Twyla
It’s 3am, and I can’t sleep.
I am 10-weeks pregnant, and my belly is already growing. I’ve never been one to experience insomnia. In fact, I’ve often wondered if I was the only person in New York City who wasn’t self-diagnosed with a sleep disorder. But now, with my pregnancy hormones doing what they are supposed to do, I’m wide awake. I place my hands around my belly bump where I imagine our future daughter growing and shape-shifting. “You couldn’t have let me sleep before you were born, could you?” I whisper to her.
My husband, José, and Remy, our French Bulldog, meanwhile, are snoring restfully. I’m jealous of both of them.
I turn back to our baby. We’ve preemptively named her Twyla. I pause for a moment, grateful that even though it is 3am, I’m hoping this is a sign that she is strong and healthy. Maybe this will be the time we have a living, breathing, healthy baby. “Move around all you want, Twyla. I’ll stay up all night with you.”
This is our third pregnancy in eight months. We had two miscarriages before Twyla, and I was hesitant to try a third time, despite the fact that my gynecologist tells me I shouldn’t be worried. But I am; I’m incredibly anxious (which might also be contributing to the insomnia). José was anxious also.
The first six weeks were borderline torture. We tried together to relax, think positively. We meditated together, and José even joined me in prenatal yoga. We struggled to connect with our growing baby. “I’m too scared to connect, because I connected the last time and we lost the baby.” During our second pregnancy, I began knitting a baby blanket. We bought a few onesies with Brooklyn logos. “I can’t do that this time until I know for certain.” José nodded, knowingly. I don’t think he wanted to let me in on the fact that he was equally struggling.
Ultimately, nothing was going to help ease our anxiety and allow us to connect with our third pregnancy until we heard her heartbeat. We simply needed to get to that first doctor’s appointment.
The morning of the first appointment for Twyla, we climbed into a cab. We didn’t speak, rather we held hands. José squeezed my hand a few times and smiled at me. Luckily, we heard a strong heartbeat. As the sense of relief rushed through both of us, we thought, maybe this time, the pregnancy would last. Maybe this time, we don’t lose our baby.
Thinking about all of this, I stop worrying about not being able to sleep. I listen to José and our dog snoring. And for the first time, I do feel connected. I call her Twyla, I sing to her. I’m excited to see how the dog will do with her. I start to imagine a life with an infant. With a complete family.
It’s 3am. I can’t sleep – so I place my hands on my belly. It’s already growing and expanding. I hold my belly, holding our growing baby. I imagine her suspended in her amniotic fluid. We don’t actually know if we are having a girl, but we’ve started referring to her as Twyla. It’s a name we like, and it’s a name that feels whimsical, hopeful. It fits her already.
And with that thought, everything becomes OK. I’m no longer awake because I’m anxious about maintaining a pregnancy. I’m awake because I’m euphoric (and the pregnancy hormones are doing what they do). I love our child growing – I loved our child before her little heart started beating. I smile at my husband as he snores away. With my right hand on my belly, I reach over with my left hand and place it on his chest. The two people I love most in this world are right here.
At 3am, wide awake, I’m happy. Up to now, my anxiety has taken over. After two consecutive miscarriages, no living children, I did not feel as connected to this child, unlike my first two pregnancies. When we saw the positive pregnancy test, we were cautiously happy. But there were no tears of joy, like we had for the first two positive pregnancy tests.
The second miscarriage deflated us. As our younger cousins were getting pregnant and having babies, we struggled. Our dream pregnancy had been taken from us. Now, in this third pregnancy, we were anxious, irritable, worried, terrified.
But tonight, I felt hope for the first time. Maybe our whimsical Twyla would be our dream come true. Maybe we would be able to have a beautiful pregnancy. Maybe my anxiety would decrease. Maybe now we could start planning for this child. Not just how we wanted to decorate the nursery. But actually lean into the mighty plans we made for this unborn child, months before this pregnancy occurred.
Just get me to the second trimester.
