THE PROCESS

“Alex and I have been thinking and we’re leaning towards ‘Max if it’s a boy or ‘Maria’ for a girl – both of those if it’s twins!” Aunt Olivia announced to my parents and I, nearly losing her balance from excitement.

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“Yes! Hey, let’s sit down, yeah?” Uncle Alex suggested, putting one arm around his newly pregnant wife and using the other to motion towards the living room. We all strolled over and fell into our designated seats on the soft-leathered couch. I ran my index finger over the scratch tainting its brown surface – a crumb of memorabilia from when my cousin Sasha let her scissors run a bit too far while working on her crafts. I tried to imagine the chaos that awaited this home when Max/Maria (or both!) would move in.

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“Alex always gets so worried about me! You know it’s a miracle, really, at my age. I didn’t think I would ever be a mother of more than one, and ever since Sasha turned fifteen, I just kept saying it’s too late. Then there was one day I told Alex it would ultimately hurt more if we didn’t try. It was a long shot, but I knew it was possible – my colleague had just gotten pregnant at forty-two years old and she wasn’t even planning on having more kids. I decided it was worth taking my intentional chances at forty-one,” Aunt Olivia explained with an air of fairytale mesmerism in her voice.

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Sasha walked downstairs from her bedroom. We were about the same age, me a couple of months younger, yet a few inches taller. “Hey, you excited about losing the only child status?” I shouted in her direction, noticing the adults grinning.

 

“Yes! I can’t wait, though I’m expecting I’ll just feel like another parent for the baby. Can we really call ourselves siblings if we’ll be sixteen years apart?”

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“At least you’ll be prepared when it’s your turn!” I joked, knowing she’s probably already had that same thought. That night, just two weeks after my aunt and uncle announced that they’re expecting, was filled with uncontrollable smiles and a downpour of joyous hope. We celebrated the prosperity of new life and all of the future couch-scratching to come. No one thought to consider that the celebrations would soon be cut short.

 

Another thirty days passed before the energy with which Aunt Olivia began to speak about her future child began to pivot. Suddenly the dialogue switched from endless optimism to sparks of nerves and worry. Something about the baby had felt ‘off’ to her, and she herself felt slightly faint and feverish. My mother did her best to try and convince my aunt that everything will be okay – that she probably just has cold feet about being a mother of an infant again – but Aunt Olivia persisted she needed to see her OB-GYN before she could sleep peacefully. She scheduled the first available appointment, entering the building being prepared for the absolute worst news.

 

Aunt Olivia later described that pivotal appointment with a solemn tone, “I felt the doctor’s chilled fingertips on my body as she performing my ultrasound, and I had a feeling it was going to be my last. Before she spoke a word, I knew the baby’s heart was no longer beating. The doctor explained that the baby likely had a chromosomal defect preventing it from developing normally. She said that these chromosomal abnormalities occur much more frequently in babies of women over the age of 40. I was having a miscarriage.”

 

“How are you feeling, Aunt Olivia?” I asked calmly, being careful not to sound too probing.

 

“As emotional as it was, I am very lucky, sweetheart. I am lucky to learn that my body is still able to support another child, and I am lucky that if this loss was bound to happen, it happened at an early time point. A miscarriage can be incredibly dangerous for the mother, but I was able to make it out unharmed. I know how excited I was, but the risks of later pregnancy never left the back of my mind. Did you know that one in every five pregnancies results in a miscarriage?”

 

“Wow – I had no idea. You’re the first woman I’ve met who has gone through anything like that,” I answered in shock.

 

“That may not be true. Very few women choose to speak about it because of how difficult it can be. I think that’s especially common in younger mothers. We want everything to be perfect, but sometimes a painful steppingstone like this isn’t a massive tragedy – it’s part of the process,” Aunt Olivia explained with a half-smile. I couldn’t quite understand how she was holding herself with such composure, but if a fifth of pregnancies end in unexpected losses, I could only imagine how many mothers have mustered the strength to process something like this. It comforted me that some interpret these losses as Aunt Olivia does – another pivot of her process.