Baby Dust Chapter One

Baby Dust is a novel I’ve been working since late 2006. There are so many wonderful miscarriage books that talk about medical facts and even the psychology of the emotional recovery. But so few actually get into the real life issues facing getting through a loss–going back to work, seeing pregnant friends, fights with your husband, failure, despair and trying to keep life going. I felt a novel was a better format for this, and I have been working on it. 

 

Part One: Trauma

1. Hospitals

 

Radishes. She had to have radishes. Now.

Melinda hurried down the stairs of the silent house, her lace nightgown billowing around her legs, and padded into the kitchen. She jerked open the refrigerator door and reached blindly into the vegetable bin before her eyes could even adjust.

She couldn’t wait to wash them but crunched directly into the first bitter bulb. Her teeth throbbed from the chill, but the peppery bite eased her desperation to eat. She leaned against the counter, running her hand over her belly. Still no baby bump. She tugged another radish from the stem, ignoring the dirt clinging to its wiry root.

Folic acid, a friend had told her. That’s why she craved them so much. Melinda was glad for the reason, as ever since the need hit her eight weeks into her pregnancy, all she could think of was Rapunzel’s mother sending her husband to steal radishes in the enchanted garden, and the deal he had struck to give up their first-born child.

The third radish burned in her mouth, so she filled a glass with filtered water from the industrial-sized refrigerator. Melinda glanced around the kitchen as she gulped. Only the radishes broke the perfection of the sweeping marble countertops and inlaid tile, the gleam just visible in the gentle light from the hall.

Ajax whined from the utility room, so Melinda popped open the door.

“Hey baybeee, puppy dog, love muffin.”

Ajax sniffed at her knees and whined. She held out the radishes, but he turned his nose away. “I know, I know. Biscuits.” She reached beneath the sink for the box and felt a strange pop low in her abdomen. She doubled over immediately, clutching her stomach, and a cramp began, like a fist in her belly, starting small and tight but rapidly rippling out.

Fluid gushed between her legs. She felt it soak her panties and run down her thighs. She couldn’t move, afraid to make it worse, her breath wheezing in and out.

Ajax whined again and licked her shin. Melinda grasped the hem of her nightgown and pressed the white cotton between her legs. Even in the dim light she could see it suddenly soak scarlet.

“What’s happening, Ajax?”

She walked in small mincing steps across the floor toward the bathroom just off the breakfast nook. A wet drop hit her ankle and she looked behind to see a red trail from her spot by the sink to her feet. She sat on the floor then, shivering and gasping to breathe.

She waited another moment, forcing herself to calm. If she assumed the pregnancy was lost, and got control over herself, then she could move. She clamped down on her emotions, reached for a cabinet handle, and pulled herself back up. Another gush flowed out and blood ran down her legs in thin rivers.

“How are we going to get up the stairs?” she asked Ajax, who stayed close beside her, head against her knee. “If you were Lassie, I could send you after Jake. But you don’t care much for him, I know.”

She reached for the phone to call an ambulance, her doctor, someone, but then set it down again. Jake would be upset if she didn’t get him first. She had to get up the stairs. She could scream, perhaps, make enough noise to wake him. He was such a heavy sleeper.

No, only one thing would get him up in the dead of night. She sent a text to his work pager, separate from his cell phone, a ring tone he always answered unless he was in court.

“What the hell?” Jake stumbled down the stairs, blinking. He stared at her, leaning over the counter, the smear of blood across the kitchen. He flipped on the light.

Melinda could not meet his eyes, pained and frightened and flooded with shame. The chandelier blinded her, the room swirled in white and red, hot and illuminated.

He bent beside her in his pajama bottoms, his bare chest tan and smooth. “Mel?”

“The baby,” she said. “I lost the baby.”

He picked her up, cradling her against his body, and carried her upstairs, away from the blood. “Let’s get to the hospital,” he said. “They can do something.”

Melinda could have argued with him, as she had read that first trimester miscarriages could not be saved. But she knew Jake, and he needed reliable testimony, expert witnesses, hard facts. They stopped in the bathroom and he brought her a clean nightgown and panties. She searched through the cabinets for pads and cleaned herself up, the bleeding now slowed to a trickle. Ajax had followed them, sitting quietly by the door, his pink tongue lolling out as if he were overheating.

