Through Your Hands

By Heather Jordan

Joy and Gregg anxiously await the birth of their first child, who theyve nicknamed Bean. Before bed one night, Joy notices Bean hasnt moved in awhile. Calm and collected, they decide a visit to the hospital would be a good idea. Once they arrive, however, the happy future they anticipate with their unborn baby is shattered. The doctors cant find a heartbeat; their dearest Bean is gone.

The unexpected tragedy tears them both apart. All plans for a newborn child are gone, just like the missing heartbeat on the sonogram machine. How can they cope? How can Joy go on, teaching middle- school age kids who made it through the third trimester, when her own did not? It seems an impossible task, but life must go on, despite tragedy and injustice.

The lives of Joy and Gregg suddenly appear more complex and perilous than ever before. With the memory of their stillborn baby, they struggle to keep their marriage together. Is it possible their tragedy could end in a miracle? Is it possible their shattered family could one day be mended? Drawing on the vows they have madeand the love they shareJoy and Gregg may still raise a family of their own with the memory of Bean and unfulfilled promise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781450298872

Heather Jordan

The Pikes Peak Library District's Regional History Series chronicles the unique and often undocumented history of Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West. The subjects of the books are based on the annual Pikes Peak Regional History Symposia. The books are edited by PPLD staff members and by local historians.

Book preview

PART I

Silently Born

Chapter One

Joy repeatedly rubbed her abdomen to see if she could make her baby move on the drive to the hospital. While her husband stared straight ahead, his hands gripping the wheel, she counted backwards. The last time the baby—they called him Bean—had kicked had been the evening before, just as she was falling asleep in the soft May air. She and Gregg had been lying in bed with his arm around her belly when Bean had jumped. It had now been over twelve hours since she had felt anything. She had grown so used to having the little guy swimming inside her that the stillness was unnerving. At first, she had gulped a tumbler full of orange juice to see if the sweetness would get the baby moving. When that didn’t work, she ate a raspberry muffin with sugar crumbled on the top. Nothing happened. After she had waited another two hours, Gregg had paged her doctor. Although Dr. Bartlett said it was not unusual for babies to slow down at the end of a pregnancy—Joy was only a week away from her due date—he thought it would be a good idea for them to make the trip to the hospital. He was on call, so he could meet them in Labor and Delivery.

Neither Joy nor Gregg said much on the drive. Traffic was heavy along the Charles River late on this sunny Saturday afternoon, one of the first good days in a while. As her husband tapped his long fingers on the gear stick, Joy stared out her window at the water, blue and rippling in the light breeze. A few sailboats caught the wind and a crew shell passed by, maybe warming down after a race.

Once they had crossed the bridge from Cambridge to Boston, they came to a complete standstill. Gregg tried to veer right and avoid the logjam. He jerked into first—the gears on the old Volvo wagon were rough—and the car lurched forward, but no one would let him through. Joy closed her eyes and waited. When she opened them again, the road had cleared and her husband was speeding toward the hospital faster than Joy thought was safe. She didn’t say anything; she just clutched the sides of her seat with white knuckles.

At the hospital’s front entrance, he jumped out of the car, left the engine running, and ran inside. Joy’s mind narrowed, focusing only on what was in front of her. An elderly woman sat on a bench outside the lobby, a pink scarf tied around her head. It was a beautiful day, but a little chilly. Someone knocked on Joy’s window. Gregg was standing there beside a nurse pushing a wheelchair. Gregg opened the door for her and helped Joy get settled. The petite, brown-haired nurse shook Joy’s hand and introduced herself as Sarah. Joy didn’t get a good look at her face before Sarah began talking. She said was going to be taking her to Labor and Delivery. Her husband would meet her there after he parked the car. Joy turned around and got a glimpse of him getting back into the car.

Sarah pushed Joy through the lobby fast enough to make her dizzy. On the way to the elevators, they passed someone dressed as a clown handing out a rainbow of balloons. A proud grandmother rushed by carrying an oversized turquoise teddy bear. These images wavered in Joy’s mind. She saw herself from the outside, as a stranger might: a blonde and green-eyed thirty-year-old woman being rushed to delivery.

