ADVENTURES IN NURSING

I’M WHAT?

I was 43 years old when I began my two-year nursing program.  I was engaged to a perfectly nice man, and he and his two youngest daughters lived with B and me in our gigantic old farmhouse.  He also had four adult daughters who lived on their own, and I had my two sons.

A couple of months after my 44^th birthday, my suspicions were confirmed when my at-home pregnancy test was positive.  It was stunning news.  The fiancé and I were very careful in regards to birth control.  We had six kids between us, the youngest being my 11-year-old son.  Babies were not in our plans, but there you have it ... the best-laid plans. 

I wasn’t thrilled about this development, but abortion was not an option for me.  I just couldn’t even consider it emotionally.  I realized I was going to have to come to terms with the pregnancy and adjust my life accordingly.  That would necessitate speaking to my nursing instructors to find out how this would impact my place in the program.  I wasn’t looking forward to that.

I informed Mrs. B1 on our next clinical day.  Since I hadn’t yet been to an obstetrician, we had no idea how things would play out.  I assumed I would be high-risk due to my age, but was generally healthy overall.  I couldn’t really make any decisions about continuing school until I had talked to a doctor, so we left it at that.

It was about a week later that, while getting ready for school one morning, I noticed I was spotting.  I was a little alarmed, since I’d never had that issue in my previous pregnancies.  I considered keeping it to myself, mainly because if I didn’t talk about it, it wasn’t really happening.  Yeah, I was that deep into denial.

Ultimately, I did mention it to B before we left for class.  Since I wasn’t having any other symptoms, we decided to go on to class and see how things went.  Unbeknownst to me, B called her sister after we got to school, and her sister called the ER of the nearest hospital, just to find out how concerned we should be.  Midway through class, I got a phone call from B’s sister, telling me that I probably needed to go to the hospital immediately, to find out what was going on.  Now I was scared.

After a thorough exam at the hospital, the kindly nurse let me know that I was, indeed, very possibly losing my baby.  My fiancé took me home with orders to stay on complete bed rest for the next few days, in the hopes that my condition would improve.  It was not to be.  After two days of severe cramping and continued spotting, I lost the baby.

I was devastated.  I had already chosen a name for what I was sure would be my daughter.  My fiancé had chosen a name for what he was sure would be his son.  My hormones were off the charts.  I had to go back to the hospital and have a D & C, a most unpleasant experience.  All in all, it was pretty traumatic.

Even now, all these many years since, I sometimes stop and think about how my life would be different if I’d had that baby, who would be 22 years old this year.  I still think of her as Molly Marie.