Memories of a last chance

I woke in in the fall of my 43rd year, pregnant. How it had happened was through a battle of odds far beyond my mathematical ability as my husband at the time had relegated me to the spare bedroom for eighteen months by then. Still, sometimes he snuck into my room, and me, hoping to somehow win his affection, would quietly agree to whatever small intimacy he might offer.

It was September, and I was carrying his child. For me it was a mix of confusion and sheer joy at the idea of being a mother one more time. My daughter was 24 by then, and I had been so young when she was small that I missed so many of the wonders of having a baby out of my own fear of ruining her. I can remember thinking with every mistake I made she would someday be reclining on a therapist's couch somewhere saying, "and then my mother..." My paranoia and poverty had made her childhood a mix of fear and self doubt for me.

But well into my 40s and with enough stability to bring someone new in, the idea of a child sounded intriguing somehow. I had been madly in love with my husband at one time, and that memory lingered with images of a baby. I imagined a boy who looked like him. I imagined us being in love with this child, and the miracle of it all pulling us back together. I pathetically even imagined my lonely little guest room becoming a nursery, and me being invited back to sleep in my husband's room.

His reaction was somewhat less than what I would have hoped for. Once he congratulated himself on having living sperm capable of making a pregnancy happen, he started naming all the reasons why we couldn't. He wasn't sure. He hadn't planned for this. It wasn't the "right" time. Not once did he ask what I wanted, but it has taken me almost three years to realize this fact.

Much to his relief, the bleeding came. It started as a spot or two, and in a couple of days it became a flood. I drove myself to my gynecologist who thought I was being dramatic when I had called in. Once in the examining room he lifted the paper sheet and literally screamed. My doctor who was in his late 60s and had delivered hundreds of babies whose pictures lined the walls of the hallways in his office, screamed like a girl. "Why did you come here? You should have gone straight to emergency." He gasped. I said nothing as he called for an ambulance to take me to the hospital down the street from his office.

That night I wandered from my bedroom where I had slept most of the afternoon, out into the living room where my husband watched television. He had picked me up from the hospital and we had driven home in silence with the exception of one question from him...had I been afraid. I said I hadn't. What I didn't say was that I had been sad. That I still was, and that I would be for some time to come, maybe forever.

I sat on the love seat adjacent to the couch where he watched the screen. He asked how I was and I answered that I was okay. We sat together for a few minutes before he said quietly, "I've found an apartment. I'm moving out next week."