Part II: Devastation

“I don’t know how to warn you for what I’m gonna say, ‘cause you’re holding too tight to what I’m taking away. I’ve got demons inside me, so I’m faced with a choice, either try to ignore them, or I give them a voice.” – Mike Shinoda

My eyes remained transfixed on Melissa's as I desperately tried to comprehend what she had told me. "What does she mean 'I'm bleeding,'" I thought. I pulled my gaze away from the sea of blue-green staring back at me and frantically traced the outline of her body looking for any signs of injury. No broken skin, no puddle of crimson collecting on the floor, no applying of pressure to any one spot on her body. After a moment, my eyes met hers again. She looked concerned. "Like, while you were cooking or...?" I ask, still unable to fully grasp what she had said.

"No," she responded, "I'm bleeding. Like I'm on my period.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. "Well, is that normal?" Probably not that. I didn't know what else to do with that information except try to find a reason for bleeding that didn't end in heartbreak. "Like, does that happen?" Turns out Melissa already did some research, and, yes, it can be completely normal. It can also indicate the beginning stages of a miscarriage because women's biology is essentially one giant practical joke. Melissa told me that she called the nursing hotline on the back of our Kaiser card, and that she was told not to come in unless there was significant bleeding. "Isn't all bleeding significant at this point?" I asked.

"Well, I'm spotting," she responded, "so I guess if I start bleeding more..." She was nervous. I was nervous, but we couldn't let that show.

"Look," I said in an attempt to be reassuring, "the internet said it's normal to spot, and the nurse told you not to come in. I'm sure it's fine." ...I wasn't sure it was fine, but what else could I say? Freaking out wouldn't help, and honestly, if the unthinkable was about to happen, there wasn't anything that the doctors could do anyway. All we could do was hope and wait to see what happened next. We continued through the rest of the week, business as usual. Melissa kicked ass at school, I performed adequately at work; everything appeared normal. But just below the surface of our inoffensive pleasantries was that undercurrent of uncertainty. Melissa kept spotting, and while the amount of blood never increased, we couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen.

And something bad did.

Seemingly overnight, it was Friday. At that time, Melissa and I didn't see each other on Fridays. I would work until 5pm, get home at 6:30pm; she would leave the house by 2:30pm and get home a few hours after I knocked out for the evening. On days such as these, we would normally relegate our conversations to her lunch break. Around 7, she called me up, same as any other night. That night, though, there was something uneasy in the air. Melissa sounded a little off… As she regaled stories about code-greying on this patient and about how another literally shit the bed, there was a trembling in her voice. "Is everything okay?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "My stomach's been upset all night."

"Well maybe you should just come home," I responded, half joking. It wasn't out of the ordinary for one of us to try to get the other to play hooky. I was woefully unprepared for her response.

"Yeah, I might have to." I felt a pit beginning to form in my own stomach. What you need to understand about Melissa is that she does not call off of work for anything. In sickness or health, rain, sleet, snow, brightest day, darkest night, Melissa will be at work. Her arm could spontaneously fall off of her body and she MIGHT be a little late; she loves what she does and is wholly dedicated to the people that she serves. She didn’t deserve… The fact that she was even considering coming home early gave me cause for concern.

Melissa worked the rest of her shift, and my anxiety subsided marginally. I suggested that Melissa call the after-hours number on the back of the Kaiser card, but in true Melissa fashion, she declined. "I'll be alright," she assured. And for a moment, I was reassured. Pains happen, stomach aches are common. If Melissa said that she would be fine, I didn't have a reason not to believe her.

But then came Saturday.

We spent the morning snuggled on the couch, watching the Toy Story marathon that was part of FreeForm's 25 Days of Christmas. The longer we sat, the more intense Melissa’s pain became. She was in agony. I suggested that she call in sick, knowing full well that she would ignore me and start getting ready for work. Instead, she muttered the scariest words that I’ve ever heard her speak. “Yeah, I think you’re right.” The pit in my stomach returned. I guess we should have known then, but we both thought that this would pass. Melissa just needed a day off of her feet. Honestly, aside from the immense discomfort Melissa was feeling, the day wasn’t bad. We blew up the air mattress and threw it on the ground in the living room, personifying the concept of lethargy. We ordered and consumed any and all junk food we could, and watched as Andy’s toys wandered from one shenanigan to another. Had Melissa not been doubled over, holding her stomach, everything would have appeared fine.

