Free Inconceivable by Carolyn Savage

while we made our way to Dr. Read’s office. It was a perfectly sunny day, and as we exited the highway to pull into her lot we fretted over what we were about to see. I thought of the ultrasound where we’d seen MK’s dead twin in my uterus, then the horrid ultrasound in November 2006 when we were blindsided by the news that our baby had died in utero. I didn’t want my body to fail another innocent life. I was petrified. Yet wouldn’t a miscarriage be an escape? A way out? It didn’t feel that way.
    “This is probably the end,” Sean said.
    “I hope not,” I replied.
    “Me too,” Sean said.
    We were praying for this child, rooting for him or her with everything we had.
    As the ultrasound image came up on the screen, I held my breath. I wanted to be the baby’s biggest cheerleader and protector. So I prayed for the baby and for myself.
    Please, God. Please don’t let this baby die. Please, God, protect him or her. Let this baby grow to be healthy. Let this baby have a strong body and a stronger mind. Allow this baby to grow to know the joy of breathing and the opportunity to feel love. Please don’t take this baby from me. Not now. Not before I can give the gift of life and I can receive that gift as well.
    “Well, there you go. That’s why you are bleeding.”
    Linda pointed to a big black blob underneath the gestational sac. I looked at Sean and shared with him the joy he reflected back to me. We both looked at the ultrasound screen again.
    “Is that a subchorionic hematoma?”
    In my hours and hours of reading about the science of pregnancy and what can go wrong, I had learned much about the conditions that cause a miscarriage. The subchorionic hematoma is a blood clot that forms, usually in the first trimester, and is far more common inIVF pregnancies. My bleeding was the clot draining. The chances of a miscarriage because of a subchorionic were less than 2 percent. Linda continued searching.
    “Uh…no heartbeat yet, but the baby has grown since Friday, and the gestational sac looks good. Everything is measuring right on target. Now the blood is sitting on your cervix, so you are probably going to have more bleeding.”
    She captured a bunch of images and escorted us to an examining room to meet with Dr. Read, who said the blood would either drain or reabsorb. Though Dr. Read was confident that the clot would not harm the baby, I asked for another blood test so we could confirm that my pregnancy hormones—the HCG reading—were continuing to rise. I knew that a fetal heartbeat would be detectable at 5,000. I wanted to double-check that the jig wasn’t already up.
    Dr. Read agreed and handed me a lab slip. We scheduled another ultrasound in four days, and Linda shared with us that if there was no heartbeat by then, there would be reason for concern. Dr. Read said to take it easy until then—lifting MK was fine, but nothing more strenuous.
    On the car ride home, I fretted about what the boys would think. My guess was that they were already suspicious. Poor Ryan heard me screaming in the bathroom for the phone, then Sean arrived in the middle of the day. Next thing he knew, we were scurrying out the door. Ryan asked where we were going, but we didn’t answer. He asked again…still no answer. Then he said, “Never mind.” How was I supposed to pretend that everything was fine when I was lying in bed all day?
    The next day, when I had to drive to the lab for blood work, I knew that, even as light as she was, I should put MK in the stroller and wheel her into the lab. I was feeling weak and woozy from all the blood loss, but I had to continue to be a mom, to run the house and provide the meals. I was trying to figure out what we needed for dinner as I pulled into the pharmacy drive-thru to retrieve prescriptions. When it was my turn at the window, I reached back for my purse. Where was it? I twisted around to check the backseat, but it wasn’t there. I’d left my purse at the lab. “Sweet mother of