Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash
Things are still happening with my body that I don’t fully understand. Axe Man and I were walking along our favourite dirt road when an incredible tiredness came over me, followed by such dizziness that I could do nothing but sit on the cold, wet ground and wait for him to get the car and pick me up. The next day, however, the weirdness had left, my bleeding had slowed all the way to a trickle and I began to declare that I had reached a new stage. “I feel like I’ve turned an emotional and physical corner in my recovery,” I wrote in my diary that night.
Isn’t that always when the Universe decides to take you down?
The next day I was at the little Waldorf school I sub at and was just trying to stop one three year-old from destroying another when I made the mistake of picking him up. I knew it was a bad idea immediately but it was already too late and the blood was gushing out of me. Shit.
Going home, I called my health insurance company. I’ve been in the process of transferring and I needed to know I was fully covered. He asked me a million questions, but when he got to the one about “has anyone in your household recently become pregnant” I began to sob into my cell phone. He paused and then asked the question again, slowly and more gently. I told him that’s why I was calling; I was pregnant but I lost it, I’m bleeding and I need to go to the ER. “Can you help me?” I pleaded. His voice cracked and he let me know that was going to do absolutely everything in his power to do just that. An hour later we said a prayer together and I hung up the phone, fully covered and ready to head to the ER.
Emergency rooms are nobody’s favourite place but I have had a particularly big chip on my shoulder about them. The medical system has been a favourite whipping boy of mine - hence the home birth midwife - and it was sheer grace and desperation that placed me in the Kingston ER that afternoon. As soon as the woman on reception looked at me, the tears began to roll down my cheeks. It’s not that I have conscious fear of hospitals and medical procedures, it’s just that I cry every single time I go near either. It’s not rational, I can’t explain it and it happens. Every time.
The lesson from that day feels multi-layered. Partly it was to show me that, no matter where I am and whether I’m surrounded by classic medical professionals or crunchy home birth midwives, humans are humans and are always trying their best. From the woman who took my insurance details and asked if she could hug me, to the doctor who so patiently and gently explained what was going on, to the phlebotomist who put every ounce of herself into making my experience as painless as possible, everyone I met that afternoon was so full of empathy that it made me weep with relief. I was being shown just how much goodness is in all humans when I am willing to see it.
The other lesson felt like this: no matter how gentle the humans, classic medical environments are not the places I want my lady-parts seen to on the reg. Hearing the contents of my womb referred to as “products of conception” was at odds with my experience of the blood, tissue and butter bean that I watched and felt leave my body ten days ago, and being under strip lights in an empty, sterile room felt so much less nurturing than the cozy bathroom in which my miscarriage had taken place. Being alone was the hardest part. Thank you Universe that this was only the aftermath and the actual event occurred on a day when Axe Man happened to be around.
On a practical note, after all the tests, the medical professionals declared that they are not worried about how my body is reacting. Apparently bleeding can last for weeks so that’s not an issue. Further more, my hormone levels indicate that things are coming out the way they ought to be. I have to admit that both me and my home birth midwife felt better that I went and got checked out. Despite all of my beliefs and feelings around hospitals, I guess I still have some level of faith in their technical skills. And now I have a little more faith in their people skills too.