RELATIONSHIP Our yaya is not just a nanny
Love, loss and the other emotions of motherhood
And so they kept falling into that percentage!” my friend says. “Can you imagine? There was a less than three percent chance of it occurring and it still happened to them.” She’s telling us the story of couple’s tragedy-rife journey in having a child. Pregnancy is a complicated chapter in one’s life. Often, people think it’s purely a time of joy and celebration, a pastel daydream that moves from one delightful trimester to the next, culminating in a birthing montage set to a Motown beat, followed by a string orchestra crescendo as the beautiful babe is brought to an exhausted but beaming mom.
But this is real life, and pregnancy is a messy, complicated affair. It’s filled with percentages and statistics, of secret diseases and cautionary tales, many of which are an alarming Google search away for fearful moms, both young and old, new and experienced. They creep upon us while we’re skimming through social media feeds, forwarded by well-meaning titas. A pop song filled with anecdotes of nausea and maternity wear for one mother-to-be can be a dirge of crushed hopes and despair for another.
I’ve had two miscarriages. The vestiges of those experiences, one of which ended up in a rather traumatizing dilation and curettage procedure, has left me cautious to say the least, and robbed me of the naive confidence of many of my peers who happily set up nurseries and say “when” and not “if”. On the third pregnancy, I counted the days until I hit the second trimester, where the percentage for pregnancy loss drops dramatically. Unsurprisingly, the fear didn’t completely dissipate then. I suppose once you’ve fallen into an unfortunate statistic, the experience settles in, puts it feet up on the table and watches season after season of The Batchelor; an unwanted tenant whose only purpose is to remind us of the reality we’d rather forget. Even now, each time I cuddle my toddler, the specter of death hovers, never too far away. In this paradise I’ve planted, the valley of death lays on the horizon, reeking of hospital smells, scalpels and the weight of an ultrasound that is as still as a photograph.
There are women with bigger, more tragic stories. That I am well aware of, as each time I try to open up about the experience, a friend or acquaintance will inevitably tell me of a more horrible experience of a friend or a friend of a friend. I wonder why their stories matter but mine doesn’t.
In my husband’s province in France, the doctor held up the photograph of the dead fetus and gave me the same look the waiter made when he gave me a cappuccino instead of a grande crème. “It just happens,” he said, showing me the door. “You just have to keep trying until the chromosomes match.” When we got home, my mother-in-law gave me a hug and that was it. I suppose it’s wrong to judge people when cultural differences are at play. Admittedly, I couldn’t have dealt with the drama my mother would’ve thrown my way had I been in Manila. That night I opened a bottle of wine, drank a glass and ate raw oysters, things that I’d avoided when I believed there was a second heart beating inside of me. I was calm. To take my mind off it, my husband took me on a holiday from our vacation, and we walked by the crashing sea, rode bikes along medieval castles and picked wild myrtle along the country roads. I thought I was okay, much better than the first time. I ignored the fact that earlier that week, I’d scooped up the remains of the fetus that came out of me in the bathroom, wrapped it in layers of cloth and secretly hid in the deep freezer out back. Or that I needlessly worried when I set it out into the stream, how ignoble to leave it to the fish. It was only in Paris when I realized how deep the grief was, when I made the mistake of slipping it out to a friend over a bottle of wine. I cried for hours and hours. At 3 AM, the waiter kicked us out while I was still wailing on the sidewalk.
I was deeply embarrassed, and it never came out again. When I got pregnant for the third time and finally gave birth, I was still stalked by fear and anxiety. I would wake up most nights to check her breathing. I squinted at every rash, held my breath at every sniffle. Only my husband and the nanny knew how extreme it got. Because it wasn’t cool to care too much. Many of my peers gave birth the same time as I did and they were all cool moms, the kind of women who forwent epidurals and knew their bodies were strong and capable. I wasn’t so certain. In the days before I was due to give birth, I sat down with my husband and gave him explicit instructions should there be complications. “We’ll save the baby, of course,” I told him. His expression told me that he didn’t quite agree, but how could he say no?
The day came and went, and it’s been two wonderful years. It was every Hallmark cliché and I’ve loved every single second of it. Everyone tells me how cool I am, how calm, how I had it all together. I am pregnant again and halfway there. I try to use “when” instead of “if”. I went to Brazil on my third month and hiked up a mountain. Everyone is looking forward to the baby boy. I laugh about the nausea and take in the compliments thrown my way. But each time I pee, I check the tissue paper closely for blood. Each and every time. I joke about my cravings. It’s just easier that way.
“Oh, those pesky percentages,” I tell my friend. She gives me a look. She’s had a miscarriage too. And I know she’s struggling to get pregnant again. I offer her another slice of cake and we look outside the window at our children, little girls running in the sun, a paradise found.
“BUT
THIS IS REAL LIFE, AND PREGNANCY
IS A MESSY, COMPLICATED AFFAIR