It wasn’t like I had an ominous dream or anything—I just know. A motherly intuition if you will—or the opposite.
In the waiting room of my doctor, three other pregnant women are shifting uncomfortably because of their swollen bellies. None are “glowing”—they all look puffy and tired. Two of them have dragged their husbands here with them—I don’t understand why they subject the men to such a waste of time. I never let my own husband come even though he always says he wants to. “Just concentrate on making more money, please,” I say, all polite, and he shuts up like a clam. It’s difficult enough to be a midlevel employee with a middling paycheck as it is, without taking time off to go to your wife’s obstetrician visit. “I don’t understand why you want me to have a baby when we won’t be able to pay for childcare,” I used to say to him before I started trying so desperately to have one. “I won’t be able to afford to work, or not work.”
My bright husband always has an unfailingly asinine answer for such practical questions—“All we need to do is have one and we’ll figure it out! Our parents will help!”
I see him sometimes, with his plain, happy-go-lucky smile, and feel my heart wrenching in such pained dislike that I have to look down so that he won’t catch the expression on my face. He is a kind man, if nothing else, and I always have to remind myself that marrying him was my choice. All my adult life, and in my marriage, I am trying not to be cruel because I know that it is only a matter of time before what is in my blood rears its ugly head.
“Ms. Kang Wonna,” the nurse calls, and I’m ushered into the doctor’s pink office, plastered with black-and-white photos of babies and uterus renderings. The doctor behind the desk is a plump little middle-aged woman with round glasses and permed hair.
“This is your first visit with us? And your chart says you are four weeks pregnant?” she says, fiddling with her glasses as she reads my chart. “How are you feeling?”
I consider the question.
“I have a bad feeling,” I say, then stop.
“You are experiencing pain, you mean?” She looks appropriately concerned.
“Not yet,” I say. “But I can tell it’s coming.”
She raises an eyebrow and I try to explain.
“I can feel something bad is going to happen to the baby. It’s just a feeling—like a sinking. The doctor I was going to before didn’t listen to me, so here I am.” I say that last part to warn her to be careful of her words, but I am not sure if she understands me.
She looks back down at my chart.
“I see that you have had three previous pregnancies?”
“Yes.”
“And you miscarried them all?”
“Yes.”
The doctor taps her chart.
“I understand why you would be apprehensive this time around,” she says slowly, “but I want you to know that miscarriages are extremely common so you shouldn’t feel like it’s just something that happens to you. A lot of women miscarry and it’s no one’s fault. Of course, if you wish, we can run some tests to make sure all is well but I’d like to ask you some more questions first.”
She continues to ask uninteresting questions about my physical and mental state and past and I answer them automatically.
“Given everything you have gone through, do you think you may want to speak to a therapist?” she asks. It’s my turn to raise my eyebrow.
“Doesn’t that mean I lose my insurance?” I say. “I heard that if you get mental treatment, you get dropped and then no insurance company will touch you after that.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s true still,” she says uncertainly. “But I actually don’t know for certain. You’d have to call your insurance, I suppose.”
“Yeah, no,” I say. Even if I had money to waste, it’s not like I’m having suicidal thoughts or anything. I knew I shouldn’t have brought up this