Frieda Hoffman - Carry Me: Stories of Pregnancy Loss

Stories of Pregnancy loss

Frieda Hoffman

Copyright 2022 Frieda Hoffman

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

Published 2022

Printed in the United States of America

Print ISBN 978-1-64742-359-9

E-ISBN 978-1-64742-360-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021923634

For information, address:

She Writes Press

1569 Solano Ave #546

Berkeley, CA 94707

She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals.

For anyone whos felt these pangs of grief

Pain is important: how we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it.

Audre Lorde

we all move forward when

we recognize how resilient

and striking the women

around us are

rupi kaur

ID LIKE TO BE THE FIRST to acknowledge that my book is limited in scope with respect to exploring class, race, and ethnic disparities in pregnancy loss. There are only a few degrees of separation, at most, between me and the women I interviewed, a limiting factor that led to the majority of the voices in this work belonging to women like me: white, upper middle class, and cis-het. There is no doubt that the writing would be richer, more widely relatable, and of greater value to readers had I included more diverse voices. My ultimate failure to do so was not for want of trying.

As much as possible, I have tried to adopt the language of my interviewees and characters in these stories, particularly when it comes to capturing how they understand and discuss conception (baby vs. fetus, e.g.), whether they consider pregnancy to be singular or not (I vs. we got pregnant), etc., and their differing sociopolitical perspectives. I hope the inconsistencies arent jarring.

Lastly, I have decided to change certain names to honor the requested anonymity of some protagonists or of their loved ones. Others were adamant about using their real names and boldly sharing their stories as part of their healing process. To each her own, with respect and gratitude.

THE INJECTIONS WERENT WORKING. My body wasnt working.

A week earlier, we had seen several follicles measuring in the get-me-pregnant zone on the ultrasound, which meant it was Go Time. Unfortunately, there seemed to be an inverse correlation between the dosing and my libido.

Lying on the exam table, a gel-capped wand gliding over my belly, I asked the nurse about side effects.

Oh, honey, she said in between mumbled follicle measurements, theyre very common.

Im tired all the time. Constantly bloated. I have no sex drive whatsoever. As my eyes closed, I felt a cold tear slide down to my ear. How are we supposed to have a baby like this? Is this normal?

She smiled at me, then looked back at the screen. The medication is making all these big, happy folliclesand lots of them, see? She gestured with her head. So your ovaries are blowing up like a balloon to make room for all those guys. Thats the bloating.

And what about the libido and exhaustion?

Well, isnt that just typical? She turned to me with a raised eyebrow. Can you imagine men doing any of this?

No, I could not. I could scarcely imagine myself doing this much longercycling through hope and disappointment and adjusting meds, then hope and disappointment I felt more like a petri dish than a fleshly woman with desires.

Joe and I were only four months into this fertility journey, and I was already starting to wonder whether it was time to pull the plug. The cumulative disappointment of not getting pregnant conspired with the mounting doubts I had about both my ability and my longing to conceive. I loved my freedom; I valued being able to pick up and go wherever, whenever. All those years of not wanting a childthen, BOOM, baby fever! Maybe it was as simple as hormones. What was I even doing here? The phrase that kept coming to mind was square peg in a round hole.

My younger self could have seen this coming. As a vegetarian twentysomething, I vehemently opposed having kids because of the obvious threats of overpopulation. The youngest of three (four, reallyI had a half-brother), I felt my parents had already done enough damage by out-spawning themselves. It didnt help that I had married a deeply cynical German who reveled in late-night discussions about Nietzsche and suicide, and had made it abundantly clear the summer we met that he never wished to be a father.

Things began to change shortly after the divorce. When those first hormonal tides washed their baby-craving waves over me I was in my early thirties, running a thriving cafe business, and dating someone who just might be marriage material.

My brother and his wife had just had their first baby, and I relished watching Frances. Id strap on the Baby Bjrn sling and walk through their leafy Oakland neighborhood, cooing in her ear, playing with her tiny doll fingers, kissing her impossibly soft head. Mm that intoxicating scent of baby!

Changing her diapers wasnt a chore, it was a love act. When she kicked and screamed, shaking her little fists in the air, I would wiggle my features into a silly face and sing her to a state of quiet calm. These mundane efforts felt like my womanly calling, my lifes ultimate purpose. To be recognized by this perfect little peanut and see her angelic face light up for me, to make her laughwas there anything more precious?

The baby fever extended to complete strangers. One day I watched a mother in a coffee shop, dressed like me and probably drinking the same hipster pour-over, as she danced with her baby daughter, who flopped about on a bistro table like a marionette, giggling and drooling with delight. This reverie was interrupted when I heard my own tears hit the pages of the journal Id been writing in.

I was fevering so badly I fantasized about my older gay cousin and his partner as my baby-daddies. They were trying to figure out having a child of their own and had proposed helping me father mine.

I mulled over their offer. Did I want to be a single mother, albeit coparenting with my dear cousins? No. An emphatic no. I wanted romance. I wanted the magic of combining my DNA with that of the love of my life. I wanted my partner to worship my pregnant body and help deliver the baby. I wanted to peek through the bedroom door and see that babys father snuggling with our child as he read him or her bedtime stories. I wanted us all to go camping, make smores, and stargaze from our shared tent. I craved that partner.

And now here I was with that partner, my fianc, walking out of the fertility clinic and questioning our path forward.