Inconceivable! (45 page)

There was a brief knock before the handle turned and a woman who looked about my age entered the room.

“This is a trans-vaginal ultrasound, just like the ones you had to monitor the follicles during the IVF cycle.” She picked up the wand with her gloved hand.

“Too bad that thing doesn’t vibrate.” I forced a nervous chuckle.

“Who says it doesn’t?” She raised an eyebrow and laughed.

I lifted my head and craned my neck to see the monitor as she inserted the wand and moved it around.

“I see the sac. I’m looking for a heartbeat.” She stared intently at the screen.

I took a deep breath and waited. I counted the squares on the ceiling.

“Any luck?” I asked, trying to sound cheerful.

“No. I can’t find it.”

“What does that mean?” Panic rose in my throat.

Her friendly demeanor evaporated. “It may be too early for a heartbeat. Your doctor’s office will call you with the results.”

As soon as she left the room, I got out my phone and called Dr. Dreesen’s office. I asked the nurse to have someone call me as soon as they had the images from the ultrasound because I was worried.

I got dressed, gathered my things, and met John in the private room where he was waiting. I didn’t say anything.

“Well?”

“No heartbeat. The tech said it might be too early though.”

Just then, my phone rang. I put Dr. Dreesen on speakerphone.

“The sac measured four weeks and four days. That’s too small for a heartbeat. At this point, you shouldn’t worry. But at your next ultrasound in three weeks, we definitely have to see a heartbeat. For now, relax and just give me a call if you need anything.”

We rode in the back of the car in heavy silence, both of us uneasy. When we arrived at Langbroek, dusk was erasing the day, darkening the sky into night. We went into the bedroom and shut the door. I didn’t think the sac measurement was right for how far along I was supposed to be. The inconsistency niggled my brain.

“Are you going to get the progesterone?” I called after John as he went into the bathroom.

“Yes.”

“Would you mind getting the ice pack? I don’t think I can handle it unless you numb me up first.”

John had to administer intramuscular shots of progesterone in oil each night. He gave the shot below my waist between my lower back and rear. Even though we alternated sides, that entire area was incredibly tender. I couldn’t even wear jeans anymore because the waistband rubbed against those painful spots.

I pulled my sweatpants and underwear just below my rump and felt the chill of the ice pack as he gently set it on my lower back. He ran his fingers over my flesh as we waited.

“Okay. I think it’s numb.” I grabbed a gulp of air and held it in anticipation.

John pinched a section of my skin, and inserted the needle. As he released his pinch, I exhaled, feeling the sharpness travel through my muscle millimeter by millimeter. He slowly pressed down on the syringe and I gritted my teeth against tears as the medicine entered my body. Even as he pulled it out, the needle continued to assault my muscle, sending out pulses of pain.

“Baby King had better appreciate all this.” I wiped my eyes.

“You’re doing an amazing job. I love you.”

I looked up at him as he sat on the bed beside me. “If this doesn’t work, are you going to leave me?”

“No. I won’t leave you. No matter what happens. Why would you even ask such a question?”

“So, will your family exile us if I can’t get pregnant? The queen told me she’d have our marriage annulled.”

“She won’t. She’ll get over it.”

As we kissed, he finished undressing me.

After we were spent, I rolled over and laid my head on his chest. “You know, Plato wants me to go to Ethiopia. I know you don’t like it, but don’t you think a pregnant lady could make that journey?”

“Only if her knight in shining armor accompanies her.”

“Too bad I married a prince.” He smiled and rolled his eyes. “C’mon. I’m only teasing.”

We left Langbroek to spend some quiet time in De Haan. John thought I’d feel more relaxed at our beachside cottage during the first trimester. Brigitta came with us so I wouldn’t have to cook, unless I wanted to whip up something. Unlike most pregnant women, I didn’t dread the weird cravings or morning sickness. I’d longed for this experience, and I wasn’t going to complain about any of the unpleasant aspects of pregnancy―I finally had what I wanted.

As we walked on the beach in the early evening, my tennis shoes sinking into the soft sand, I picked up shells and put them in a little plastic bucket.

“Did you know today’s Halloween?” I added a conk shell to my collection.

“No. Growing up, I envied American kids and their Halloween fun. I wanted to dress up and ask my neighbors for candy.”

“It was always one of my favorite holidays when I was little. My mom decorated the house with cardboard cut-outs of skeletons and scarecrows. And I loved letting my imagination go wild with costume planning. One year, I was the ghost of Marilyn Monroe. I remember thinking I had to be her ghost because just going as Marilyn wasn’t original enough. I had this sheer dress, big earrings, and a platinum blonde wig we borrowed from a woman in our neighborhood. She’d worn it after her hair fell out during chemo. Isn’t that crazy?” I took John’s hand.

“Please tell me your mum has photographic proof of you wearing someone’s chemo wig.”

“I’m sure there are pictures. But you wouldn’t have known it was a chemo wig if I hadn’t told you!”

As we walked, I had the sensation of peeing on myself. “That’s strange.” I hadn’t relaxed my bladder.

“Hatty! You’re bleeding!” John yelled.

