One year since the fall of Roe.

Some personal reflection.

In 2015 I had a miscarriage at more than 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The decision to have a D&C was between me, my husband and my doctor.

It sure as shit didn’t include my “local elected official.”

It was an incredibly difficult, dark and painful time. I had not planned that pregnancy, but I absolutely wanted that baby. I already had my son and my daughter, and I began imagining what gender the third baby would be. Would my Abbie get a little sister? Would Leo get a brother?

I had always wanted a little girl named Ella - after her paternal grandmother, a wonderful woman who would often joke that she should have married a Kennedy.

Oliver if it were a boy, after the Lebanese name Zeytoun on my own father’s side.

My marriage wasn’t in a good place at all. Constant fighting brought on by so many factors, not least of which was that I found myself alone with two toddlers for weeks at a time while their father traveled all over the world for work. I was tired and perpetually stressed in the way that only being a stay at home 24 hour a day 7 days a week mom to two toddlers can make one feel. As just about any mom (or dad or parental figure in the same situation) will tell you, that shit is hard. But I personally wouldn’t trade those days for anything in all the world. Those were MY babies. They were my little miracles. And as much as they drew on the walls, or cut off the cat’s whiskers (yeah, that poor cat), no matter how many play dates I had to sit through trying to make that god awful small talk you HAVE to make during those things, I would do it all over again in a millisecond if I could.

I knew that having a third baby wasn’t exactly ideal. I knew it wasn’t going to make my troubled marriage easier. My husband didn’t want the baby, he had made that abundantly clear. Given that, coupled with a house that was too small, a budget with no room in it and everything else, I knew it would be a challenge to say the least. But I also knew that I wanted it anyway. And so I began to get excited.

I was going to have another baby.

Things were going normally and progressing as they do. The early tests were fine. I was once again craving Pop’ems donuts and once again couldn’t even so much as LOOK at a lobster without hurling.

I started to think it was a girl. I hadn’t been sick with my son, only my daughter - and I was feeling sick all the time with this one. And so, I began putting clothes aside. If Abbie had outgrown it, I knew I should save it for her sister. I would carefully set those clothes aside, imagining my new baby girl in her big sister’s clothes.

I had a standard ultrasound scheduled. That morning before I left, I got into an argument with my husband about something, I can’t even remember to be honest what it was about. He had always accompanied me for ultrasounds. He had always held my hand as I held my breath until the doctor would come in and tell me everything was fine. But he said he wasn’t going to go with me that time. It gutted me. But I forged ahead anyway. I would do all of it alone if I had to dammit.

They say you should watch the faces of the flight attendants during turbulence on a plane. If they look calm, nothing is wrong. If they look worried, something is definitely wrong.