It’s 3am, and I can’t sleep. I am holding our baby, although she’s no longer growing. She fits in the palm of my hand, covered in blood and uterine lining. I can make out her pinpoint head. I want to look at her all night. And I want to stop looking, because this is an image I can never erase.
We’ve had another miscarriage at 12-weeks.
We were halfway back home after a week with my mom and stepdad. They have a house on Lake Michigan, and we are driving back to our home in Brooklyn. The week with my family was filled with happiness and excitement. We took photos of my growing baby bump. They give us our first baby gift: a University of Michigan onesie.
Typically, we can do the drive home in one shot. But this time, I have a headache, I’m exhausted. I can’t drive the distance I usually can. So we pull over at a hotel in Grove City, Pennsylvania. José tries to get me to eat, but I don’t have an appetite. I just want to fall asleep. And I do, rather quickly. With José still watching whatever cable channel our hotel room can pick up.
My sleep is interrupted by cramps and nausea. Cramps are normal in pregnancy, right? I remember stories I’ve heard of women who bled throughout their pregnancy and still gave birth to healthy babies. The cramps aren’t intense, but strong enough that they are keeping me awake. At 5am, I finally have to go to the bathroom. That’s when I notice the blood.
I gasp from the hotel bathroom, loudly enough that José wakes up.
We go to the hospital in Grove City where they confirm the baby has died. Once they did an ultrasound, and wheeled me back from the ultrasound to my hospital bed, I knew there wouldn’t be a baby. The doctor sad repeatedly, “I’m so sorry to meet under these tragic circumstances.” When he leaves the room, José and I fall into one another’s arms, me still sitting on the hospital bed. I cry, “I can’t go through this again.”
But, of course, what choice do I have? I have to go through this now. There is nothing I can do but go through this.
The ER doctor calls our OBGYN back home. She speaks to me, and is kind, tender. She apologizes for our loss. She says, “Get home. Relax, and give our office a call tomorrow. We will schedule you for a D&C. You don’t want to do this naturally, because at 12-weeks, it can be traumatizing. We can make out the fetus, we can see a head, and even some of the limbs. It looks like a baby. And it’s bigger, so you’ll be in a lot more pain.”
We sat silently in the car. We didn’t listen to music, or a podcast. Jose drove the whole way. We simply sat, holding hands.
But, I don’t have time to call the doctor to schedule a D&C. Instead, we are racing to our local hospital in Brooklyn, the moment we get home. My pain has intensified to a point that I can’t think straight. I’ve never been in this much pain. I’ve never seen this much blood.
José and I sit in our room at Methodist Hospital in Park Slope. I rock back and forth. Is this really what labor pains are like? Yes, but when you have labor pains, typically you have a living, breathing baby as a result. Right now, your body is just attempting to expel something that has died inside of me, and I need to deliver it. Her.
The hospital didn’t do much – but I guess really what can they do? At one point, I heard a doctor, or a nurse, outside the door say, “oh, is that for the pregnant patient?” Whatever it was, I wanted to yell, “yes, it’s for me!” Anything to get me out of this pain. Anything to have this nightmare be over.
It took hours for them to administer morphine, and by the time they did, the nurses had changed shifts, so they never followed up on giving it to me intravenously. So I ingested a pill – anything to take the pain away. José sat next to me, watching me in pain. What must that be like to watch the person you love most in the world, deliver someone you had planned to love equally if not even more, and knowing you can’t do anything to protect the two women you love the most. I wonder later what he must have felt like, helpless, and I didn’t want him to leave, but I also didn’t want him to stay. When I wanted him to hold my hand, and never touch me. Hold me, and don’t hold me. Stay, and go away. Hold me, don’t touch me. Talk to me, and shut up. He sat helplessly as I tossed and turned. And he sat helplessly as our baby was delivered.
At 3am, I’ve delivered her. And I hold her. I love Twyla still, as I make out the shape of her hands and feet. We are both exhausted at this time. José couldn’t look. He was crying, exhausted. Merely 24-hours ago, we were thinking we were in the clear. That this time, we would have our family.
I can't sleep, with grief, with ongoing labor pains. Our plans never included mourning you before you were born.