Finding Hope

By Laura K. Maple

Edited by: Shané Maple

I woke up with a start, for just the briefest moment forgetting where I was and why I was there.  I had somehow, despite the pain, managed to rest, although I wasn’t sure if it had been moments or hours.  I lay in the quiet, frigid hospital room, gently lit by the glow of the TV, strategically placed on the wall in front of my bed and the private bathroom door which I had left slightly ajar. The warm yellow light reached out towards me seemingly to offer what little comfort it could during what had to be the darkest hours of my life so far.  I lay still, trying to discern what had jarred me from my rest, when the sound came again, a woman raising her voice in distress, a sound that informed the world around her of the agony she was in. Her shouts were quickly followed by several voices in Arabic all speaking at once.  Although I could not and still cannot speak Arabic, I could tell by the tone of the voices and the underlying excitement held within them that the woman was being both comforted and encouraged at the same time.  I held my breath trying to understand what it was I was hearing, when her voice rang out again, reaching an even more fevered pitch closely followed by the angry screams of a newborn babe.

My heart stopped and then shattered into a million pieces, the cruelty of having to listen to a woman birth her baby while I was losing mine pushed the boundaries of my ability to keep sane. Between one grimly determined, but stuttering beat of my heart and the next, I couldn’t help but thinking of joining my unborn and now lost child who I would never meet, whose cries I would never hear. A child who I had already kept safe inside of me, birthed, watched grow and lived an entire lifetime with. As silence was restored outside, inside the sound of my moans grew as the cramping increased along with a building pressure, forcing me to move across the room and back to my bed in an endless loop. It wasn’t long however before I heard another woman, closer to my room this time pushing through the final stages of her labor and finally the piercing wails of her greatest blessing and my darkest despair.  The hole in my chest stretched just a little wider as the pain fought to escape my body before it destroyed my mind.  For a time, the world went blank while I turned inward, desperately trying to stem the flow, trying to pull the pieces together, trying to take another breath, and another, and another and another… 

I was told many years ago that it would be difficult, if not nearly impossible for me to get pregnant naturally.  After years of trying and no luck, my subsequent divorce, and 3 years mostly single, I had taken the deep-rooted dream of one day becoming a mother, and with the greatest of care had laid it to rest and tried to move on.  When I met my now husband, I made sure to explain to him that adoption would be the most likely outcome of our attempts to have children and regardless of agreeing to give it my best shot, knew in my heart that I would have to be prepared for some serious disappointment and an eventual struggle to find our child.  When depression crept its way in from the recesses of my mind, I felt that surely my body must hate me.  Why else would I have diabetes and PCOS? Why else would it deny me something even the countless women, whose desires in life had nothing to do with raising a child, could so easily achieve.  So when, roughly a month after a holiday away with my new husband, I was still feeling jet lagged and was late to start my cycle, I had absolutely no hope that my hastily purchased pregnancy test, would be positive. In fact, I reasoned its use would simply be to prove to my mind that I was NOT pregnant, and that hopefully with this knowledge my cycle would then start. 

I’m sure you can understand why I could not quite believe the two lines that appeared within seconds on the stick and why they had me running to my roommate and best friend to confirm that there were indeed two lines, that one line was not simply a wishful heart seeing something that wasn’t there. What followed was almost eight weeks of highs and lows so profound it felt as though I had climbed to the top of Mt. Everest and sunk to the blackened depths of the Mariana Trench. Getting confirmation from a blood test that I was indeed pregnant, seeing my fetal pole (the very beginnings of baby becoming a full-fledged fetus) for the first time at my 6 week checkup, were all moments which made my heart sing with joy and excitement.  Of course, there was the race to get my sugar levels down and my folic acid up and I couldn’t help the gnawing worry that I would not be able to keep my babe safe. Regardless of this niggling concern when I saw the look flicker across the gynecologist’s face at my next appointment, I was terrified that I had just become a statistic, 1 in 4.  I was shocked, devastated that this could be happening to me no matter how commonplace it seemed to be. Why me? After everything, this was MY miracle baby, the promise that had lived in my heart, secretly tucked away for years. Life, God, the universe wouldn’t be so cruel. 

After the initial concern raised by my gynecologist, it was two weeks of begging, pleading and bargaining with everyone and everything, while we waited to see if her suspicions were correct. Finally, my follow up arrived, I lay on the examination table as she searched with every tool at her disposal to find a heartbeat, measure any small amount of growth.  After minutes that felt like hours, tears streamed down my face as I was informed that there was no change.  If my babies’ heart had ever beaten it was still now. I would never get to feel its rhythm underneath my fingertips.  I can honestly say that a piece of my soul left me that day and will never be replaced regardless of what happens in the future. A Missed Miscarriage was the diagnosis handed to me on the flimsy piece of A4 paper.  It seemed my body was as reluctant as my mind to acknowledge and accept that I had lost the most precious gift I could ever have imagined being given and so it held on, desperately trying to secure what had already been taken from me.

Over the next three weeks I was given not one, but two doses of the only medicine permitted to be prescribed for such a diagnosis in the country I was living in. Bleeding, cramping, endless tears and an emergency visit to my gynecologist, and it was concluded that my body was resistant to the medication.  In an effort to avoid surgery   one final attempt was made to assist my body in doing what it couldn’t do on its own.  The medical term typed up on my admission form was Induction of Abortion.  I have never felt such all-consuming, fire breathing loathing towards a word in all my life.  How dare they imply my baby being ripped from my body against my will was in any way a choice.  The higher dose of medication required hospitalization and so another week of agonized waiting.  My nightmare came to a head on a quiet night which felt like it should have been dark and stormy. I wish I could say that afterwards it was over, but less than 48 hours later I was urgently booked into theater. The weeks following my D&C were harder than anytime I can remember before that.  Trying to keep up appearances at work, missing my husband who was stuck in a country I would soon leave Oman for to call home and mourning the loss of the hope that had sparked to life when I saw my baby for the first time.  I said the right things at the right times, I used humor like a shield against the whispers, the stares, what felt like a million silent voices asking how? How could I not keep my baby safe? How could I be so careless? How could I fail so utterly?

It’s hard to see the light when the world appears to be an all-consuming darkness. When nothing is able to warm you.  When it feels as though the air is being stolen from your lungs. Light, Joy, Hope are impossible to reach, find, hold onto. These are luxuries enjoyed by people who have not shared their hearts with the smallest being only to have both ripped from their bodies, leaving a gaping hole as dark as the world outside. The guilt was almost unbearable and I’m honestly not sure how I didn’t let it crush me, put me out of my misery. In the past I may have, but I am blessed to have learned that above all I want to live; I want the chance to find beauty in a world that often seems determined to prove it holds none, but can sometimes surprise me.  And so, I took the time, I opened my battered and bruised heart, I reached out with my slightly diminished soul and I found Hope. Hope was due on the 23rd of December 2019. I do not know if I was supposed to have a little boy or a little girl, I’ll never know, but Hope was my baby and will always be my first child. I decided to consult the best doctors I could find and discovered that due to the loss of a fair amount of weight over the last few years and the management of my diabetes I would now have the chance to carry a child. The fear of losing another baby is always there, I don’t think that is something that will ever leave me. But I will honor Hope, and be brave, and try again.  I will continue searching for the Grace that I know is waiting for me … that is promised to me in the beating of the heart I never got to hear, but which I know echoes my own every day. Hope!