For once Jake ignored her dog. “Ready?” he asked. “Can you walk?”

She nodded and donned a blue pea coat against the early spring chill. He led her to the garage and their Lexus.

They rode silently through River Oaks until he reached the loop and merged onto the highway. Melinda curled small and tight against the door.

“You going to tell me what happened now?” Headlights flashed into his face, chiseling his features with hard edges. His handsomeness struck her, even then. Her husband.

“I felt a pop, and the bleeding started.”

“What were you doing in the kitchen?” Jake glared out onto the freeway, zipping across to the far left lane despite the lack of traffic. “Eating again?”

Melinda gripped the door handle. “Yes, I wanted some radishes.”

“And it just happened like that—pop.”

“I was getting a dog biscuit.”

“Did that dog jump on you? Jump on your belly?”

Melinda watched the signs whiz by, including the one marking a quarter mile to the exit for the hospital. “Of course not. And that wouldn’t hurt me anyway.”

“You don’t know that. Something caused this to happen. It doesn’t just happen.”

Melinda fluttered with fear. “Don’t start blaming me.”

“What else am I supposed to think?”

“Think about how worried you are about your wife and your child.”

“Don’t lecture me. God damn it!” Jake jerked the wheel sharply and crossed three lanes to make the exit.

They coasted to the light. As the car idled in the red glow, Jake laid his hand on her arm. “Hey, sorry. I’m tense. We’ll see what the doctors say.” He touched a finger to her face. “Chin up.”

The red glowing cross at the hospital beckoned across the intersection. Jake pulled into an emergency slot and pressed his hand to Melinda’s back as he escorted her inside. “Sit here and rest,” he said, directing her to an empty section of blue plastic chairs. “I’ll check you in.”

Melinda sat, feeling disconnected with her surroundings. She watched Jake stride to the large white desk. A dozen people waited in the long room, scattered among the seats lining the walls.

A few chairs down, a teenage girl with red striped stockings moaned and clutched her belly. Her boyfriend anxiously scribbled on a clipboard.

“This doesn’t feel right,” the girl said, holding her belly, and Melinda now saw the roundness under her sweater. “Can’t they take me back now?”

The boy didn’t answer, just focused on the paper.

Jake returned, sitting beside her. He followed her gaze and noted the girl’s pregnancy with a nod of his head. “Look at that,” he said softly. “More girls getting knocked up. Don’t they know about the Pill? Probably wrecked the kids’ chances already.”

Melinda shuddered. “I don’t see how you can say that right now.”

Jake crossed a foot over his knee and balanced the clipboard on his ankle. “I can’t fill this out—date of last period and all that.” He passed the paperwork on to her and leaned forward, bracing on his elbows.

She stared at the words and lines, trying to decipher the questions. Date of birth. Allergies. Medical conditions.

“Tina Schwartz?” All eyes in the waiting room fixed on the woman in blue scrubs.

The teen girl stood with great effort, then clutched her belly again. “I’m telling you, this isn’t right,” she said. The boyfriend handed the clipboard to the nurse and shuffled behind the women.

Jake began tapping his leg. Melinda hoped they would be called back soon, for his sake. She kept her head down, focusing on the white paper and its small checkboxes.

The nurse stepped out and called two other patients—an old man holding a cloth to his cheek and a mother carrying a sleeping child.

“What’s the freaking hold up?” Jake stood and strode back to the white desk. He leaned on his arm, flashing a bright smile at the woman seated there. Melinda closed her eyes again. Flirting would come first. Then demands. Finally threats. She didn’t want to see at what point the business card would come out. Lindeman, Chisolm, and Patterson. One of the largest law firms in Houston. Old money. Power. The attendant probably wouldn’t even recognize it.

Her eyes flew open when a hand cupped her knee. She felt a wave of embarrassment now at her nightgown covered in the blue coat. Everyone else in the waiting room was dressed despite the hour. Jake squatted beside her, taking her hand, eyes now beaming concern. “They should call you soon. I explained things.”

Melinda nodded and the clipboard slid to the floor.

“Here, baby, let me get that.” He scooped up the paperwork and stood, tapping the flat acrylic against his hip.

“Melinda Carmichael?” The nurse in scrubs standing by the entrance to the ER looked right at her.

