Beyond Leo

By Jenny Rough
Web Exclusive, October 19, 2007

My heart is wild with the sound of chatter and praise. My husband, Ron, kisses my cheek as our friend Michael suggests a list of names: William, Christopher, Mark, Robert, Jacob, -- or Michael, he likes that best. I glance at my husband, and Ron is beaming. Michael swings an arm around Ron's shoulders.

"My man! It's good to know your sperm are working," Michael says.

The three of us clink glasses—me with my virgin pineapple juice, Ron and Michael with their bourbons. This has been going on for weeks now as Ron and I have shared the good news with our parents, brothers, sisters, and friends. It's fun. Ron gives my stomach a nod, and I place my palm over the sweet soft baby growing inside.

Later, at home, there is blood. It's dark red. Clumpy. I investigate with fistfuls of toilet paper. When I accidentally catch a whiff of the tissue swab, my head jerks back. The odor is rotten and dank. It's the smell of death.

I toss and turn through the night. The next morning I decide not to decide. Better to stall my way through the afternoon. Finally I call the doctor. She says, please come in right away.

In the exam room a lady lugs a sonogram machine with a squeaky wheel to my side. She tells me her name, but I immediately forget. I make a joke to Ron about my granny panties— the underwear I've been wearing for the past two months. We all laugh, even the sonogram lady, but my laugh feels tired. I spot a book on the counter, Fetal Abnormalities, and suddenly remember the time I had an irregular pap smear and was transferred to a special room filled with brochures on cervical cancer.

Sonogram lady tells me to lean back on the table and scoot my butt way down. She holds up a long white probe and announces she'll conduct a vaginal procedure.

"I thought you'd put a wand on my belly," I say, rubbing my stomach. Ron knows I'm squirmy about medical devices, so he stands close and takes my hand. I clutch his arm and close my eyes.

"It's not as bad as it looks," she says. "I won't insert it very far."

I open an eyelid and notice the probe is gigantic. I hear an electric sound.

"Is that the heartbeat?" I ask.

"The machine," she smiles and pats its side.

I rest my head on the back of the table and see Ron watching the screen. Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. I snap up and prop myself on my elbows. "The heartbeat?" I cry.

"You're hearing that from the room next door," she nods behind me. I listen closely. Somewhere on the other side of the thin wall there is a pregnant woman just like me. She has a round belly and a wand on her stomach and her husband is by her side. Her sonogram lady is telling her good news about the baby's heart, nice and strong, 140 beats per minute.

My sonogram lady's silence lasts a second too long. "What I see here doesn't look good," she says.

She explains that she can't find the flickering; it's missing. I look at the screen, a tiny oval in a black womb, and as the camera glides to different angles, Ron and I search intently for the flicker. The sonogram lady pretends to search too, but she already knows we won't find the heartbeat. The baby is too small for the size of the sac, she says.

"He died," I say. Ron and I suspected we were having a boy.

"It stopped developing," she corrects. Semantics are important in this game called The Miscarriage Club.

On the drive home I say, "I don't feel like cooking chicken."

Ron suggests the restaurant across the street from the train station even though he knows it'll blow our food budget for the month.

At the table we fumble through the menus; we're taking forever. The waiter brings ice water.

"Here's to Death," I say, holding up my glass. I am trying to toast the baby and his new life in heaven, but it comes out wrong.