One Good Egg: An Illustrated Memoir (23 page)

My hCG value, with brazen disregard for my heavy bleeding, doubled on Thursday, which was a “good” sign. My healthy-pregnancy odds stayed at fifty percent. In just two short days, these sounded like “good” odds to me. The nurse suggested I curtail all physical activity: “We’re going to treat this as a pregnancy with a bleed.”

Meanwhile, I had to treat it as a seventh-grade menstrual period. No tampons. Nothing up my ying-yang other than the progesterone suppository, which was helping me hold at fifty percent. I had a supersize self-stick sanitary napkin stuck between my legs.

Meredith woke us up the next morning. Two weeks ahead of her due date, her water had broken. I padded up my pants, packed up my gear, and got the phone chain going. I gave my dad’s partner, Linda, the news first, then I paused the chain to put in a call to Boston IVF to report even heavier bleeding. Back on the chain, I called my mother. She had somehow reached my father in the intervening ninety seconds and he’d told her the news. “Your father is always the first to know,” she said.

I apologized and tried to explain, “Dad needs to arrange flights—”

“I’m her mother, Su—” (call-waiting beep).

“I have to take another call—it’s the doctor’s office calling about my miscarriage.” I flipped over. According to the nurse, I am “a pregnancy with a bleed until my next pregnancy test, which is scheduled for Monday.”

I didn’t feel like a pregnancy with a bleed (I felt like a miscarriage about to embark on a marathon) as I loaded my stuff into the car. I arrived at the hospital just after Meredith had her epidural. I was glad I missed it—I’d sooner take a horse needle than watch them give it to my little sister. Within the hour, Henry’s 100-plus-percentile head made its way into the world, followed by a left shoulder, a graceful twist, and the remainder of his twenty inches.

One-hour-old Henry in Grandma Belle’s wig

Lorene brought a bottle of champagne over to the hospital after she got off work. We toasted Henry and their new life, as I was surer by the minute that we were losing ours.

I was at the airport before nine the next morning to collect my dad. His extra-cheap airline didn’t have any monitors in the arrivals lobby, which fouled up my extra-cheap parking. I couldn’t wait for the airline’s two employees to agree on the status of my dad’s flight. I raced back out, doing a double take as I passed my dad on the way to the curb.

I was sobbing over my windshield by the time he got there. “How much is it, Sue?”

I looked. “Fifteen dollars.” He handed me a twenty once we were in the car and said, “Linda told me some of what you’re going through, which helped me put everything in perspective. She explained how when you undertake this kind of a thing, the thing you’re undertaking, you mentally prepare yourself, you’re psychologically prepared for anything.” He paused. “I am here this weekend to celebrate being a grandfather.”

Wow.
I wasn’t psychologically prepared for that ending. I adjusted my chauffeur’s cap, drove him to the hospital, and dropped him at the doors.

My hCG value went up again Monday, although I was a hundred percent sure my pregnancy was part of the unhealthy fifty percent. On Thursday, nine eternal days after that first test, my pregnancy was declared “abnormal.” I was relieved. I was not cut out for another 270 days of a marginal pregnancy. And I was now free to shelve the suppositories. Free to resume my normal activities. I put the garden in. I got back on my bike.

Lorene was grieving. And uncomfortable with the one-week waiting period until we would find out how this abnormal pregnancy would terminate. My belief—that whatever it was I was carrying around wasn’t meant for this world—was of no comfort to her. Neither were Meredith and her new baby.

The day before our “resolution” meeting with Dr. Penzias, I went to New York for my rescheduled Cover Girl presentation. The Jell-O brain mold salad I’d prepared set a humorous tone (although I got only two takers), and the tenor of the lunch was generally very upbeat. I made the rounds after lunch, collecting a
What to Expect the First Year
for Meredith and stopping by a college friend’s desk. She was now an editor. I gave her my pregnancy update. “That is so weird!” she said. “It was like that with my son.”

“Your son?”

“Yep, he was completely borderline for, I don’t know, a month, six weeks—seemed like forever.”

“Then?”

“Born healthy. Totally healthy kid.” I started to rethink everything.

I
went into our meeting with Dr. Penzias with a list of questions, my “resolution” resolve wavering. “Do you think we should do more blood work, just in case? I ran into a friend of mine whose thirteen-year-old son was the result of one of these borderline pregnancies . . . ”

“I’m afraid yours isn’t borderline.” Mine had gone further south. “Yours is an ectopic pregnancy.” I modified my mental picture.

My options were to have an injection of methotrexate, which had an eighty percent chance of ending the pregnancy; the rest of the time another injection, or a second injection plus surgery, were necessary. Or I could have the surgery straight away. With either option, there would be a three-month recovery/waiting period before we could try again. And neither option would have a negative impact on my chances of “achieving pregnancy” going forward.

“I’m not feeling so lucky,” I said to Lorene. “I’ll be one of the twenty percent.”

“I’d rather you avoid surgery, if you could,” Lorene said.

“The shot is the least invasive option,” Dr. Penzias interjected from the other side of the desk.

“You could do it now?”

“Francesca can administer the shot right next door at the end of our meeting.”

“All right.” I was ready to go. Luckily, Lorene remembered our questions.

“Is there anything we can do to improve our chances? Do we know why the embryos fragmented? Did that stain test tell you anything about the egg or sperm quality? Should we try for better sperm?” Steve was planning to visit over the summer.

“Should I go on the pill?” I added. “And my friend said something about ICSI . . .”

Dr. Penzias smiled. “The stain test didn’t really tell us anything. Remember, under the best of circumstances, chances are one in five. Obviously, we are trying to improve your chances, working around obstacles which we’ve already acknowledged.” He leaned forward. “But, there is a silver lining in all of this. An ectopic pregnancy is a pregnancy—evidence Suzy can get pregnant.”

We went next door. Francesca gave me a shot in each cheek and apologized, “Your muscles are going to be sore.” She also told me to keep out of the sun, which I forgot, then remembered when I felt as if I was going to throw up in the middle of my bike ride the next day.