“Now that’s more like it,” Jake said, again touching the small of her back, and pushed through the swinging doors.

The nurse slid back a section of blue curtain on a track and patted the examining table. “Up here.”

Melinda stepped onto the footrest and eased herself onto the strip of paper that covered the cushion.

“When is your due date?” The nurse tugged a pen out of her front pocket.

“September 12.”

The nurse peered at a white wheel of numbers. “So you’re ten weeks, two days.”

“Yes.”

Jake stood in the corner, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans. He had ruffled his hair several times and now the front section stood straight up like an exclamation.

The nurse asked about the amount of blood and if she were cramping anymore. Melinda shook her head.

“See?” Jake said when she left. “No indication whatsoever that this could be the end. They can probably give you something, and you can rest, and it will all be fine.”

Melinda could have told him that she just knew, some intuition, some internal warning system had sent out a flare, but he would not listen. She lay back and then turned on her side away from him.

The nurse rolled in a sonogram machine. “The doctor will be here in just a minute. Go ahead and undress from the waist down. I’ll put a pad down in case you bleed.” She pulled a thick white paper cloth from a drawer and set it on the table next to Melinda, then disappeared behind the curtain yet again.

Melinda stood briefly and rolled the panties down her knees. Her fear intensified until her stomach began to quake and she shivered as if she were cold.

Jake didn’t notice. “What should we name it if it’s a boy?” he asked, rubbing his hands together. “Aaron? Andrew?”

Melinda shifted the pad to the center of the table and sat on it. She shrugged, her eyes following a pattern of cracks in the concrete floor.

“Probably no more A names actually. Sarah was strange about that. I guess Anna and Adam are enough.” Jake’s children by his first marriage were twelve and eight. “Should we move on to B?”

Ordinarily Melinda would go along with Jake’s falseness, the brightness that coated their conversations with a glossy veneer. But right now she couldn’t bear it. Rather than contradict him or start an argument, she just lay back on the table, listening to the bustle of the ward.

The curtain rolled and split.

“Ms. Carmichael?” The doctor slipped through the opening and flashed a quick smile. His dark hair broke the monotony of blue scrubs against the blue curtain. He was young, an intern obviously. “I’m Dr. Blais.” He smiled again, a touch too briefly, and flipped through the chart.

Melinda sat up again, wishing for Dr. Valenza and his fat moustache. His bedside manner could calm any fear.

“Let’s take a look. Have you had a sonogram yet?”

“Last week,” Melinda said. “He measured out perfectly. Good solid heartbeat.”

Jake stepped nearer the table. “Any explanation for the bleeding and cramping? Does this happen often?”

Dr. Blais powered on the sonogram. “Yes, about forty percent of all pregnancies have some sort of bleeding. Only ten percent of pregnancies miscarry overall—the odds are with you, especially at this point.”

Jake turned back to Melinda, one eyebrow cocked. Melinda hunched over her belly, elbows on her knees.

“We’ll do a transvaginal ultrasound, probably just like you had last week.”

“I’m bleeding, though,” she said.

“It’s okay. It won’t affect the machine.”

Melinda lay back and fitted her heels in the stirrups. Dr. Blais did not turn the machine’s screen to them as Dr. Valenza had. The sound was on, however, and she listened to its crackle and static as the probe slid up between her legs.

The whomp whomp of a heartbeat filled the room, but before Melinda could relax her anxiety, Dr. Blais said, “That’s mom’s heartbeat. A little fast at ninety but still nowhere near baby’s speed.”

He pushed the probe harder up against her and she felt the pressure, the hardness of it. Her fists clenched until she couldn’t feel her fingers. Jake’s shoes scraped across the floor as he paced.

The heartbeat faded as Dr. Blais shifted the probe. “I can see the sac and the baby now,” he said. “I’m going to measure right quick.”

Their curtained rectangle of space fell silent as he switched off the sound. Beeps and coughs and lowered voices penetrated from other parts of the ward. Finally, he withdrew the probe and rested it on a tray.

“Ms. Carmichael, Mr. Carmichael. The baby doesn’t have a heartbeat. It’s measuring nine weeks now, so I am guessing it died shortly after your last doctor visit. I’m very sorry.”

Melinda sat up and stared at his blue scrub top, the dark hair, his big brown eyes below thick brows. His mouth was set tight, firmly in a line, and his concern didn’t meet his expression. He saw worse every day, she thought. This is small to him.