“Maybe you should take some medicine?” I suggested.

“No,” she responded without hesitation. “I don’t want to risk hurting the baby.” Such is the cadence of a good mother. In about a week’s time, Melissa had given up caffeine, started working out and had begun her prenatal regiment of horse pills to ensure that our child would be as healthy as possible; she wasn't about to risk anything over a little discomfort.

“Okay,” I said, “well maybe you should call the nursing line again; see if there’s anything that they recommend.”

“I’m okay,” she said. “I’ll get through it.”

As the opening of Toy Story 3 began to roll, Melissa got up and went to the bathroom. And again. And again. I didn’t ask if she was alright, I figured she would tell me if something was wrong. And in her own way, I guess that’s exactly what she did. “What’s the number for Kaiser?” she asked. I got up and grabbed my card and dialed the hotline for her. Melissa held her ear to the phone and again, went to the bathroom. Melissa was placed on hold when her body started to convulse. She felt her temperature rise and fall as her body tried to make sense of what was happening. As her nails dug deeper into her knees, she quietly sobbed to herself so as not to cause me any distress. Melissa heard a loud *PLOP* as she gasped for air, reaching out for any salvage in this unbridled tempest.

Of course, I didn’t know any of this at the time. I just laid there and hoped that she would be able to make it through... whatever it was she was going through. Eventually, she came back and told me she 'passed tissue.' I, James Brock, smartest of smart assess with a quip for all occasions, fell mute. I didn't know how to respond. Truth be told, I didn’t even really know what that meant. Euphemisms. She came and sat next to me, as silent as I was. I was able to muster a single sentence: "I think you need to call the doctor." Brilliant, Brock. Really. Top-shelf advice. 

“I know,” she responded. Melissa grabbed her phone, stood up, and walked into the other room. I could still hear her side of the conversation. She couldn’t speak more than a couple of words without having to fight back a sob:

"Hi, I'm… I was… I’m pregnant and... I passed tissue. No... No I didn't... It’s better now… It still hurts though… Okay, thank you… Oh wait, what time…? Okay, thank you." Melissa came back, staring perplexed at her phone, tears drying on her cheeks.

“Is everything okay?” I asked. “Was the dude okay?”

“Yeah, he was nice but… He asked me if I saved it..."

"... Like... in a Tupperware?" I asked just as perplexed.

"I guess that's a thing? I don't know..."

"I mean... Maybe we could have put in a to-go box…"

"Or wrapped it in a foil swan or something..." she said, sitting back down next to me.

"What else did he say?"

"He said to go to Urgent Care tomorrow morning to get checked out."

"Do you think you're still pregnant? I know you said you passed tissue but..."

"... No, I'm… It came out. I saw it," she said, desperately trying to hold it together. I paused for a long time.

"What did it look like?" I asked, not sure I really wanted to know.

"It kinda looked like... You remember Dart from Stranger Things?"

Oh, THAT painted a word picture. We sat and watched Woody and the gang head to the incinerator. I remember being relieved that they weren’t watching Up, and hoping that this time, the toys wouldn’t be rescued. We were a week away from the second trimester. I knew my newt-looking offspring was nothing more than a small mish-mash of cells, but that didn’t matter; I became infuriated with a God I don’t believe in. I didn't get to say good-bye. Like so many pet goldfish, our future son or daughter was flushed unceremoniously down the toilet.

"So... what do we do now?" I asked.

"They told me urgent care opens at 7am tomorrow."

Melissa and I knew there was no way in Hell we would be able to commit to waking up that early. 10 would be fine.

After a restless night of remorseless nightmares, we woke up and headed to Kaiser, unsure of what to say to each other. Small talk didn't seem appropriate but neither of us felt comfortable bringing up the tragic events of the prior evening. We were mostly quiet, listening to Sweet Child O' Mine on the radio because that's our fucking lives. We arrived and I asked Melissa if she was ready. Shockingly, she appeared in good spirits as she assured me that she was doing fine. We walked down the hallway as the buzzing of the florescent lights above added an undesired soundtrack to our grief. We approached the counter and were greeted by THE CHEERIEST FUCKING RECEPTIONIST I have ever met. Like, if Buddy the Elf and a Care Bear had a well-groomed offspring, it would be this fucking guy.

