Ring of Fire

“I fell into a burning ring of fireI went down, down, downAnd the flames went higher

And it burns, burns, burnsThe ring of fireThe ring of fire”

             Johnny Cash

An extensive trilogy about a brotherhood of men searching for a ring bore a legacy of role-playing, merchandise, and a massive fan base. Perhaps it was irony that drove Tolkien to send a group of men on a quest for a ring in a world where only women are required to search for the ring—while men should avoid it like the plague.

This is one of the stories we are programmed to believe. Another story is that motherhood is a natural part of every woman’s path. The story we aren’t told is that the path to motherhood has many roads, traveled more or less. You can feel that you do not want to be a mother, or that you want to be a mother to only one child. You might get pregnant easily, without medical intervention, or need medical assistance. You might choose to end an unplanned pregnancy or decide to keep it. You might experience a smooth 40-week pregnancy ending with a quick delivery and a healthy baby—or you might suffer a miscarriage or a stillbirth at any point in the pregnancy. You might feel depressed about the outcome, or you might feel relieved.

I walked a few of those roads, not knowing at the time that I wasn’t alone. All because of the stories we are told and the stories we believe we should tell.

I Am an Older Mom

Giving birth to my first child at 37, in a country where childbirth is praised as a woman’s greatest achievement, was downright discouraging and invasive. Everywhere I went, my title was “geriatric pregnancy,” with complete disregard for the person I was, alongside my growing belly.

The plus side of being an older mom was that I thought I knew a lot about pregnancy and delivery from friends who were already parents.

Or so I thought.

I’ve heard so many women, myself included, say, “They didn’t tell me this would happen” about pregnancy’s physical and emotional experiences. The truth is, they did tell us. Many honest women spoke about feelings of love and loss, happiness and depression. But it’s like trying to explain a bungee jump to someone who’s never looked out a window. No matter how many truthful stories we hear, the most dominant narrative—the one we see in media, hear from our mothers and grandmothers, and learn in health class—is the same: sex leads to babies, motherhood is in our nature, and pregnancy is wonderful.

So we learn as we go, from other women, the internet, and medical professionals.

I only learned that ovulation determines the window of conception when my best friend got pregnant at 26. I learned that Western medicine counts pregnancy by weeks, not months, when another friend got pregnant. I discovered we create a whole new organ—the placenta—when I got pregnant at 36. And I only learned about the “ring of fire”—the most painful part of delivery when the widest part of the baby’s head passes through one of the narrowest parts of the body—when I gave birth at 37.

At 39, I learned about all the ways a pregnancy can end early.

My Loss and My Loneliness

My loss was an unusual one. I had a missed miscarriage: when the embryo stops developing in the early weeks, but the body doesn’t recognize it and continues the pregnancy process. For me, it wasn’t just a medical term. I became that baby’s mother the moment I saw the two blue lines on a scorching August morning, and I was still that baby’s mother when the technician couldn’t find the baby on the screen. I will always be that baby’s mother because I was the only person who felt the baby live, even if just for a few weeks.

I had never heard of a missed miscarriage before.

For a week, I carried the knowledge that I was no longer pregnant, but my body thought otherwise. Then the flood began—gushing blood, huge clots, contractions, more blood. I felt like I had no body, no muscles, no bones, no eyes, no hands. I was a ghost.

I bled through my pants, sheets, and mattress. A friend brought me adult diapers. I thought I had another 40-50 years before I’d need those.

Not Alone, Yet So Lonely

As I slowly processed the trauma, regaining a sense of my body, I began talking to girlfriends and female relatives. None of them knew this could happen. Yet most of them had experienced pregnancy loss.

At 39, after losing my pregnancy, I finally learned I wasn’t alone. So many women experience this devastating loss.

Even now, I stare at my belly when my old jeans don’t fit and break down, crying over the loneliness of this empty road to motherhood. The hardest part is that I already have a child (for whom I am eternally grateful). This makes me feel like I’m not allowed to grieve.

I hope to see more of these experiences portrayed in film and TV. I hope more women will talk about them. That is the only thing that truly helps.

As my particular experience is a rare one, I wish I took this hit for all the women in my life.

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