People stepped to the back of the crowded elevator to make room for Joy. Sarah pressed the button for the basement. When the door opened, the nurse turned down a long hallway decorated with watercolors of beach scenes, and the blues and yellows blurred in front of Joy’s eyes. From the nurse’s station, someone called out Joy’s name and asked her to repeat her date of birth before snapping a white plastic bracelet around her wrist. Dr. Bartlett had left orders for an ultrasound. Joy asked if they could wait for her husband, but Sarah said no. The sonographer was already getting the room ready. Sarah wheeled her inside. To date, Joy had only had two ultrasounds; her pregnancy had been considered uncomplicated. The first scan had been before Christmas when she had been around four months along; she was just begun to feel the baby move. The technician had waved the wand over Joy’s abdomen and then pointed out all the baby’s fingers and toes. When the woman had asked if Gregg and Joy wanted to know their baby’s gender, they had said no. Although she had no scientific evidence, Joy was convinced she was having a boy.

The sonographer had given Joy and Gregg a picture of their baby to take home with them and Joy had taped it to their refrigerator. Every morning while she ate her Raisin Bran, she would look at the grainy images of her child lying crosswise inside her. She thought she could make out a tiny thumb floating near the face. When she stared, she could see a profile emerge. It had not taken her long to memorize the deeply indented eyes, the strong nose like her husband’s. Sometime around then, she and Gregg had started calling the fetus Bean.

At the beginning of March, Joy had another ultrasound to check the baby’s growth. Bean had been considerably bigger on that blustery March day; his weight was estimated to be about four and a half pounds. He had a thumb stuck in his mouth, and he had the hiccups. If he were born that day, he would have a good chance of surviving, especially at this Boston hospital.

Sarah dimmed the yellow lights until the room was almost completely dark. Joy grasped the nurse’s hand and stood up. Still in her borrowed blue jean jumper and pink t-shirt, one of the few outfits Joy could fit into, she heaved her legs onto the table. The white paper crinkled as Sarah helped her lie down. Joy noticed another sonographer sitting by the machine, skinny, with her shiny black hair in a high ponytail. Her pointy fingernails were perfectly red. She was snapping minty gum. Sarah introduced her as Linda. After Sarah placed a warm blanket over Joy for modesty, Linda turned the dials on the machine.

Dr. Bartlett walked in a few minutes later, followed by Gregg. Her husband took her hand, an uncharacteristic display of public affection. Joy stared up at his strong face, his soft mouth set in seriousness, his curly brown hair uncombed. From her vantage point, he looked even taller than six feet three inches. Without any words, Linda got to work, unbuttoning Joy’s overalls and pulling up her shirt, covering her with a white paper gown. Squeezing some cold green gel on Joy’s abdomen, Linda waved her wand up and down. Joy turned to watch the screen, but someone had pivoted it away from her. Later, she would recall the silence blending with the humming of the machine. Blobs of light glowed from the ceiling amidst the blackness. She attempted to focus on her husband’s face, seeking comfort in his familiarity, but instead she could see confusion and fear shining in his brown eyes. Joy waited through the quiet.

Linda nodded to the doctor. She squeezed more warm gel on Joy’s abdomen. This time Dr. Bartlett took the wand and pressed it harder against Joy’s skin, over and over again. Flashes of her first ultrasound came back to her, the wet heat strange. She remembered the technician saying, Listen to your baby’s heartbeat, before she had pointed out the four perfectly formed chambers of the miniature heart. To Joy’s eyes, they had looked crumbly, wavering, like purple jellyfish floating in the ocean. She appreciated the particularity they must represent to a scientist. These people had been trained for years to spot a thinning membrane, a missing wall, or an irregular beat. Her child’s heart had been booming on that gray day, like a train chugging on a track. For Valentine’s Day, just a few weeks earlier, Gregg had drawn a doodle of a tadpole on the card he had given her and signed it from Bean, the hungry kid. She had taped it next to the first picture.

Eventually, Dr. Bartlett handed the wand to Linda, who turned off the machine. Sarah smoothed another warm blanket over Joy, who was now shivering. It had seemed like forever that they had been passing that wand over her belly, yet she did not want them to stop. She did not know, nor did she care, what time it was. The room had no windows. Dr. Bartlett walked to the head of the bed and took her hand before he began speaking.