"HI WELCOME TO KAISER, HOW ARE YOU TODAY?" We're in fucking Urgent Care, is that a serious question?

"Hi," said Melissa, in a much less asshole-y tone than I would have, "I'm... I was pregnant and passed tissue." And guys, you should have seen the look on his face. It's like he found out that SPOILER ALERT Santa Claus isn't real and his puppy didn't actually go to live on a farm, simultaneously. It was glorious. That's what you get for trying to be a decent human being, I guess. I was surprised by Melissa’s aplomb. Here I was, ready to either break down crying or take a swing at someone. Yet Melissa, who had just suffered this unbearable, painful, physical trauma the night before, floated through the hospital like a pensive angel. I didn’t understand. Maybe I was too focused on my own pain.

As far as waiting goes, the initial before the call back was pretty quick. We were shown to an exam room seemingly immediately, which scared me a little cause... you know, triage and shit (don't pretend like you don't watch doctor shows). Melissa was asked to disrobe and was provided a blanket, and we waited for the doctor to come in. Delirious from the emotional pain, we started joking with each other about whether we could have had sex in the time it took the doctor to get there, how cold she was since she was going full Donald Duck in an exam room, and whether she would feel more or less comfortable if I shirt-cocked it along with her. Anything to distract us from what was going on. The doctor finally arrived (plenty of time to bump uglies) and I stood in the corner, trying to make myself as small as possible… trying to hold on to whatever strength I had left, because I had a feeling Melissa was going to need it.

Now, I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe I thought the doctor would subject her to some sort of ultrasound or palpate her tum-tum. I was hilariously underprepared for the doctor slapping on a pair of gloves and rooting around for the remnants of our unborn child. “You’re going to feel some pressure,” said the doctor in a heavy Indian accent. Melissa grabbed my hand and braced for the worst. If desperation and hopelessness were physical manifestations, they would be everything that I felt in her grip. With every increased ounce of pressure, I could feel more and more of my own heart shattering into pieces. I could do nothing to stop the pain. There were no words of comfort to offer, nothing to stop her tears, no defense against the unrelenting cataclysm. Nothing, but the ever growing sense of devastation as I was slowly being ripped apart from the inside. All I could do was squeeze back. With her free hand, Melissa covered her face and began sobbing, her mask of calm finally slipping to reveal the shattered person inside. I did everything I could to stop myself from joining her.

The doctor removed her hands from inside my wife, threw away her glove, and patted Melissa on the cheek.

"Don't worry,” she said, “you're still young."

*Deep Breath*

Ladies and gentlemen! I would now like to take this opportunity to present for your reading pleasure: a tirade.

Melissa and I have been together, all told, about 8 years, depending on when you start counting. In that 8 years, Melissa and I have done some things. Terrible things. Gross things. Great things. Biting, kicking, scratching, slapping, pushing, pulling, pegging, the Tequila Sunrise, the Alligator Fuckhouse, the Ol' Gusty Winks, the Radiator Operator, the Goddamn Hoot-Hoots, the #3 Combo with Rice and Sour Cream, and the Vietnamese Spinning Fuck-Chair. Enough to keep things interesting, not so much to make us cry in the shower to wash away the horror. It's a fine line to walk and we've handled it deftly.

Yet not once in our 8 years together, ladies and gentlemen, have I thought about Kermit-the-Frogging my wife, taking some of her own bodily fluids, and MARKING HER LIKE THE FUTURE KING OF THE GODDAMN SAVANNAH! Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking you if that's your jam. If you need to call your partner Rafiki while Circle of Life plays in the background in order to achieve sexual gratification, more power to you. Hakuna Matata. But I'm willing to bet that even you, my freaky friends, would concede that there is a time and a place for such an event to occur, and that the time is NOT in an Urgent Care exam room after just being told you lost a baby. The doctor is lucky I needed my good county job, otherwise her loved ones would have never found the body.

