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Kiera’s continued silenceis making my skin crawl. I try to talk to her, but her responses are in one- or two-word phrases that sound so brittle, I’m surprised her tongue isn’t shredded. We’re waiting on Dr. Segal to come into the exam room. It’s not the same one we were in a mere four days ago. The table sits on a different wall but otherwise, it looks identical. I only notice because it’s hard to look at Kiera as she sits on the edge of the exam table, staring at her clasped hands.
When the nurse explained about getting undressed, she kindly held out a thick pad to her. “If you’re still bleeding, just press this between your legs until Dr. Segal comes in.”
I had expected we might be in for a bit of a wait, given that they worked us into his schedule, but we’re in the room barely ten minutes before the door pushes open.
His expression is not grave, but it is worried. I rise from the chair and move to Kiera’s side. I hadn’t felt welcomed there when she got up on the table, awkwardly trying to hold that pad in place while she navigated it. I wanted to pick her up, cradle her, gently lie her down and help get her situated. Hell… I’d have held that fucking pad for her so she could just lie back and rest.
Her vibe told me she’s closed off in a bubble that I won’t be allowed near, but now that Dr. Segal is here, fuck keeping my distance. I place my hand on her lower back.
The doc comes to stand before Kiera, his hand grabbing hers for a comforting squeeze. “I understand you had some bleeding and cramping?”
She nods. “Bleeding first. Then some cramps that got worse, then they stopped.”
He doesn’t ask her how much blood. Doesn’t ask her how long the cramps lasted. Doesn’t ask me what I saw in the toilet.
Instead, he pats her shoulder. “I’m going to do the same vaginal ultrasound we did the other day, okay?”
Kiera nods and Dr. Segal smiles at her. As she reclines, he cuts me a sympathetic smile before turning to wash his hands.
Gloves donned, he moves his stool to the end of the bed and repeats the same procedure as the other day.
There’s no giddy feeling of anticipation.
Just oily dread.
It feels like it takes hours, but truly, it’s only a minute or two. Kiera doesn’t even look at the screen but I do. I stare at it hard, hoping to see that little bean I saw the other day.
Something appears on the screen, but it doesn’t look like what we saw before. Dr. Segal taps a button on the laptop and holds his hand still.
Finally, he pulls the wand free and sets it aside on a metal tray, deftly covering it with a surgical towel. He snaps off his gloves and looks only at Kiera. “I’m sorry. You’re in the process of miscarrying.”
Kiera nods, her eyes dry and lifeless. I stumble back a foot and only hear bits and pieces as I try to comprehend that our lives just shifted a hundred and eighty degrees again.
Prolapsed gestational sac.
No heartbeat.
Incomplete miscarriage.
Dilation and curettage.
“I’m going to send you over to the hospital to get you checked in. You’ll be sedated and—”
“Wait! What?” I exclaim, rejoining the conversation.
“She’s going to need a surgical procedure to clean out the remaining tissue. Otherwise, it will cause an infection, which can be very dangerous.”
“So, the baby’s gone?” I ask, still not sure I understand what’s happening.
“I’m very sorry.”
Images of Kiera and I this morning flash through my brain and while they’d ordinarily be a turn-on, I think I might throw up. “Did I… this morning we… did the miscarriage happen because…”
I can’t even get the words out, but Dr. Segal patiently waits. I scrub my hands over my face and laser my eyes onto the doctor so I can judge the truth of his answer. “Kiera and I had sex. It was a little fast. Did I…”
Dr. Segal shakes his head. “No,” he exclaims. “Absolutely not. You did nothing to cause this. Miscarriages at this early stage are unfortunately not uncommon. Ten to twenty percent of women will miscarry for no good reason at all.”
I trust his words, but they offer no relief.