Joy, we couldn’t find a heartbeat today.

Is it possible the baby’s shifted in some way so that the heartbeat cannot be detected? Gregg asked.

I don’t think so. We tried every angle, and we couldn’t get a trace. The doctor paused. I am so sorry.

Joy gagged. Sarah brought her a pink plastic bowl. A few more moments passed by. Looking up at Dr. Bartlett’s face, Joy saw that rows of concern lined his forehead, his blue eyes creased, his mouth taut. Every muscle in his slight body looked tensed at that moment. They had chosen him for his title and reputation—Head of Maternal/Fetal Medicine. He had turned out to be a kind and down-to-earth clinician. She had looked forward to her monthly visits with him. He answered her questions with care.

Gregg stared back at him. The two women had slipped away; it was only the three of them in the room.

Dr. Bartlett stepped back and said, If you don’t mind, I’ll leave you two alone together for a little while. Please take your time. There’s no rush.

Neither of them answered him.

After the doctor closed the door, Joy tried to sit up. Gregg reached his arms around her. She could not hear his cries, but when she reached up his cheek was wet, as was hers. They stayed locked together until he almost lost his balance, and she lessened her grip. He then took the blanket that had been covering her and began to fold it. She sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. In her birth class, Naomi, the earthy, black-haired midwife, had described how sometimes a woman tries to flee the hospital just before delivery as if to say, This is not really happening to me. All Joy could think about was how far she wanted to run. She felt like a freak with her swollen abdomen, her overalls hanging down below what had been her waist. Putting her hand against her naked belly, she could not sense anything. She remembered how the baby’s motions had been slowing, how few times Bean had kicked during the last week.

I should have spoken up sooner, Joy said, her voice thin.

About what? Gregg asked.

Remember last weekend when I mentioned that Bean had been kind of quiet?

But at birth class everyone said their babies were running out of room, getting sleepy was what Naomi called it.

This was different, Joy said.

How could you have known?

Because Bean’s been living inside me for nine months, Joy said through tears.

You can’t be so hard on yourself, Gregg said, rubbing his wife’s back.

I was so stupid not to tell anyone.

You can’t second guess yourself now. That’s not fair, Gregg said sternly.

Can we just get out of here?Joy pleaded.

We have to wait for Dr. Bartlett. He should be back soon. Gregg sat down beside her on the bed and reached his arms around her. She shivered, and her teeth chattered. Through her tears, she stared at the blurry reproduction of the Monet’s Water Lilies at Giverny. The colors were odd, dark blues and blacks and purples. She closed her mind over the words she had heard—Bean’s heart was no longer beating—and reached for Gregg’s hand.

Dr. Bartlett knocked before he opened the door. Joy knew that whatever happened next, she would remember these moments forever.

I can only say how sorry I am, Joy, the doctor said. She thought of how few times he had heard him speak her name.

Do you think there’s any point in looking for the heartbeat again? Gregg cleared his throat.

I’m afraid we have done all that we can. Fetal demise is a terrible event for everyone concerned. I can come back again later, after you two have had a chance to talk. I’m on call all night.

No, Joy said. I just want to go home.

I understand. Then we should probably talk a little about the delivery. As he spoke, he fiddled with a blue ballpoint pen, clicking it in and out. Joy wondered how many of these cheap Bic pens he went through. He probably had to give bad news most days. She thought of the few things she had learned about him in the months she had been seeing him: he had two teenage sons, biked hundreds of miles on his days off, and attended as many Patriot games as possible.

Under the circumstances, I would advise an induction sometime in the next couple of days.

Could Joy have a Cesarean with general anesthesia? Gregg asked.

Well, if at all possible, we like to have a natural delivery in cases like this. It is better for the mother. Safer. He paused. That way also, we reduce the risk of complications for future pregnancies.

The pieces of information were breaking off one by one, ice chips floating into Joy’s mind. So, can I have any medication for the pain?

Of course. As much as is necessary.

Joy remembered Naomi’s description of labor as the ultimate work a woman can do here on earth. She had waved her wiry arms in the air for emphasis as she made this declaration. Her black leotard had outlined her taut muscles. When she had asked who wanted natural childbirth, every woman in the room had raised her hand.

