all hollow's eve

blood poured from me, filling the toilet at a rush i knew was just too fast. i screamed for him. and he came, held me, comforted me, told me it would be all right. blood streamed and i squealed, knowing things were going wrong. clots feel, plunked, and the splash resulting was far too loud. hovering, shaking over a bowl to catch the contents of my clenching uterus, i landed blackly on him and couldn't remember where i was when i woke fuzzily into dots and the wool that covered his stomach, his voice ringing in my ears, ambulance, ambulance, ambulance.

and then, naked, i was on the floor and they were rushing up the stairs in their royal blue superhero suits, iving me, strapping me to a board and covering the blood long enough to hoist me down the stairs into their wailing batmobile while he stood behind them and watched sadly, helplessly as i, barren, cried.

she told me about her husband as we wailed down the street, past pausing cars, inducing curiosity in everyone who saw. she made me laugh, and, with each chuckle, i expelled another chunk of flesh, another enormous gush of blood.

through the double doors and past more staring eyes into a room where i was left, alone, with the nurse who thought nothing was happening, who explained she'd done this nine times herself and that i probably didn't need to be treated in the er just because my baby had died. it happens ALL the time.

women end up hollow.

there's no bandaid for that.

he was next to me when the first grapefruit came and i thought it was my baby appearing hotly between my thighs. he tried to stop the tears then peered beneath the sheet and the gasp he released when he saw my rejection will never disappear.

he was holding the pink bean basin beneath me, watching it overflow, blood run down the bed when they rushed in and decided something should be done. and fast. and she, curtly, for being chastised, addressed me as if the crisis were my fault, as if i'd willed the stream. ivs 123 in me and he with his steady hands fishing with forceps around in me. right at the os, he said, the pregnancy was right at the os. waiting for me to exhale, let go. and all the many clots filling up the toilet, now the sink, my blood my body my baby all of it preparing for disposal.

but his extraction was not enough and they rushed me to the or, made him wait outside, undressed and drugged me, held my feet in stirrups because i couldn't make them move, searched and scrambled, scraped my insides. and brought me to in a clean gown without blood on my sheets, without a shred of baby on my bosom. and he, there, trying to answer my questions through the muffling mask and i, woozy, ripping at the plastic to get it off my face so i could make sure all parts remained intact.

and then they let him back. he smiled and stroked my hair. and said it was over.

but it wasn't over then. it wasn't over when i went to the floor to recover with all the new moms and their wailing, perfectly pink babies. it wasn't over when they discharged me to the car in loaner scrubs to replace my bloodied clothes that they'd cut from me. it wasn't over when we went home and she came, stomachached from worry, needing to know her mom was going to be all right, mourning the loss of the younger one she's yearned for all her life. it wasn't over when the next few days felt like death inside my head every time i stood, moved, breathed. it wasn't over when i called them and told them i needed that baby, but they couldn't see beyond infection control. it wasn't over when he retrieved it, formaldehyded and purple, mangled and anything but babylike and we placed it in its cardboard coffin, decorated lovingly with markers by his wouldbe big sister who swore she loved him so. it wasn't over when we searched for the perfect place and, sun setting behind us, kids running around us, dug with our fingers wet with falling tears into the cold, wet ground under the dropped leaves until there was a hole big enough for a spider, big enough for a fallen nestling. and it won't be over when the red tulips dance above him in the spring. pill-popping wife and mommy now trying to cling to reality, trying to prevent herself from landing on the traintracks, trying to fill the hollow when everything seems empty, trying to make it end like he said it would when all warm, red parts of me scream that this, now a part of my collective history, will etch my soul forever.

knocked up part three: it's a constant continuum, and the episodes flow back into each other, each echoing something of a gain and a larger, resounding loss. it will never be over.