Eighteen Attempts at Writing About a Miscarriage

I was alone with the doctor when I found out. I had come in for an emergency appointment because that morning I’d happened to notice the tiniest of smears on my toilet paper, a light brown smudge. Scott had asked if he should come with me, but I’d said no; it was nothing. If I hadn’t glanced down at the paper, I wouldn’t have known. I was eleven weeks along. There had been no problems before this. It was my second pregnancy. I knew that strange fluids and sensations were the order of the day. Who goes to the doctor because of a smudge she can barely see? I called and said, “I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m sure I’m being silly. I should just calm down, right?”
“It’s probably nothing,” the nurse on call had said, “but come in, just for your peace of mind.”

*

I’m sure I’m not the only woman out there who has a problem with the word miscarriage. It sounds like a mistake I made: Whoopsie, I dropped the baby. I was carrying her all wrong. Forgive me. But what are the alternatives? “I lost the baby”? How bad a mother do you have to be to misplace a baby who’s inside you? “The baby died” is a little too direct for most people. And let’s not be dramatic about it; it wasn’t quite a baby yet. Almost. But not yet.

*