Divine Intervention

            Pain wringing my guts; my insides twisting on themselves. Menstrual cramps augmented. I knew what it was, what the pain meant. The baby I didn't want, wasn't ready for, was planning to “take care of” was being evicted from my womb on its own. I walked from my rarely attended class back to the dorm. I tried to lie down, but lying still made it worse with nothing else to distract me. Pain, guilt, relief, and sadness submerged my mind.

            I shouldn't have slept with whoever last night. I shouldn't have smoked. Shouldn't have drank. . . But then I'd be keeping my appointment at the clinic next week.

            With my arms wrapped tightly around my middle, I slunk, hunched in agony, into the communal bathroom, thankful for its vacancy. I sat on the toilet in the middle stall, my uterine spasms coming in waves. I tried to pee, but felt a slide of thicker fluid before the urine would come out. Scared, but curious, I looked into the bowl and saw sunset colored water with a tiny mass sinking slowly to the bottom. A kidney bean imprisoned in a milky clear sphere. Relieved but broken, I flushed the toilet, hoping it was over.

            Two friends, I can't remember who, walked me to the campus health center. It had been an hour and neither the pain nor bleeding had stopped. My reflection in the mirror showed flesh as pale as the highlighted hair stuck to my face and neck. I described my symptoms to the doctor on duty.

“I don’t want to alarm you,” he said, “but you may have been pregnant.” His manner so soft and caring.

“I am pregnant, or I was,” I cried. “I thought you already knew. I'm in my second month. . . I was.”

            For years, I wished that I’d reached into the toilet, held my fetus in my hand for at least a moment. . . Or buried it—given it at least the treatment a dead pet would've received. Now, after more than a decade of trying not to get pregnant, I’m praying that I can, that the miscarriage doesn’t mean I can’t carry a baby to term. I’m praying, but with each negative pregnancy test, my faith is shaken. I hope that first non-attempt at life had just been God looking out for me, sparing me the regret of taking care of it myself. An intervention to spare my fragile mind.