Jake began waving his hands beside his temples. “Now, wait. Are you sure about this? What sort of equipment does this hospital carry?”

“It’s pretty good. Good enough for this. With the combination of symptoms your wife is experiencing, it’s really just a confirmation.”

Jake turned to Melinda. “Did you strain yourself? Work on the baby’s room? We weren’t going to do that until we got you some help.”

Melinda bit back the rush of tears and steeled herself with calm. “No, Jake.”

“Mr. Carmichael, your wife did not do anything wrong. This looks like a genetic loss, something formed incorrectly inside the baby, and it just stopped growing. Sad and unfortunate, but common.”

“This did not happen to Sarah. She took good care of herself, and those babies came just fine.” Jake turned to the doctor. “My ex-wife. We had two kids. No problems.”

Melinda flushed. “Stop, it, stop it now! I did not hurt the baby and I am not Sarah! Say one more thing and I’ll divorce you right here in this hospital!”

In the shocked silence, she felt a small cramp and a gush of fluid or blood or maybe just the lubricant from the probe. She didn’t care. She wanted to shut her ears, tune out everything. She curled over her belly.

“Ms. Carmichael, are you okay?” The doctor bent over and touched her arm.

She looked up and saw his eyes had softened. He’d lost his professional detachment. She was glad he had not yet seen so much sorrow that he could not feel it. “I’ll be fine. What happens next?”

“The baby might come out, or you might have a missed miscarriage and require a D&C to empty your uterus. Since the bleeding has begun, there’s a good chance you will miscarry naturally, but you can always have the D&C to speed it along. It’s outpatient and very simple.”

“It’s an abortion, that’s what it is. I know that term.” Jake paced the room again. “Get dressed, Melinda, we’ll go see your real doctor tomorrow, not this quack who’s still wet behind the ears.”

Melinda maintained eye contact with the doctor. “What do I do if the baby comes out? Do I need to save it?”

“You can if you want—put it in a plastic bag and refrigerate it until you can take it to your doctor. But you don’t need to. First miscarriages aren’t generally tested and usually get contaminated at home.”

“Will you stop referring to our baby as contaminated? And no child of mine is going to sit in the refrigerator.” Jake moved close to the doctor, looming over the shorter man’s head.

“I’ll send the nurse in. Do you have any questions for me?” Dr. Blais held Melinda’s eyes, not acknowledging Jake.

“My best friend is a nurse. I’ll have her stay with me a bit.”

“Good. I’m very sorry.” Dr. Blais picked up the clipboard. “Here’s a prescription for some pain medication in case the cramps get very bad. Would you like something to help you sleep?”

“No she doesn’t,” Jake said. “None of that.”

Dr. Blais tore the paper off the pad and handed it to Melinda. “Your doctor can call over here tomorrow to get the records sent to him.”

“Thank you,” she said, folding the paper and tucking it inside the long sleeve to her nightgown.

The blue curtain rolled open and then closed. Melinda stood, holding the white cotton pad in place until she could reach her underwear and get dressed.

Afterward, she clutched her coat and moved silently through the curtain, Jake following behind her. They paused outside their makeshift room, and Melinda tried to figure out which way to go.

The curtain across the aisle slipped aside and the teenage boy dashed out, leaving the gap open. Melinda saw the teen girl, lying on a bed, her feet also in stirrups but covered in a large paper drape. A black box was strapped to her belly and connected to a machine. She was crying.

Melinda turned away. The nurse touched her arm. “Ms. Carmichael? Here’s some information for you. Instructions and a flier for the pregnancy loss support group the hospital recommends.”

Melinda accepted the paper. “Thank you.” She glanced back at the open curtain, but someone had pulled it shut.

“The exit’s over here,” Jake said. “We should go.”

#

Tina leaned back on the examination table inside her blue-curtained room. Arnie had disappeared, that putz. She was crying and sweating now, each contraction caused her forehead to prickle with heat. She had teased her hair into spunky ponytails earlier that day but the gel and sweat had turned the back of her head into a sticky mass. She couldn’t be more uncomfortable.