Could you be here early on Monday morning, around seven? Dr. Bartlett asked.

Yes. We live close, just over the border in Somerville, Gregg answered, his voice constricted.

So that would be the day after tomorrow? Joy asked.

Yes, May 9, the doctor said.

Joy realized she had just spoken aloud the death date of her baby. The calculus seemed cold. She saw an expression on her husband’s face that she had not known before. She remembered a disheartening statistic she’d heard somewhere: more than 80 percent of couples divorce after losing a child.

All right then. I’ll meet you in Labor and Delivery at seven. We’ll set Joy up with an IV, get her started on Pitocin, and try to move things along as fast as we can.

Dr. Bartlett put his hands behind his back, as he often did, at the end of an appointment. Please be in touch if you have any more questions. Of course, if your water breaks or you spike a fever, call my answering service right away.

She remembered how all along he had referred to pregnancy as a normal condition for a woman. He had said that, as long as she felt up to it, she could pretty much do as she wished—teach her middle-school classes, swim or run, drink the occasional glass of wine. Throughout her prenatal visits, he had reassured her about how well things were going. She’d had no idea how fast she could go from being a healthy woman expecting her first baby to someone who would deliver a dead child.

Can you tell us anything else about what might have happened? her husband asked, already searching for answers.

It’s hard to say, Dr. Bartlett said. With your permission, of course, we’ll do an autopsy.

I think Joy and I would want to do that.

You don’t have to decide just now. I have to warn you that an autopsy may not give us any answers. Sometimes we never learn why a pregnancy ended this way. It is important to remember, however, that this tragic outcome is rare.

Gregg broke in. How rare?

About one in one thousand pregnancies. The majority of couples who suffer such a loss can go on to have subsequent healthy children. Barring some unforeseen anomaly, I am optimistic that you can hope for healthy children down the road. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Joy could see he was torn between offering false hope and practicing honest medicine. Dr. Bartlett’s eyebrows pressed together. We have a pamphlet here that has some more information for you. He handed a pale gray flyer to Gregg.

Thanks, Gregg began making creases so he could fold it evenly.

If you’d like to speak with a hospital chaplain or social worker, we can arrange for that. In the meantime, he looked at Joy, we’ll call in a grief counselor.

The doctor shook Gregg’s hand and then patted Joy’s shoulder before turning to leave. You can stay here as long as you like, he said, closing the door behind him.

Gregg folded the pamphlet in quarters and put in his backpack. Joy dragged herself up from the bed. They embraced.

She stood up too fast, and images of their wedding on a hot August day almost five years ago flashed before her eyes. They’d been married beside the lake at her parents’ summer place in New Hampshire. The service had been simple. In other times of strain, she could shut her eyes and transport herself to this tranquil place, where the long grass lawn led down to the lake. Gregg had given her a gold necklace, three strands twirled together, on the night before their wedding. They had walked down to the lake together that evening. The two of them had sat on the rocks looking out over the lake. A half-full moon was rising, and the light caught the water, making pools of whiteness. Gregg had stretched his hand across to hers. She liked the warmth of his hand, the heft, and the way his fingers could close all the way around hers. Listening to the bittersweet sound of the peepers chirping, she recognized that the life each of them had known was about to be transformed into something unfamiliar and beautiful.

In the Boston hospital room, Gregg helped her stand. She smoothed out some of the worst wrinkles in her overalls, fastened the clasps, and slid on her clogs. They headed into the hallway and down the corridor to the elevator. Along the way, they passed another expectant couple. The woman gripped the handrail in pain. Joy looked away. In the book about pregnancy, Joy could not remember anything about stillbirth. One chapter was called something like, When Things Don’t Go as Planned, but she had yet to read that section.

Her husband held the elevator doors for her. Even though she had been visiting this hospital for the last nine months, she would not have been able to find her way out. She reached for a tissue from her purse only to realize her hand was empty.

Gregg, we have to go back.

What for?

I forgot my purse, she said through tears.

No you didn’t. I put it in my backpack while you were getting dressed.

Can you give me some Kleenex?

Sure, Gregg said, reaching down to open the fraying zipper.

