20 weeks

I’m not sure what Beck was thinking when she gave me the assignment. I still don’t know, now that I’ve completed it and turned it in. But it sure does seem odd that she would ask me to be the one to write the article on SHARE, a support organization for women who have experienced miscarriages, stillbirth, or newborn loss.

Maybe she thinks I’m a big girl and, as a reporter, I should be able to put my personal experience aside, bow into the wind, and do my duty. After all, how could she have known that the person I would wind up interviewing would have miscarried at twenty weeks… exactly the same place that I’m at in my own pregnancy?

It was so sad to hear the woman, Sherry, and her husband, Roy, recount their story. It was their first child (another similarity to my pregnancy) and they were so excited.

Everything had been fine, there was no warning, and then… BAM! On the day they went to the doctor to find out the sex of the baby, they not only found that they were to have a girl, but they also learned her kidneys had ceased working. What should have been a day of rejoicing became a day of sorrow.

It’s been seven years since that terrible day. They went on to experience two more pregnancies, neither with any complications whatsoever. Now they are the parents of a vivacious, beautiful girl named Mallory, 5, and a towheaded youngster who is the epitome of “all boy,” Harry, 3. And yet, there is still a pallor, a sadness, that hangs over this couple.

I don’t dare tell Chip any of this, as he’s an even bigger worrywart than I am. I’m trying to keep the emotions about the story at bay, to stop drawing any more comparisons, and I’m certainly putting the kibosh on dwelling on this any more than I have to.

But at the same time, I wish Beck had exercised a bit more discernment in assigning me this task.