The Longest Night

Thought for the Fortnight

I don’t write something quite so personal very often but I was moved to do so this week. This post is about the hardest decision I ever had to make.

I was 38 years old and had just had a miscarriage.

And then I had a significant phone call.

The miscarriage had happened on a Labor Day weekend. Not the most important fact at all, but it had stuck with me as a distinct irony. 

Back in 1980, 38 was considered very old to get pregnant. It’s hard to believe it now, but it was certainly the case then (maybe more like being 44 or so now). Best to have your children before age 35, we were told. After 40, it would be very hard indeed.

I had one child, then aged 11, and should have been satisfied. She was a lovely young person (still is but not so very young anymore), brought a lot of delight and very little disruption to our household – and I wanted another one. That seemed very reasonable to me. Many, if not most, of my friends had two or even three children.

We hadn’t been trying for ten years. During the first three or four, there was no question. My husband was a busy academic, still finding his feet. And I was both working (part-time) and beginning a PhD, so I couldn’t see adding a new baby to the mix. Indeed, I was very, very tired.

And then I started to want another baby, but we weren’t sure – and time went on.

Wanting a baby, as any woman who has been through it will attest, is a heavy number. It’s not in your head, but in your heart – and in your gut, too. You just want it. You want it more than anything else. And my first child had come quickly – two months after trying – so I sort-of expected the same result.

Thinking about adoption

By the time I had passed the age of 36 and we had been seriously trying for some time, I became concerned that it just wasn’t happening. Month after month. Nothing. I continued with my work. I continued with my PhD and even gained it.

But what I really wanted was a baby, another child in the house.

My husband and I decided if we couldn’t have a baby of our own, we should think about adoption. It was a real possibility in those days. You probably wouldn’t get a completely newborn baby, you might even get a troubled child who had been through some difficult experiences, but it was possible.

IVF did not exist back then, although it was soon to become common.

We applied to the local Social Services Department and went through the many hoops required. Lots of interviews with a social worker, questionnaires to fill in, checks of our health, of our marriage and even a group meeting with other potential adopting parents. We passed.

It was just a matter of time.

Pregnancy

And then, miracle of miracles, I became pregnant. I knew immediately because I was very sick. Very little stayed down, especially in the morning. But you can live with that when it is in a good cause.

We were thrilled. Perhaps it was me more than my husband, but he was certainly happy for me. Contrary to much normal practice these days, we told everyone. Much surprise. Everyone assumed that with my doing a doctorate, I was finished with having babies. Probably some people thought it was a mistake.

But I glowed through it all.

We had travelled to the US in the late summer to visit my parents and enjoy the peacefulness of the northern Catskill Mountains, where they had a house. I always liked it there. It was early September and the leaves were beginning to turn.

And then, at ten weeks or so, I began to bleed. It was on a Saturday night when no doctor was available. My father drove me to the nearest hospital, about half an hour away. A kindly doctor found that the foetus was no longer alive and looked after me well.

Such a shock. I couldn’t stop crying. I had no special ‘connection’ to that foetus. I couldn’t mourn his or her passing, but I mourned my hopes for a baby at this late age.

We returned to the UK with some considerable sadness.

The longest night

Which brings me back to the phone call.

It was mid-afternoon three weeks after the miscarriage and two weeks after our return. I was at my desk, writing something. Our social worker – oh, yes, the social worker who I hadn’t yet told of my pregnancy, never mind the loss – was sounding very happy.

There was a newborn baby girl in the hospital very near our house. She was the child of two medical students who didn’t feel they could cope. Three couples were under consideration as potential adopters and we were one of them. How did I feel? She asked me to discuss it with my husband and reply the next day.

Of course, we talked for ages about the pros and cons. He said in the end he would go along with whatever I decided. And then he went to bed.

And how DID I feel?

There it was, what I had wanted and never expected to get, a newborn baby girl just waiting for me. No drug problems. No emotional difficulties from a period of instability or worse. Just newborn. And a girl, which we mildly preferred.

We were unlikely to get such an offer again.

But, but, but. Things had shifted. I was still coping with the loss of the baby inside me. Was I ready to move so abruptly to the new role?

And as I had been pregnant, presumably I could become so again. Perhaps. But it could take another three years by which time I would be well over 40.

I weighed the issues in one room until my head hurt. I went to another and tried again. After a while, I couldn’t think of any more issues to raise, any more permutations to toss into the pot. Just a decision to be made.  I have never been good at making decisions and I wasn’t any better then.

It was a long night. The longest ever. I went to bed, completely worn out, at about 4.00 am.

I had decided it was just wrong. I was still too affected by the death to be ready for life. And I was too aware of the possibility of getting pregnant again, difficult as that seemed. I didn’t want to adopt and then become pregnant, leading to two babies close together in age. (Yes, we would have coped if it happened, but it was not the desired outcome.)

I phoned the social worker in the morning and told her about my pregnancy and about my decision.

In the end

I can’t leave you there, dear readers. It was over 40 years ago and obviously life continued.

What happened is that after a few months and a lot of worrying, much to my pleasure and surprise, I became pregnant again. I knew in February and our son was born in the autumn when I was a few months short of 40. He was healthy and fine and we were delighted.

We finally had two children in the house. A little odd as family configurations go, but still two children.

And years later, when he was in his twenties, this son said to me casually, Mum, I hope you don’t mind my asking, but I was an accident, wasn’t I?  An obvious question, given the long age gap. He had probably thought so all his life.

No, I said, you were very much wanted. We tried very hard to get you.

As I have said before, I love getting comments. Perhaps this story will stimulate you to add your own experiences of trying for a baby or adoption or some other solution. It is certainly an emotional subject. Even writing about it now brings out a slight ache.

And if you are by some chance moved to donate to a homeless charity where all payments go (and where this very son volunteers), I would be enormously grateful for a paid subscription.