Your Little Hand in Mine
Laura Hall
Implantation: The Beginning
January, 1990
Dear Samuel,
I remember every detail of your room. Sunlight streamed in the windows, filling the air, setting the white walls aglow. I remember your pine changing table with stacks of tiny diapers, blankets, and t-shirts so small it would seem no real person could fit in them. The scent of baby powder filled my nose as a breeze blew against the sheer curtains, ripples like the ocean on a clear, blue morning. I remember peeling back your chenille quilt, picking you up from the crib grandpa made you, carrying you to the center of your room. A white rocking chair waited for us, the focal point, all eyes on stage. I remember finally rocking you, my baby brother, and singing you your first lullabies. “Your sissy loves you,” I remember singing as I stroked your arms, skin like silk, and kissed your miniature feet. The whole earth was still, sunlight upon us, as we kept the beat back-and-forth, back-and-forth...
All of this I remember, though it never happened. It never will, because you were never born. It is this I must accept.
Your loving sister,
Lucy
The First Trimester: Infertility
1.
I’m four when Mommy and Daddy get home from their trip, and lots of things change. We all move to Daddy’s house in Massillon, where he was living with his State Trooper buddies. I get to call Daddy “Daddy” ‘cause now they’re married. And, Mommy is gonna have a baby.
When their car comes, I don’t know who to run to. It’s always been just me and Mommy, and I didn’t sleep good at Aunt Mollie’s ‘cause I missed Mommy at night. But, now Daddy will be around to play with all the time and I like that. When Daddy gets out of the car, I jump into his arms first. “Daddy!” I yell, as I squeeze his face and he looks happy like Christmas. Mommy comes around the car to hug us both–-and pukes in the bushes.
“Mommy,” I say. I get down and put my arm around her back, “You okay?”
Mom looks at me and smiles so big, I back up a little. “I’m great, Lucy. I’m wonderful. I’m pregnant. I’m going to have a baaaaabbbbyyyy.” Mommy sings the last word and we all scream and jump up and down.
Mommy says you lived in her belly that first time for seven weeks.
2.
When I first started dating my husband, I told him that I wanted to have kids. I probably should have been honest. I was--am--obsessed with having kids. I wanted to have kids more than I wanted to get married. If he’d said, “We could start tonight,” I would have been on board.
I know, I know, other people want to have kids, too. Maybe somebody and her husband tried for a few months and it was hard. I get it; I do. But, seriously, you have no idea. I have wanted a baby since I was FOUR. I faked being pregnant in second grade for a whole week--wearing rolled up towels under my T-shirt--until my teacher called me in at recess and told me to knock it off. For several months in fourth grade, I would awaken early to feed and change my “Real Life Baby” who pooped and peed. I would rock her to sleep and check on her throughout each night. I started babysitting at 12, and didn’t stop until… well, I still watch friends’ babies for them. I talk to babies in restaurants, creep out their parents in the grocery store, and hog them at family reunions. Some people have passions like golf, painting, quilting. I have babies.
Being a smart, sensible, reasonable guy, my hubby wanted to wait a year before we started trying. I didn’t want to scare him off, so I agreed. It was a looooong year.
But now, finally, the school year is coming to an end, and so is my first year of marriage. I glance at my desk calendar, see the little heart I’ve written and think, “Today is when we agreed to start trying.” We’re trying. We’re trying. It’s the strangest phrase, but it sends off little fireworks in my brain. I try to finish all of my end-of-the-year paperwork, but my brain keeps jumbling. What will it be like to be pregnant? Will I have cravings? Will I get sick? What will the baby feel like inside me? I touch my belly over and over again and think, “Get ready!”
I rub my stomach and say aloud, “Yeah, he’s a kicker,” “We just want a healthy baby,” and, in my Dad’s voice, “Huh, huh. Can’t believe my little Lucy’s gonna be a mom!” I look around my office, make sure nobody’s listening, and tell myself to get back on track.