Her husband took her hand as they walked outside. The cool evening air washed over them. Smiling, the doorman held the handicapped door for her. The full moon was already rising above the parking lot. Red brake lights disappeared in a blurry stream. Lines of white headlights beamed toward them. They passed a wrought-iron bench.

Why don’t you sit here and wait while I get the car? Gregg asked.

No, that’s okay. I can walk.

Are you sure?

I’m just slow.

It took them a little while to find the car. Gregg unlocked it, then came around to Joy’s side and helped her into the passenger seat. He drove slowly on the way home to avoid the potholes still lingering from the winter. The green numbers on the dashboard flashed fifteen minutes past eight. An ambulance flew past, lights blinking, sirens screaming, an emergency splicing their night. Gregg turned toward the river. Silence hung between them. She couldn’t think of anyone they knew who’d lost a baby before birth; they were a statistical anomaly.

The river flickered with the lights of the cars. Shortly after they had met, they had walked along here together as a break from studying. When they got to know one another better, they took longer and longer walks. They cross-country skied along the banks after a big snowstorm. As the weather warmed, they had lingered in the soft spring air. They had a big fight here once, but she couldn’t remember what it had been about. In the summer, they had packed a blanket and picnicked on the salami sandwiches he had made for them. These scenes swam in front of her eyes and carried her away from the present. Like the souls in Dante’s Divine Comedy, a book she’d struggled through in high school, she imagined herself in limbo.

Gregg pulled up in front of Tom’s Pizzeria, the familiar red neon blinking on the corner a few blocks from their apartment in Somerville. The atmosphere was not much—fluorescent lights, black plastic shakers containing red pepper flakes—but it reminded them both of the early days of their marriage. Pizza had been their backup plan before she had become a decent cook. Parking was always tough and tonight was no exception. Gregg double-parked, and she waited in the car while he went inside.

As he pulled open the heavy glass door, she thought about how tall he was, how strong. His light-blue cotton shirt pulled tight against his broad shoulders. A full six inches taller than she was, she often forgot the height difference between them. At five-foot-nine, she had grown accustomed to being the tallest girl, and often the tallest kid, around. When she had first met him, she had liked that she could look up to him. She hoped he would come back fast. She closed her eyes.

A tapping on the glass startled her. She rolled down the window.

Sorry to scare you but I didn’t want you to worry, Gregg said. It should only be about ten more minutes. Have you seen my wallet anywhere?

You don’t have it?

It’s not in my back pocket.

Maybe it’s here. Joy reached her hand down to the space in between the seat and the gearshift and pulled out his worn, brown leather wallet.

He walked back into the restaurant. It was unlike him to misplace anything. She supposed he was in a state of shock, just as she was. Her mind was only absorbing information in small increments. Perhaps this was her body’s way of protecting her from pain. The air in the car was stuffy; she lowered the window all the way. Her breathing had tightened. She tried to focus on ordinary things. A well-lit bus was trying and failing to make the tight corner. She watched as the driver turned the unwieldy wheels as far as he could and then inched forward until he realized he could not make it. He backed up and started all over again. An elderly man was walking a three-legged dog down the other side of the street. She couldn’t distinguish the breed, some sort of golden-haired hound. The two had matched their stride to one another. The animal loped surprisingly fast for having only a triangle for legs, its owner wobbled from side to side. At the corner, the dog stopped to crap, no dainty task for an animal missing a back leg. The man bent down and scooped the poop into a black plastic bag. The two of them continued on their way.

Gregg seemed to be taking forever. On her own, she couldn’t slow her thinking. As a student, she had excelled at perceiving patterns, at predicting the next number in a sequence, but now she couldn’t tame her associations into any form of logic. Could she return the case of size-zero diapers she had recently bought? What would she do with the white afghan her childhood friend Betsy had knit for Bean? Would it be weird to put it away for another baby? Was it delusional to think they would ever have another child? What would happen to her milk? Would her breasts hurt? What would she say if the woman she’d met in birth class ever called her? It would be morbid to put a tape on their answering machine saying what had happened. How would they tell their parents, her sisters, their friends, and her students? Her mother had been calling every day to ask how she was feeling. Her classes were waiting for her to stroll in with the baby; she had promised them she would. What would she say in the thank you cards she had not yet written for the things she had already been given? The clothes Gregg’s mother had sent were very expensive. Joy knew that because she’d left some of the price tags on. Could Joy send them back to her? Or would that appear ungrateful and maybe also rude? What would she do about her job? Would her time away still count as maternity leave? She realized it didn’t really matter what anything was called. But that is how we try to comprehend things, by naming them.