Dr. Dickmouth asked us to go across the street to have Melissa be ultrasounded, which... couldn’t we have started with that?! We needed to make sure that there were no leftovers of the kid floating around somewhere, as that could lead to emergency surgery or worse. Perfect! We're already going through the worst day of our fucking lives; having Melissa butterflied on a table would have been just the perfect way to end the day. The doctor left and Melissa regained her composure. I suppressed my knee-jerk reaction to be hilariously dark; I didn't want to risk saying the wrong thing and watch the woman I love fall to pieces again. Fortunately, I didn't have to do any of the heavy lifting and Melissa reminded me exactly why we ended up together.

"Well," she said, "at least I'm still young."

"Dude!" I responded, "Where did that even come from?!"

"I don't know, maybe she counted the rings while she was in there."

"She didn't even wash her hands before she seal-slapped you with your own goop!"

"Gross! She was wearing gloves!"

"So do proctologists, but if one was full-Muppet inside of me, I'd have them wash up before high-fiving them."

"You're sick," she said, feigning a smile.

We passed by Buddy the Fucking Elf on the way across the street to ultrasound. "How'd it go?" he asked.

"You know, not great,” said Melissa. I saw the compassion in Buddy’s eyes that I had somehow missed before.

“Well, I hope that it gets better for you,” he said. At least he tried.

As we walked across the street we felt gravity slowly begin to intensify on our increasingly weary bodies, and as we got closer to ultrasound, the pure horror of what we were going through started to set in. We found fewer and fewer things to say to each other, until finally we made it into the building.

"HI! WELCOME TO KAISER, HOW CAN I HELP YOU?!" screamed an overzealous receptionist. For the love of all that is unholy, you work in a hospital; learn to read the fucking room.

"Hi," I said, resisting the urge to slap her, "we were sent over from Urgent Care." The receptionist asked for Melissa's name and we gave it. We couldn't see the information on her desktop, but the slow realization and subsequent look of remorse told us that she knew exactly why we were there. Even if it didn’t, I’m sure it was written on our faces. Her voice, barely a whisper:

"Go ahead and have a seat. We'll call you back shortly." We sat in the smallest, most nondescript waiting room I've ever been in. I remember a clock on the wall and a lot of muted colors. We sat and listened to the ticking of the clock, each of us trying to harden our hearts to the trauma. Every breath was agony, and I wasn't sure if I would be able to exhale without letting loose a sob. We grasped each other's hands as we silently stared into the beige abyss...

"HI THIS IS TIFFANY WITH KAISER! JUST A REMINDER THAT YOUR ULTRASOUND IS SCHEDULED FOR NEXT TUESDAY AT 2PM! BRING THE FAMILY BECAUSE YOU'LL BE ABLE TO FIND OUT THE SEX OF YOUR BABY!!!!! HAVE A NICE DAY!!!!!"

Melissa and I refused to make eye contact. Each knew what the other was thinking, but we couldn't risk a glance for fear of saying something truly dark and terrible-

"HI THIS IS TIFFANY WITH KAISER! JUST A REMINDER THAT YOUR ULTRASOUND IS SCHEDULED FOR NEXT WEDNESDAY AT 10AM! BRING THE FAMILY BECAUSE YOU'LL BE ABLE TO FIND OUT THE SEX OF YOUR BABY!!!!! HAVE A NICE DAY!!!!!"

I mean, she just checked us in. I understand she has a job to do but- 

"HI THIS IS TIFFANY WITH KAISER! JUST A REMINDER THAT YOUR ULTRASOUND IS SCHEDULED FOR NEXT WEDNESDAY AT 12PM! BRING THE FAMILY BECAUSE YOU'LL BE ABLE TO FIND OUT THE SEX OF YOUR BABY!!!!! HAVE A NICE DAY!!!!!"

Would it have killed her to wa-

"HI THIS IS TIFFANY WITH KAISER!"