Nothing goes right. I put all my files in the drawer backwards alphabetically, then have to fix it. I write the wrong names on five files and have to start over. I drop a stack of the files as I’m lining them up and all the papers mix. Finally, I’m finished, and I head home.
Phil has gotten home early and made dinner. He has a single, yellow daisy in a vase on our kitchen peninsula. Our framed wedding photo--my auburn mane somehow convinced to lie beautifully in ringlets, Phil’s gorgeous smile a blaze of white teeth, Silver Lake in the background--is the centerpiece of our refinished oak table. He’s made my favorite dinner–spaghetti and meatballs–and has baby shower decorations up in every available space in the house. Above the mantel to our gas fireplace, he’s hung a sign that says, “CONGRATULATIONS!” I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I do both.
“You know,” I say, “if you didn’t want to do this, you could have just said something.”
We decide to skip dinner and start “trying” on the living room couch.
3.
I’m four, and Daddy is out raking. He keeps raking the same piece of grass, over and over. I ride my bike down the driveway, go down the block, turn around and come back. Still, Daddy is raking that same grass. I ride down the street the other way, get to the house with the scary dog, turn around, and come back. Still raking, same spot. Now it’s starting to just look like dirt, with not much grass in it.
I get off my bike and walk slowly over. “Daddy?” the word feels new in my mouth, like fresh bubblegum. “You want help rakin’?”
Daddy looks down, sees the dirt, says something real quiet. “Um, no, sweetie. I was just...” He doesn’t say anything else. He stands there for a minute and his face gets really tight. We don’t talk, we don’t move. The wind ruffles the pile of leaves.
Suddenly, I hear Mom. She’s in the house, but I can hear her through the living room windows. Her noise makes my belly feel like it’s got bugs in it. I look at Daddy, but he’s still looking at the ground, not at Mommy, not at me. Don’t you hear her crying? I’m just sure Mommy’s hurt.
I start running for the house, but Daddy calls me. “Lucy, why--why don’t you help me with the yard, okay? Let’s get these leaves all taken care of.”
But, Mommy is crying, and I don’t care about leaves if she’s sad. I shake my head and keep going for the front door.
When my feet are on the porch, Daddy calls one more time, “I could really use your help, Lucy. Just come on down here, would you, please?” His voice sounds funny and I just don’t know him that well yet. I have to help Mom.
I open the storm door and it slams behind me. Mommy looks up. She’s on the couch with her arms around her knees and there are mushed up kleenexes all over the floor. When she sees it’s me, she says, “Oh, my baby, oh, Lucy, come here, come to Mommy. Will you, please, Lucy?”
Her crying is so loud and screechy, I can’t make my feet move to go to her. I just look and look, like I don’t know who she is.
“Oh, baby, please come here, please, won’t you, Lu?”
My feet finally decide to go. I stand in front of her and Mom opens up her arms, pulls me into her lap. She’s hugging my head so tight, I feel my eyes bulging, like my new black fishie. Mom keeps hugging and rocking and crying, stopping to wipe her nose and eyes with a kleenex and toss it on the floor. I am stone still. Mommy has cried before, but only soft, quiet tears from a movie or a letter from a friend. With each big sob, her whole body shakes and with her, my head and neck. I wanna run, to push away from her and find my real Mommy, the one who always makes everything better for me. Instead I sit and wait, listen to her crying, and let her rock me.
“Oh, Lucy, I have you,” she says, over and over, “I have you. I have you, Lucy, I have you.”
4.
Now, I like things I can control. I like to know there’s something I can do to make my dreams come true. This is why I drove to 50 different school districts to apply for social worker positions, why I went on every blind date anyone ever tried to set me up on, why I brush and floss every day. So, when Phil and I start trying, I get prepared. I get a basal thermometer. I wake myself up at 5:00 every morning, lie there for a few minutes taking my temperature and then record it on a chart. My best friend, Meredith, tells me about a website you can use to track your cycle, and I check it out. The website is right up my alley. You can enter your temperature, and a whole lot more: mood swings, headaches, cervical fluid, height of your cervix (whatever that means), softness of your cervix (I don’t want to know what that means), medications you take, when you have intercourse, etc. This is a control-freak’s dream–you can do everything except demand the egg come out. I print out some charts, join the website, and get all geared up.