In her classroom, Joy stood at the blackboard and wrote the day’s date and lesson across the top. She always completed the sequence in the same order. Children liked routines. All those mornings she had loved thinking about the baby inside, the child preparing to come into their lives. Her students had begun to tease her about how fat she was getting. Just last week, she had introduced them to the substitute who would be filling in for her while she was on maternity leave. Before Joy had left yesterday, a few shy girls had come up to her and asked if they could feel her baby. She remembered their smiles, their astonishment at the strength of one of Bean’s kicks.

Joy looked down at her enormous abdomen protruding, almost touching the glove compartment. For the last couple of weeks, she had been too big to drive herself anywhere; the steering wheel cut into her belly. She wondered what Bean would look like, if she would even be allowed to see him. Would he be all shriveled up and blue, or red and mottled, covered with mucus and blood? The newborns she’d noticed on their tour of the hospital nursery had all been beautiful in their lumpy and distinct ways. Even though some of them had funny-shaped heads or matted dark hair that seemed greasy, they were glorious in their aliveness.

What she was most scared of was what their baby would feel like. Would he be like a pine plank, a dead weight? Would Bean have already deteriorated beyond recognition? The only deceased animal she’d ever seen was her kitten, run over by a snowplow. Her body had been frozen in the motion of trying to run away, a gruesome sight. At the time, her mother had scolded her for being morbid and asking too many questions, but she had wanted to understand everything about the accident, about what had happened. She wondered now if the nurses would think she was strange if she did not want to hold her baby. Could she just send him away, or would she then regret that decision for a lifetime? Were they supposed to bury him? She and Gregg did not have a will, let alone a burial plot. She’d heard of some second cousins who’d secured their place in the cemetery on a super sale, two for one. It was all well and good to make plans, but their pragmatism seemed both practical and creepy at the same time. Although she knew all living creatures would eventually die, she had never considered her baby might die before birth. Would she and her husband be allowed to take pictures of their child? If they could, would they even want to keep them?

She couldn’t fathom sticking them in the cheerful white-lace-covered album entitled Your Baby’s First Year that a colleague had given her as a shower present. Besides, Joy had never been good at keeping track of her photographs. Her closet contained several shoeboxes filled with snapshots documenting her late childhood and early adolescence. She and Gregg had few pictures yet from their marriage besides their expensive stash from the wedding photographer. A few weeks ago she had come across some images from their honeymoon to Paris. Her new husband had snapped an image of her balancing on one foot on the Bridge d’Alma and pointing to the Eiffel Tower in the background. The image had been blurred, grainy. Gregg had bought a new camera when he found out Joy was pregnant. He had experimented with it by taking pictures of his wife swimming at the lake.

The two of them had driven there together the previous September just after Joy had missed her period. No one else had been around. She had gone out early in the morning, when it had been cool but beautifully still. Her husband said she looked radiant and sexy in her black skimpy bikini, her stomach convex. They’d made love most mornings, and when it was dark, they had swum naked in the water. They had eaten blueberry pancakes doused in maple syrup for lunch. He had left his philosophy dissertation behind, and she did not have any grading waiting for her. In the brisk evenings, they’d built fires from the hickory and apple wood her father had spent the summer chopping. They’d cooked hearty dinners together and then gone to sleep early, a luxury for both of them. She’d felt strong and healthy and filled with love. When Naomi had explained how couples could sometimes find the months of pregnancy a strain, Joy had remembered how happy she and Gregg had been. If she were to look at the pictures of herself from these days, she was sure she would see someone for whom things came more easily than she had any right to expect. She began to cry.

Gregg was fumbling with the driver’s door, balancing the key and the pizza box. She reached out to help him, but was too slow. He handed her the box and she tried to hold it, but there was no room for it. Her belly crowded it out.

I’ll just put it in the back. As he did, the box tipped. Damn it! He got