Jennifer's Story

Last Friday, I took a pregnancy test and it was positive.  On Monday, I called to make my first OB
appointment.  Monday evening, I ended up in the hospital with severe pains on the left side of my
lower abdomen.  I was poked and prodded for four days straight by doctors and nurses, and it was finally concluded that I had an ectopic pregnancy.  Yesterday, Friday, exactly a week after I experienced the joy of a positive pregnancy test, I was injected with the medicine that will halt the growth of my baby and cause my body to reabsorb the little bit that had a chance to grow already.  I am so devastated.

I haven't been to work in a week.  I have to go back Monday, and I don't know how I am going to cope.  The folded Winnie the Pooh baby blanket is tucked into my pillow case, the little yellow socks tucked into my purse, the little soft teddy bear next to my pillow on the bed.  I cry all of the time.  I have to get my blood drawn on Monday and again Thursday to make sure my hormone levels are dropping like they are supposed to.  If they haven't, they will inject more of the evil medicine into my body.  If that doesn't work, they will have to go in surgically, but my wonderful and supportive doctor told me that since I am so early on it should work the first time.  She wants me to come in after this is all over so she can take x-rays of my reproductive organs and fallopian tubes to make sure I am all intact and nothing is wrong.  She said I may not feel lucky now, but I am lucky that it was caught early so my life and my fertility can be preserved. She gave me a hug and cried with me and told me she would help me through this, and when I decide it is time, she will be there when I get pregnant again and have a baby!

Inside of me my baby is dying.  I know he was going to be a boy.  He was going to be named Connor.  He was unexpected, but it was a wonderful and joyous surprise.  Only a weekend did I have to feel that
joy before it was taken from me.  I visited this website and it is a wonderful place.  It made me cry,
but it also let me know that I am not the only woman out there who experiences this.  I am not the only one who has friends who think they are making me feel better by telling me I am lucky to be alive and I will someday have a baby.  I am not the only one who grieves for someone I have never met...

I wrote this poem for my little angel:

empty cradle

gentle lullabies and
a soft blanket
no one to soothe and
comfort at night
miniature socks,
yellow,
with paw prints on the
bottom…
no feet to warm
little brown bear no hands
to hold, no arms to hug

they say he was
lost
on his way to the womb
stuck in a place he
  cannot grow
so they sent him to
a world beyond where
i cannot comfort his cries,

and he cannot
comfort mine…

mothering arms
no babe to embrace
only lonliness
         and sorrow…

-Jennifer Kusz
09-20-01
for Connor,
my little angel in waiting…