Goddamnit! I finally looked over at Melissa who may or may not have fractured a rib from the pure strain of trying to hold in her laughter. "Did we get hit by a car on the way over here?" I whispered, holding in my own laughter. "I feel like we died and went to literal Hell." Before she could let loose a giant guffaw that would no doubt have gotten us kicked out of the hospital, Melissa was called back for her ultrasound. We walked down a Kubrickian labyrinth of a hallway, and I found myself lost in my own thoughts of hospital architecture. Eventually we arrived at the machine.

"Sir," said the nurse in my general direction, "you can go ahead and wait here." She gestured to a bench in a separate waiting area, as far from the machine as it could possibly be while still technically being in the same building. I looked at Melissa, who gave me a 'we don't have the money to bail you out' look. She looked terrified. I sat on the bench.

I stayed as still as I could and slowed both my heart rate and my breathing in an attempt to listen for any signs of distress. I don't know what I would or could have done if I had heard anything, but it at least gave me some illusion of control over this runaway freight train. I waited; completely cognizant of my situation and realizing that there was nothing I could do. I sat and I fell deeper and deeper into my own sunken place. Unable to move. Unable to breathe.

True helplessness.

After what seemed like hours, though realistically was probably only a few minutes, Melissa emerged from the room. She looked pale, and somehow less than she looked before entering. Again, I found myself speechless. "Was the stuff cold on your belly?" I mustered.

"It wasn't like that,” she said flatly. “She took a probe and stuck it inside me." I didn’t ask her how she was feeling. I knew the answer.

"So what did they say? Are you... are we in the clear?"

"I don't know,” she said. I heard something in her voice. I thought it was anger, but I couldn’t be sure. “She said we had to talk to the doctor."

"Well that seems shitty," I responded. Bitch just pulled a Trent Reznor and felt Melissa from the inside; how hard would it have been to tell us whether or not she had baby bits floating around in there? We began our trek back to Urgent Care. "Are you hungry?" I asked. "I didn't know it would take this long, I’m starving."

"You know me," she responded. "I’m always hungry." The Urgent Care was significantly more crowded than it had been a mere half-hour ago. "Fuck this," I said. "I’m going to get McDonalds before I kill and eat one of these patients." McDonalds was the only thing around and I figured we already felt like shit; McDonalds couldn't make us feel much worse.

So there we sat in the Urgent Care waiting room, eating our Mickey Ds like a couple of little nugget goblins, surrounded be the ill, caught somewhere between laughing our asses off and crying our eyes out. The doctor called us in, looked at the chart, and said: "Yup, no baby." Super. I'm sure she probably said it in a more medical vernacular, but it doesn't matter. The message was the same.

I drove us home while Melissa sat, slumped against the car door. She looked defeated. My mind raced as I tried to fathom what the next few days and weeks would look like. Christmas was right around the corner and a wave of dread enveloped me. "We have to tell our people." I said. Melissa remained silent, I took that as a sign to continue. "People are excited for us, which means that they’re going to want to buy us clothes and toys for...” I couldn't say it. Not yet. "I just don't know that I can survive that."

A deafening silence filled the car. I could see tears starting to collect in Melissa’s eyes… Only they weren’t the same eyes that greeted me earlier that week. The sea of blue-green had been replaced with now a cold, pale blue. She spoke without turning to me:

"I’m supposed to be able to do one thing. My whole purpose in life is to be able to create life; to be a mom. What if I can’t do that? Who am I then?” You’re my wife. You’re my partner. You’re Melissa Fucking Brock. All acceptable answers under normal circumstances, but instead, I said nothing. The question wasn’t directed at me, and if I’m being honest, I wasn’t sure that the person who watched Toy Story 3 with me less than 24 hours ago was the same person riding in the car with me now. So instead of trying to reassure or minimize, I put my hand on her knee and kept my mouth shut. “I don't think I can survive it either," she said. I had almost forgotten the question I asked.

We got home and texted our folks. My parents said they wished they could make the pain go away. I told them I didn’t want to talk about it. Her parents asked us to let them know if there was anything they could do. She thanked them.

We collapsed on the couch, exhausted, and held each other while Rory curled up next to us. We cried and laughed and cursed until our tears ran dry, our laughter was lost in the echo, and the deities had long stopped paying us any mind.

There was nothing left to do.

Nothing except to prepare for work the following morning.

-James & Melissa