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 The Day I Almost Let Go

A pregnancy and suicide story

My husband’s face was filled with concern. We had been married for a little over nine years. I was thirty-one. He was about to turn twenty-nine. We weren’t younguns anymore.

The doctor was back in the recovery room packing me with gauze again. He had come in so many times, I had lost count. We had been there for over two or three hours which he expressed was much too long. The nurse was frantically prepping things and bustling about her counter.

I was aware of my surroundings. They had given me an epidural and some anti-nausea meds, the common slew. I had just had my fourth daughter prematurely in an emergency cesarean, and I was about to be allowed to go home after having been put on bed rest at home, to bed rest at the hospital. The next day would have been my two week mark with no spotting and was going to be allowed to leave.

Two weeks prior, I had woken up in the middle of the night and something felt wrong. I couldn’t explain it. So, I stayed awake and waited, listening to the house, hoping to not hear anything.

Momentarily, I felt the gush and realized I was anticipating the wrong thing. I had a placenta previa, the placenta was covering my cervix, and was thirty-three weeks pregnant. This was bad. I had already experienced spotting.

I could be losing the baby.

I tried to grab my husband’s arm firmly but not frantically. I wanted him awake and helping, not awake and frozen with that “oh shit” feeling. I told him I was bleeding and needed to get to the hospital. The shock hit him in his lethargy and he quickly composed himself, dressing and helping me to the bathroom.

Soon, we were on our way riding the speed limit. With the children safely watched by family, my husband called ahead to the hospital.

* * *

I hadn’t lost my daughter that night and we hadn’t lost her this time either. I had awoken again, except this time my children were several miles away with my husband, and I was in an uncomfortable bed with a belly monitor strapped to my stomach. They had been keeping track of her this entire time and she had been doing great.

I hit the emergency call button and informed the nurse of the bleeding. I could hardly count to ten, and she was beside my bed ripping back the sheets. She worked quickly and systematically, preparing me for surgery and getting my husband on her phone. It was clear, the bleeding she saw had crossed a line.

The surgery went fine though. My daughter, just under thirty-five weeks came out over six pounds and breathing. It was my first cesarean. Afterwards, I continued to bleed and bleed and bleed. My cervix was raw from all the packing. After having been in recovery a while, I had begun to get cold. Cold in an uncomfortable way. I typically love the cold but this morning, it had cutting edges.

I was so tired. I reasoned this was normal. I had woken up somewhere between one and three o’clock in the morning. What time was it anyway? And, why were they taking so long? Couldn’t I just be taken to my room for a nap and a blanket?

And then, it clicked. I was losing too much blood. I began to let my eyes close a little longer each time I blinked. The edges of the cold began to soften. I could relax and began playing with that idea. I could just stop. I could let go. I could quit trying. What if God didn’t really exist anyway? He certainly didn’t seem to be here or anything else for that matter. I felt peacefully alone.

I had toyed with this feeling in the past. I had experimented with cutting as a youth. I had several suicide attempts under my belt. A few years back, my husband had to practically break the door to the bathroom to get to me, where I was quickly adding another couple of pills each time I swallowed. There may have been two of these incidents. My brain is a bit fuzzy on this point.

My parents hadn’t known I was practicing suicide when I lived at home. I tried cutting. I wasn’t quite sure how hard to press the blade. I wanted to die but didn’t want to torture myself in the process. It seemed I was balancing cowardice and practicality at a reasonable age. This was a normal problem like picking the right icing color for an baby announcement cake.

It wasn’t though. Instead, I began taking so many weight loss pills, I was getting my dosing times mixed up. I randomly passed out at work. They would find me on the ground in the back room. And, in case I got hungry and caved to a Snickers, I had bought epicac in the infant section for those accidental poisoning moments. I was done with trying to throw myself down bleachers and chairs. I was going for a full breakdown and be thinner in the process. I’m not sure I knew what I wanted all of this to look like, it was just the direction my fall leaned.

I had grown up in a rough family but none of my friends knew . . . none. We moved too often for anyone to catch on. My father had been in the Air Force and we changed states every two to four years. They all suspected something fishy about my quiet dad and my over protective mom but not about me.

I graduated with honors and a cord and a letter and all that. I was a top ten percenter, I think. It doesn’t really count for anything now, other than twenty year-too-old bragging rights. I played flute in band and orchestra, and played on the junior varsity soccer team. I had straight A’s and used my study hall class time to help in the mentally slow or disabled classes. I had enough credits to graduate at sixteen and was the vice whatever to our school’s creative writing magazine. I had a part time job that liked having me there. And last but not least, I was a praise and worship leader. I attended my church every Sunday service, Monday for praise practice, and Wednesday night bible study.

No one freaking knew.

I didn’t flat line. My heart never stopped. Instead, I was experiencing a subtle stepping back from life and, pleasingly, it wasn’t uncomfortable.

I heard my husband saying my name in a tone that inferred I was deaf or hard of hearing and that somehow speaking this way would miraculously awaken my ears and eyes. Someone at the other end of the tiny room was shaking my legs by my ankles. I opened my eyes out of sheer annoyance and decided to “try” though getting a rest from “trying” was so tantalizing. Life was hard. It took effort and decisions and shit. If my children weren’t here, I don’t know that I would have made that choice as flippant as it was made.

They wrapped me with a long tubular blanket which looked like stretched air packing pockets in your Amazon box. I began to feel heat. The nurse was holding a yellow baggy trying to quickly hang it on my i.v. pole.

The doctor explained he couldn’t get the bleeding to stop. I was getting frozen plasma and needed more surgery. We didn’t have much time to make this decision.

We had three options. One, he could do a hysterectomy. He would remove my uterus and I would no longer be able to have children. Two, he could do an endometrial ablation. He would burn the inside of my uterus with hot liquid inside a balloon, rolling it around. Third, he could do a uterine artery embolization which they hadn’t done at this hospital. For this, he would have to call special techs to come from a nearby city. While the techs would be rushing, they would have to keep monitoring me, keep me filled with blood, and keep me breathing.

“I need you to keep your eyes open, Jennifer! Don’t go to sleep, Jennifer!”

This was my doctor’s and husband’s mantra as they readied me for the procedure. My husband never let go of my hand.

Maybe this doesn’t sound so scary and maybe it’s really not.

But, I know. I know that for the next couple years, I wouldn’t drive anywhere alone for fear I would drive off the road or that I would allow the oven trays or the sides of a boiling pot to “accidentally” touch my skin a little longer than I ought. It was always a mistake. After all, I was clumsy.

It’s been nine and a half years since my loss of the fear of death. My husband is no longer an evangelist. I am no longer a christian and had two more children. I want to reassuringly add that at this juncture I am not suicidal.

I don’t intend to be either.