2: Starts and Stops
The Short Version
I’ve had three miscarriages.
The Slightly Less Short Version
The first was in May 2018. The second was in January 2019. The third was in May 2019. I was supposed to have a baby in December 2018 and August 2019 and November 2019. But I did not.
Here’s Something Cool
The first and the third happened almost exactly one year apart, on either side of Mother’s Day weekend!
That Was Supposed To Be Funny
“See, what did I tell you? She’s funny,” my gynecologist said to the nurse during one of my many follow-up appointments last summer. “Always with these jokes!”
“Ha ha I’d be dead otherwise,” I said, and everyone laughed. I’m still not sure how much I was kidding.
Just So We’re Clear
I am not currently pregnant. This is not me bundling my past heartbreak in the cozy fleece of happy news. This isn’t a footnote. This is the body text. This is the only story I am telling you right now.
But How Am I, Really?
In this moment, right this second, as I’m typing this, I’m actually doing alright. I’m sitting here with my dog, and my husband is about to make a stir fry for dinner. Earlier I put away some laundry. Later, we’ll probably watch an episode of The Young Pope then go to bed. Maybe, before I fall asleep, I’ll read one of the two good books I’m working through right now. Maybe I’ll have some ideas about the next draft of my own book and have to hop out of bed and fetch my phone across the room and email to myself. Maybe I will fall asleep easy and wake up feeling good.
That would be nice.
But who knows? Some days I think I’m doing good and then something happens and then I’m not doing good anymore. “It sucks in a pretty pervasive way,” I told a friend the other day, and as I wrote that I was like, Aha! I’m stealing that. As if somebody else said it.
When I’m not doing good the version of me who could say something like that does seem like another person, though. Sometimes the little gray cloud floats on the horizon. Sometimes it floats directly over my head. Sometimes I’m the cloud.
The Worst Thing About Miscarriage
What I planned to type next was, “is that there’s so much bad writing about it!” But that isn’t entirely true. I’ve just spent way too much time on the messageboards.
The actual worst thing is that there are so many potential candidates for Worst Thing that I would have to do it like one of those bullshit awards ceremonies for kids where everyone gets a prize so no one feels left out, like the time at drama camp when I got the Carol Burnett Award For Physical Comedy, which was just those words written in Sharpie on a piece of paper shaped like a blue ribbon.
Actually, in retrospect, that was pretty cool. I just had no idea who she was.
I Just Googled “carol burnett” + miscarriage
Because this is what I do now! Just casually browse the internet for any evidence that any woman whose name crosses my mind might have once slopped around in the same shit bucket as me! The results are not zero but they’re all about somebody else: Scarlett O’Hara, a Duggar wife, Meghan McCain.
USA Today: “Meghan McCain felt 'petrified' about revealing miscarriage but decided to 'take the leap’”
I remember reading the New York Times op-ed she wrote about her miscarriage and feeling the most disorienting mix of empathy and rage. This was last summer. She and I were both 34, hers happened around the same time as my third, I was in a general mood to deeply relate. But something about it just incensed me. I don’t want to ruin my good mood with fact-checking but I believe my rage related to her use of “we”? “We” knew and loved our babies even if we never met them. “We” are no less mothers than women with children in their arms. I don’t doubt she felt that sincerely but oh my god the nerve of that first person plural.
Whatever was inside me—they weren’t babies. They weren’t even fetuses. They were barely embryos. I didn’t love them (yet). I didn’t know them (yet). They stood me up. They ghosted before our first date. They were strangers to me. I am not a mother of three. I’m not a mother of zero. I am not a mother at all. That’s the whole problem here.
Here’s Where We Talk About “Heartbeat Bills”
This time last year, the Georgia state legislature was batting around HB481, also known as the Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act, which aimed to make abortion illegal after six weeks, the point at which (supporters claimed) a heartbeat can be detected. Something like this seems to come up every few years down here but it had never been passed before so I didn’t expect it would get far this time either. But Brian Kemp was still riding high on his stolen governorship and the bill zipped right through the House and into the Senate.
I knew my own Senator would vote against it but I felt furious and helpless, so I wrote a letter to the members of the Senate Science and Technology Committee—which, if I recall correctly, was comprised of one white woman and a doughy baker’s dozen of white men.
