didn’t we have more when we were younger?” he says.
“You mean why did we have that abortion?”
“Yes. What was wrong with me? Why was I so scared?”
“Honey, we were young, just married, on the road, about to start a new life three thousand miles away from home. We didn’t know anyone, we were both about to start school. We had no community, no place to live, no income other than Dad’s allowance.”
He nods, but his face looks hard, grim.
“Do you remember that horrible fleabag motel we stayed in, the one in Daly City? The scratchy blankets, the dripping shower, the horrible wasteland outside. I was feeling sick, scared out of my mind.”
“I know,” he says. “It was awful.”
“Of course we didn’t feel ready or excited to have a baby. It was terrible timing.”
“But we could have done it. We would have been okay. We had each other.”
“It would have been really, really hard. We might not have made it as a couple. We were a lot younger, remember?”
“Twenty-two.”
“We had no support.” I can’t tell if Dicken is taking any of this in, but it’s helping me to hear it. “We can look back from where we are now and project our current maturity and stability onto our situation then, but honestly, we were completely different. And even when we had Jasper six years later, it was hard. Raising children isn’t easy.”
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