I looked down at my sweatpants and dropped the bucket. Instead of urine, a dark red stain spread from my crotch, creeping down the inside of both pant legs.

“What’s happening? I need to get to a hospital!”

We looked around us. The beach appeared deserted. I looked way down the shore to our cottage. A single Royal Guard stood on the stairs leading up to our house, but he was too far away to hear us. We saw a man near the dunes, sitting on a blanket.

“Hey!” John said, waving his arms frantically.

The man got up and jogged toward us as I hobbled, not in pain but in hopes of preventing any additional bleeding. John had his phone out and was punching the touchscreen frantically.

“Oh, madam. Are you okay?” The man looked at my pants. Then realization dawned on his face as he looked from me to John and back to me. “Duchess, let me help you.”

At the same time, I heard John yelling into the phone. “Send someone down the beach. Something’s wrong with Hatty!”

As the man and John helped me hobble toward the cottage, I tried to think rationally for a moment. Was there any possible explanation for what was happening?

I looked down at my pants, evaluating the quantity of blood. It no longer felt like it was pouring out of my body, but the warm, sticky liquid had spread farther down both legs. There was no way this was normal.

Blink, Hatty.
When my eyes fluttered, tears spilled onto my cheeks.

Bernard ran toward us, pointing to a parking lot to our right, just off the beach. I heard the wail of the siren before I saw the pulsing red lights of the ambulance. It made me think of the blood pulsing and leaking out of my uterus. As I looked at the men unloading the white stretcher, I realized there was only one plausible explanation for what was happening: miscarriage.

The curtain provided a thin barrier between me and the hubbub of the emergency room. An invisible hand squeezed my uterus producing agonizing cramps. I curled up my legs in hopes of making it stop.

Despite the pain and the gravity of the situation, I babbled nonsensically. “Did you know in Germany, they call ambulances ‘Krankenwagens?’ It sounds like ‘cranky wagon.’ I can’t believe I had to come here in a cranky wagon. I’m sure everything’s going to be fine. Just peachy, because there’s no way you can come this far and have your pregnancy go to pot.”

“Hatty, the doctor’s here.” John rubbed his eyes.

A tall man with dark hair walked to my bedside.

“Your beta numbers are low. You’re having a miscarriage. Did you even know you were pregnant?”

I let out a single, choked laugh. I wanted to spit in his face.

“Yes. We knew,” John said quietly.

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

John helped me up and I realized there was a gigantic, thick pad between my legs. It felt like I was straddling a hay bale. When did that get there?

I waddled into the tiny bathroom. When I was done, there was a streak of blood on my hand. I glanced in the toilet bowl. The water was bright red and filled with black clots. Part of a Bible verse came to mind: “The wages of sin is death.”

My baby was in pieces, floating in the hospital toilet.

“This is death,” I said aloud.

Then, I wailed, my throat producing a sound I’d never heard before.

John was by my side in an instant, holding me up, preventing me from crumpling. He carried me back to the bed. And just like that, exhaustion overtook me. I stilled my body and let John rub the blood off my hand with a rough white washcloth. The metallic smell rankled my stomach.

The doctor wrote something on his clipboard.

“We’ll go ahead and send you home. You’ll need to visit your doctor in a week to see if your body has cleared all the tissue or if you’ll need a D and C. If you’re in pain, I can write you a prescription for something that will help.” The doctor’s professional demeanor irritated me.

“Yes, I’m in pain,” I whispered.

“Would you like the nurse to send this to the hospital pharmacy? It’s open late.”

“Yes, please,” John said.

I reached for the doctor as he started to go. “Do I need to keep doing the progesterone shots?”

“This was an IVF cycle?”

“Yes.”

“Then continue the shots until your obstetrician tells you to stop.”

The doctor left and I closed my eyes.

A loud crash interrupted my thoughts. I opened my eyes and saw the little metal trash can overturned. John had apparently kicked it over. He was digging the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubbing.

“Don’t. You can’t fall apart now,” I said, shaken, even in my state, by John’s outburst.

He inhaled noisily and pulled his hands away from his face.

“Let’s get you out of here,” he said.

We’d come to the emergency room without my purse, and I’d arrived in the blood-soaked sweats. A nurse brought me a set of blue scrubs, and John helped me slide them on.

Shakiness took hold of me as an orderly held my arm and supported my back. I lowered myself into a wheelchair. He spread a white sheet over my lap before rolling me through a side door where our black car was waiting. John ran back inside and got my medicine from the pharmacy. We rode to our cottage in silence.

Booters, my little gray cat, followed me into the bathroom. I closed the door and scooped him up. He let me cradle him like a baby. I held him and wept, crying from the depths of my emptying womb. He didn’t wiggle or try to escape. I spoke softly: “Why?” I repeated it over and over again, a dirge for my baby.

I don’t know how much time passed before I set Booters on the counter and went to the toilet. The bowl again filled with bright red blood and blackish clots, but they weren’t big enough to warrant another trip to the ER. The nurse said I shouldn’t come back unless they were larger than a quarter. The cramping had eased under the influence of the pain medication.