The website recommends books to read, and I particularly like one called Controlling Your Own Fertility. It reads like a textbook, explaining all the steps of your cycle from developing bud to fertilization. I learn about all the nuances of how your temperature should change, the curves and peaks to watch for in my chart.
The book also has advice for how to really make the most of your fertility. It discusses foods to eat, drinks to drink, foods and drinks to avoid, herbs you can take, fertility oils to rub on your belly. I go for all of it. I drink raspberry tea, rub oil clockwise on my belly (definitely NOT counterclockwise), take expectorant to make my cervical fluid nice and slippery. I get a little crazy. Seriously, a little bit nuts. I train for trying like people train for a marathon, but I don’t realize what a long trek it will be.
In the midst of the training, I get a period. Sweet. I mark it on a new chart, excited to have “Cycle Day 1" to write in the title area. Let’s get this party started, I think. I track my temperature each morning, monitor fluid, moods, the whole gamut. Phil is eager to help, so we have sex every other day, and I mark it with a capital I with a circle on my chart. Phil is very proud. I await the blessed day--maybe even cycle day 14--when the egg will arrive. I’ll throw a little “egg party” and we’ll be on our way.
Two weeks later, right when our little egg friend should show, I go pee in the morning, and there’s a toilet bowl full of blood. I look down, confused. That shouldn’t happen. I call Phil in.
“What’s that look like to you?” I say, and point into the bowl. Phil looks in, then jumps away, like there’s a baby alligator in there.
“What the hell’s wrong with you? What’re you showing me blood for? Geez, Lulu, I don’t show you my dumps; don’t show me your periods.” He walks out.
But that’s just it. It shouldn’t be a period; it should be ovulation. I decide to shake it off. We’re new at this, my body and I. We haven’t had periods in years, since I started taking Depo-Provera in college. I flush, and try to make any doubt or worry go with it. I go to my bedside table, pull out a new chart, and write “Cycle Day 1" at the top.
Again, in two weeks, I see the bowlful of blood. Phil is brushing his teeth at the sink this time. I decide he doesn’t need to see the evidence, but maybe I should tell him what’s going on.
“So, I think I, like, am having another period.” I wash my hands in my sink and meet his eye in the oval mirror above his side of the vanity.
“Wha?” he says, spits. “Didn’t you just have one?”
“Yeah. The thing is, that doesn’t even really give me time to ovulate or anything. I think I should go see a doctor.”
Phil rolls his eyes, bumps my hip with his. “Lu-cy. Not everything in the world is going to go your way the first time. You don’t need a doctor to tell you that. Let’s just keep going at it,” here Phil tweaks my buttcheek, “and see what happens, okay? Don’t get your panties in a bunch. It’s going to be fine.”
But I just know it won’t.
My doctor, the doctor I had gone to since high school, had retired from his practice the year before. So, I knew that, when I did get pregnant, I was going to have to doctor shop. I’d asked all my girlfriends, but no one really had someone she loved in the gynecology department. Of course, none of my girlfriends had really needed someone wonderful, either.
I sit down at the kitchen table, eat my cereal, and look over the list of doctors. Maybe Phil is right. So I had two weird periods. That’s not a big deal, right?
When I awake in the night, two weeks later, my cramps are like a snake writhing in my stomach. I go to the bathroom, expecting diarrhea, but instead get a bloody mess. I really, honestly, would have preferred diarrhea. At least that I know how to treat.
“So, I really do think I’m going to go see that doctor Amy has been going to,” I say to Phil as he is pouring coffee into his travel cup that morning. I make my eyes wide and look at the dog, hoping to hold in any tears.
“You want me to go?” Phil asks, and I know some tears must’ve spilled. He grabs my shoulders and makes me face him, looks intently into my eyes.
I nod. I’ve watched my mother–this is not a boat ride I want to do solo.
