of them.
I looked at the clock.
It was 2:27 p.m.
Our youngest wouldn’t be home from preschool for another hour. The older boys were still at school.
“What hospital?”
He told me.
“Why are you there?”
“I’ll explain when you get here.”
“James.”
“Please.”
He sounded wrong.
Not guilty exactly.
Not frightened either.
Something in between.
I drove there in the shirt I’d been cleaning the kitchen in.
You have to understand what the word “baby” does in our house.
We have three boys.
Nine, seven, and
four.
Loud, filthy, wonderful.
Our house is full of muddy shoes, plastic dinosaurs, baseball gloves, and arguments about whose turn it is to sit closest to the television.
I love them more than anything.
But we had wanted a daughter.
God, we had wanted one.
After our third son was born, my doctor sat across from us with my chart open and asked James to come in too because she wanted him to hear it from her and not from me.
I remember thinking that was strange.
Then I saw
her face.
She said the word “probably.”
Not could.
Not there’s a risk.
Probably.
A fourth pregnancy would probably kill me.
And if it didn’t, she said I’d likely spend most of it in a hospital bed away from the three children I already had.
My previous pregnancy had nearly ended badly enough.
There had been blood pressure problems, bleeding, emergency monitoring, and a delivery that turned chaotic very quickly.
The doctor didn’t dramatize it.
That made it worse.
I asked whether there was any version where another pregnancy could
be considered safe.
She said no.
I asked again.
Different words.
Same answer.