Dear Senators,
My name is Rachael Maddux and I'm a resident of Atlanta, represented by Elena Parent in the State House. I'm writing you today to ask you to please do everything in your power to see that HB481, which would ban abortion after 6 weeks, does not become law in the state of Georgia.
There are so many reasons that this legislature is misguided and deeply harmful to women in Georgia. Many of these were articulated last night by your colleagues in the House, namely Park Cannon and Renitta Shannon. Women have the constitutional right to make their own choices about their bodies and their healthcare, and this bill would absolutely violate that right.
Many women don't know they're pregnant at 6 weeks, and even those who do know that early don't always have necessary access to medical care at that point—or ever. The state of prenatal and maternal healthcare in Georgia is already abysmal, which the effects of this legislation would only compound and be compounded by. And as history has shown, limiting access to abortion doesn't decrease the number of abortions—only the safe ones.
Georgia's maternal mortality rate is already the worst in the nation. If HB481 becomes law, even more women are going to die. Its passage may be a political victory, and perhaps that's all its supporters really care about. But in reality, people are going to suffer. Your constituents are going to suffer. Many are already suffering, and they will suffer more. There will be blood and it will be on your hands.
I'm writing to you today as a woman who has been pregnant twice in the last year. Both pregnancies were wanted and planned for, and both ended in miscarriage. I've always believed that a woman shouldn't have to be pregnant if she doesn't want to be, and my two brief experiences with pregnancy have only increased my resolve. Being pregnant, for a woman, is life-altering and, in too many cases, life-ending. It is a massive undertaking—physically, emotionally, financially, existentially. And it is deeply, essentially personal.
Whatever happens in a pregnancy should be the choice of the woman whose body is growing the child. It is no business of the State of Georgia. Support your citizens, help them thrive, and trust them—especially women—to make their own choices about their own lives and bodies.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Rachael
Lion, Lamb
That was March 8. On March 22, the Senate passed the bill. On March 26 I found out I was pregnant for the third time.
I Went To The Doctor And The Doctor Said
“I completely understand why you want that ultrasound as soon as possible this time, because of what happened with your other two pregnancies, but really, we don’t recommend ultrasounds at six weeks because it’s often too early to detect the fetal pole.”
“Ha, well, tell that to the great state of Georgia.”
“Don’t even get me started.” I swear she had to crawl under her desk to retrieve her eyeballs, they rolled so hard.
We laughed, at least. At least we laughed.
Now I’m Angry Again
That was also supposed to be a joke. Because I’m always angry!!!
I’m Sorry, Too
I know I shouldn’t be but I am. It’s hard not to feel responsible when the thing that has gone wrong went wrong inside your own body. It’s hard not to feel like apologizing when you’re making people all around you so sad, even if you’re the saddest of them all. But I am, really. I’m sorry if you don’t know me and this is too much to know about a stranger. I’m sorry if you do know me and you wish you’d known about this sooner. I’m sorry if anything like this has happened to you.
I Do Wonder
We have physical comedy, but do we have physical tragedy? What would that be? Is this it?
Garlic
I told myself I was going to sit down and write for a couple hours and see what happened. Now I smell dinner happening in the next room. I’m taking that as a cue to wrap up, otherwise I’ll be here all night long or possibly forever.
Here’s what I know: I don’t know if I’ll ever have a baby. (Or what I consider a baby, at least. By Meghan McCain’s standards, I should be in the market for a minivan by now. Buckle up, ghosties!!!) But I will always be a person who has had at least three miscarriages. I’m trying to figure out what that means.
This isn’t the first time I’ve written about this. It’s just the first time I’ve written while fully knowing that it will be in the world. There are more rough edges and sharp corners than I’d like, and also more soft bits. Feints and distractions.
As if anyone could tell me I’m doing this wrong.
I don’t know how to end this because there’s no end, not yet and maybe not ever. I can always get started and I can never figure out how to stop. The final sentence is always so important to me—I never feel done until I feel good about the last few words. I want them to be magic. I want them to redeem everything. Maybe that’s why they never do.