The Promise of Spring

The Promise of Spring

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In the fall, parchment leaves were windswept around the double doors. Taking a breath, I pulled one open and entered the brick building.

I sat in the waiting area—surrounded by pictures of babies, pregnant women whose hands were cups protectively over their expanding wombs, and a video depicting proper prenatal care.

Tears stinging my eyes, I buried my face in my book (The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey), trusting the portal of fiction to transport me from the reality that my heart was still raw from my miscarried child.

In the winter, I carefully – oh, so carefully – minced across the salted sidewalks and saw the ice sparkling along the eaves of the brick building.

In the lab, they drew my blood and capped the vials. I went home and the next week I returned.

My husband came with me, and together we held hands—our toddler cocooned between us—as we watched the once-blank screen blink with promise.

Jubilant, I hugged the midwife in the hallway. Then she led me into the examining room. I sat on the table Indian-style, and we talked more about how well everything looked.

Then her smile disappeared, and the room’s atmosphere changed. I felt the life drain from my face.

She showed me the bleeding’s measurement on the tiny tape and reassured me that—though I was to be cautious—everything would probably be healed by my next appointment.

At home, my husband watched our daughter, and I went for a walk with our dog, skirting the patches of ice like they were kryptonite.

I allowed myself to envision how this earth would look in two months—redolent with newborn blooms and loamy soil and water running fresh from once-frozen streams.

Would my womb still beat with a promise come spring?

It seemed—despite my yearning for faith, for trust in a Creator who had breathed life into these unfurling cells—that fall’s cradling of death was stronger than any winter reassurance.

For five weeks, I braced myself for the worst even as I fiercely embraced my unborn child.

For five weeks, I would begin to run, leap down off a counter, or lift my daughter from her crib and pause, fearing what I had inadvertently done to the placenta stitched to the wall of my womb.

Then—day by day, hour by hour—the long hard winter passed. The ultrasound revealed an acrobat of a baby who made me laugh even as the salt of relief trickled from my eyes.

The hemorrhage had healed.

On Tuesday, I spotted a patch of daffodils to the left of the brick building’s double doors and marveled how the beginning of spring always seems to coincide with the beginning of new life.

I pulled open the door and sat in the waiting area—watching the mothers come and go and feeling such love for them all.

And yet, I did not want to forget the loss so that I could always empathize with the grieving.

I did not want to forget that urgency to love as I stood in the shower, cupping my flat stomach, and interceded for that heartbeat of my child.

I did not want to forget the hallowed joy in midst of the pain.

The nurse led me to a yellow room with a picture of a flower on the wall. I lay back on the examining table, waiting for the doctor, and read my book (The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd).

And as I lay there, I felt—in my womb—the flutter of new life . . . of the rebirth of hope, of spring.