My Fucking Nightmare

For weeks we tried. We tried, and tried, and tried, and frankly I was getting sick of the negative tests and the lack of good news. The doctor said everything was working fine for both of us, and that there shouldn’t be any problem conceiving. So what was the big deal? Honestly. It was so easy for Matt to do it on the first try. Why not me?
After all that counselling, so much had changed. Matt took the baby into his own care. We got lawyers involved, paid a ton of money to say goodbye to a life created between my wife and best friend. I didn’t have a say. Although, I was grateful that Matt kept Audrey as her name. Only it became Audrey Annabelle Sanders-Haner. A bit of a mouthful, but it had a ring to it.
All the sleep I was able to catch up on without endless crying throughout the night made it almost worth the tears we both cried throughout this whole ordeal. It wasn’t like we wouldn’t ever see her again. Just, legally, we couldn’t keep her. Melissa spent a lot of time with her while we were in the studio. Our home wasn’t set up for a baby anymore. I could at least rest assured knowing that Matt was at the studio with me. It wasn’t that I had trust issues. I just couldn’t compete with him anymore.
And now, I lost one more level upon which I couldn’t compete with him. I couldn’t impregnate my wife. Seriously, not for lack of trying, either. The sex was great. I mean, better than it had been for months. Melissa got her confidence back without the baby belly weight. And unleashing all those emotions at the counsellor’s office helped channel her depression and pain from the attack. My wife was a fighter, and I couldn’t have been more proud.
Still, I was not. I needed something to be proud of myself for. I needed this, because I couldn’t take another loss. It just couldn’t happen. While I wasn’t a firm believer in miracles to begin with, something had to give. I mean, couldn’t a guy just get a break?
So we continued trying. We tried until I knew I was dry. She’d pump me full of calories and protein. Chicken to steak to protein shakes. Fruits and veggies. As if controlling my diet would control the outcome, right? No pun intended. Man I was exhausted. Everything was chafed. No amount of lube in the world would have helped after the end of the last week before we took a break.
Boy that was an amazing break, too. We finally struck gold. Melissa woke up two days after the break, vomiting. Sick as a dog. She missed her period. Days passed before we visited the fertility doctor who then confirmed that we were, in fact, pregnant. And I gotta say, I was almost as sick with nervousness as she was. As much as I tried, as much as we fought, I didn’t see myself being that great of a dad. Perhaps it was cold feet. In fact, I chalked it up to being cold feet. After a while the idea grew in my mind and I was more excited about that than anything else.
It was like the future finally fell into place.
We swore to one another that until her belly started growing and she was showing, we wouldn’t tell anyone. Not even family. No one could know about this baby. For good luck’s sake.
I remember in the first few weeks there were some nights where I was paralyzed with fear. Crippling fear. Probably over nothing. I was pretty overwhelmed with the record label’s demanding of our demos. The idea of upcoming tours. After what happened during our last stint, there was no possible way I was remotely ready to leave Melissa again. There was the stress about getting this baby to term, given Melissa’s last trauma during birth. That fucking placenta Previa bullshit, which actually turned out to be a dead twin sibling. I couldn’t shake those thoughts and memories away, and the more they lingered, the worse I got.
I remember seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Hearing a baby cry in the middle of the night probably had to be the most haunting sound in the world. I didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits or none of that stuff, but I swear to god that baby’s cry came from the next room over. We never had Audrey without Matt here, let alone having her here for a night. We just couldn’t do it.
Slowly I felt the grip of anxiety pull me backwards into the turmoil I’d worked so hard to escape. I remember all those books on postpartum depression and wondered, often, if it was possible to have symptoms of it before the baby was even born. And for Melissa’s sake, if it were possible, I’d need to find a way to keep it all together.
Unfortunately for me, our first ultrasound appointment confirmed one single thing: there was no fetal heartbeat. A blood test confirmed the suspicion that Melissa had miscarried within the last week or so, and although she experienced very few symptoms, she mentioned feeling symptoms of having a period. All this pregnancy stuff confused the hell out of me, so I had no idea how or what had even happened. Bottom line is that we were back to the drawing board. And I was sick to my stomach, because this was the second time I lost my child.
The doctor explained that the chances of us succeeding in getting pregnant and carrying the baby to term were slim at best, considering all of Melissa’s previous injuries. It was devastating news, but I wasn’t about to give up. Yes, it was another loss. But there was still hope in her eyes and I couldn’t let her give up. I couldn’t give up.
Although, in the grand scheme of things, perhaps it would have been best for us to let it happen. Let fate take control. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be a father. I knew I was a better caretaker as a husband than as a dad. And still, part of me was horrifically disappointed that I was unable to conceive a strong enough child to make it past the first three months of pregnancy.
The pressures my parents put on us for having a biological Haner-born child, as they were pissed about the situation of the first born as any reasonable parent would be, was excruciatingly overbearing. Mom especially. She was borderline insane about becoming a grandmother. I had to give her a grandchild.
I think Melissa took it harder than I did. She was silent the whole way home from the obstetrician’s office, meaning she was bottling up all those now-vacant emotions only to break down later on. Whether it was that night, or later that week, or in a month’s time when we’ve spent all that time and effort trying to conceive again without luck. She’d break down. And I wasn’t sure just how much more I could watch her cry.
In her eyes, she was broken. And I saw it. I saw the scars. The damage inflicted in just a short span of time. All that pain she lived with. I couldn’t help her. I was so far away, stranded in another world. I wished so often that I could take away her pain. To feel it with her, to know what she was going through.
This was our reality. I just wasn’t sure what was real anymore.

Notes