The nurse had stepped out, so she was alone with the machine measuring her contractions and the rapid heartbeat of the baby. Well, not entirely alone. She had Peanut still. She turned her head to the paper rolling out of the printer. Thin levers ran along the page, drawing the spikes of its measurements on a never-ending scroll.

Where the hell had Arnie gone? Wuss. Geek boy. A little stress and he bolts.

A tear ran into her ear. She stuck a finger in to wipe it out. She idly watched the screen of the monitor, a little heart icon beating in sync with the baby. The pulse flashed on screen. 172. 164. 170.

No one had told her anything. She knew she was in labor. She’d read books and the teacher in her birth preparation class at the high school for pregnant teens had told them the signs. She figured they could stop it. There was some drug they could give you.

“Ms. Schwartz?”

The nurse had slid the curtain aside. Tina peered around the machine.

“Your parents are here.”

“Tina!” Her mother rushed forward and pressed into her shoulder with a hard hug. “My baby! Are you okay?” She pulled away, her face wet, eyes red, and stroked Tina’s hair away from her forehead.

“I don’t know, Mom. No one is saying anything!”

Her father stood tall and gray-haired in the white light. “What is happening?” he asked the nurse.

“She’s having premature labor. We’ve started an IV and are administering drugs to stop it until the doctor can assess her.”

“Why isn’t she on the labor ward?” her mother asked. “It’s horrible down here.”

“We’ll move her when we get the doctor’s okay. Maternity may not be the best option.”

“What do you mean?” Tina’s mother stood and faced the nurse, narrowing her eyes. Tina held her breath. This was more than anyone had told her before.

“We need to stop her labor, Mrs. Schwartz. We don’t want Tina delivering the baby at nineteen weeks.”

“Of course,” said her father. “Let us know when the doctor can come.”

Her parents crowded in the tiny space near Tina’s head, maneuvering around the equipment.

“I don’t think we can stay here long, Frank. There simply isn’t room if the nurse and doctor come in.”

“I’ll see about moving this along. I don’t think Tina’s paperwork is in order anyway.” He shoved aside the curtain and stepped through.

Tina relaxed her head again, feeling more fear than she had before, even when the contractions first hit her earlier that evening. “Mom?”

“Yes, baby.”

“Is Peanut going to die?”

“Of course not. We won’t let that happen.” She patted Tina’s hand. “We’re here now.”

Her dad returned with the doctor.

“Tina. Hi, I’m Dr. Blais.”

Tina watched his dark head duck inside the dismal gray-blue curtains. This place needs some color, she thought. Hopefully he’d fix her up and she could go home to the little garage apartment she and Arnie were putting together behind her parents’ house. There her paintings and his covered the walls, her bright splashes of fuschia and jade and sapphire mingling with his Goth imagery in black and gold and red.

“Doctor, what’s happening to our daughter?” her mom asked.

“Let’s take a look and see.” Dr. Blais pushed aside part of the paper sheet, fitting Tina’s heels in the stirrups. He slipped a finger inside her and pressed on her belly.

“Nurse.”

A woman stepped inside. Tina laid her head back, feeling the pressure of the instrument inside her. He spun something and she felt the rush of her vagina opening. The nurse snapped on a light.

Dr. Blais turned to the nurse. “Call surgery. We need a room.”

Fear washed over her again. She clenched her mom’s hand.

“What’s happening? What is it?” Her mom’s voice squeaked. Tina was glad she could ask the question. Her own throat was too dry and tight.

Dr. Blais removed the speculum.

“The baby’s foot has already begun to descend through the cervix. She’s six millimeters dilated. The baby’s going to be born. Probably within the hour.”

Her mom gasped. “What? Can’t you push it back up?”

“No. The likelihood of infection is very high.”

“But the baby can’t survive this early.”

“No, not likely. It needs a few more weeks at least.”

“What will happen?” Her mom’s face was ashen.

“Let me get the room arranged. It is best to get out of the ward for this. And I’ll send someone with the paperwork.” He stopped and turned to Tina. “You’ll need to think about what you want to do if the baby is alive when born.”

“Save it, of course!” her mom said.

Dr. Blais held Tina’s eyes. “Just what measures you want to take.”

Tina opened her mouth, found she couldn’t talk, and coughed until she could speak. “Just so Peanut doesn’t hurt. I don’t want him to hurt.”

Dr. Blais squeezed her forearm. “We won’t let him hurt.”