Loss
By: Cary Bach Donahou
Tags: Pregnancy Loss, Narcissistic Abuse, Miscarriage, Narcissism, PTSD

I wanted a baby more than anything in the whole wide world. I was 18 when I first started to want a baby. I thought a baby would give me everything I needed. Then I could be a housewife and be taken care of while I took care of the baby. I used to throw away or flush my birth control pills in hopes of getting pregnant. I can’t even begin to imagine what a hopeless mess that would have created.

A few years later, when I was 21, just 4 months after getting together with Harry, I got pregnant. Harry had already gotten a friend of mine pregnant. I was in the narcissist love bombing stage so my eyes were only seeing the shiny happy pictures he was painting. We weren’t trying. It just happened. Or maybe he was trying. I have no idea. I was so excited, and I wanted this baby more than anything in the world.

My mom was definitely freaked out. Most of our friends freaked out. My oldest sister might have been happy, she was definitely supportive. My aunt told me to go have an abortion. Harry acted happy. His mom came into town, and he told her about my pregnancy but not about my friends’. His mom was over the moons crazy excited! She gave me/the baby a little stuffed animal. It was very exciting. I was really happy. I felt like I was going to have a family. A family I felt like I belonged to.

I signed up for medical assistance. I was given paperwork, telling me how far along I was and how big the baby was. It was a very happy and hopeful time for me. Looking back, I can see the signs that Harry wasn’t as happy as he was pretending to be. I couldn’t see them then though, I had stars in my eyes.

Just after meeting his mom and telling her the news, we went on a camping trip to Oklahoma. I put that tiny stuffed animal against my belly under the seat belt and day dreamed about how amazing our lives would be together. I wanted this baby so bad.

We get to Oklahoma with all our friends, and find mushrooms as we pulled onto our friends land. We knew there could be some, and that they had a good chance of being psychedelic because the land was being leased to a cattle owner who fed his cows grain. Mushrooms were collected and laid out in the sun to dry. I wasn’t sure I wanted to partake because of the baby, but Harry talked me into it. “It’ll be fine, native american women ate mushrooms all the time when they were pregnant”. Who was I to argue?

We all went exploring waiting for the “shrooms to kick in” and nothing happens. Apparently not magic at all and we’re pretty damn lucky we aren’t sick or dead.

So many red flags with Harry. But when you are with a narcissist, you just can’t see them. Harry was giving me everything I wanted. He understood me like no other, he loved me and did amazing things for me. He told his mom about our baby and not my friends. Looking back, of course I see. Not then though. Narcissists are really good at what they do.

During the love bomb phase with Harry I lived with my mom. Once we knew I was pregnant, he asked me to live with him and we found a small efficiency apartment. Somehow, It was me who ended up moving all our stuff over and carrying all the boxes by myself up to the second floor.

Harry still encouraged me to smoke pot, he was sure it couldn’t hurt the baby, and why would he lie? I kept smoking cigarettes, too. Harry was also all about rough sex, and he didn’t let up just because I was pregnant. In fact he felt we should try more things. I never went to the doctor, and I’m not sure if that was something Harry contrived or if my first appointment just wasn’t scheduled until my 3 month mark.

When I was about 3 months along, we were at a friends house and I went to use the bathroom. I had begun bleeding. I freaked out. He told me not to worry, it was probably nothing. “Just relax, it’ll be okay” He took me home and of course, to make me feel better, had sex with me. We are 7 months in now and the love bombing is almost over and the control is getting worse, but again… you don’t see it when you’re in it.

I continue to bleed and have a doctors appointment in a day or so. I go to the doctor. The doctor is really nice, and she gives me a pelvic exam and says, that I feel like I am just at the 3 month mark. She acknowledges the bleeding but says it can happen sometimes. She gets out the little dopler fetal monitor and can not locate a heartbeat. I know. I know and I can’t even think it. No, no, no, no. She tells me she wants me to go to the hospital so they can do an ultra sound. They will schedule it right now.

I walk back into the waiting room, and guess who is there? Oh yes, my friend. With her huge belly, carrying Harry’s son. And there’s Harry… sitting with her filling out all the questions on the paperwork that we just filled out together before I went back to see the doctor. I am crying. I am crying so hard and my whole world is crashing down around me.

The receptionist gives me paperwork to take with me to the hospital, Harry is asking me what’s wrong and I can’t talk. I can’t say there was no heartbeat and I know my baby is dead. I just tell him I have to go have an ultra sound, they can’t find a heartbeat.

On the way to the hospital he is telling me how awkward it was sitting there answering those questions with her, when he just did it with me and everyone is looking at him and judging him. He tells me that she just happened to change doctors and had an appointment the same time as me.

Yeah right. Another looking back moment, I bought it hook line and sinker then… not now. I bet that bastard had her switch doctors and be there at the same time. I realized later that he was abusing her just as he was abusing me. I found out he began having sex with her when she was 15 years old, he was 20. She was a victim, too.

I can’t even think, I am just hurting so bad. I know my baby is dead and there she was, with her huge belly. I can’t stop crying. We get to the hospital, we find where I need to be. I go back for an ultra sound, the technician scans on my belly first, and then switches to the wand that is inserted in your vagina (seriously invasive and triggering). She tells me nothing. I ask if she found the heartbeat, she ignores me and gets a doctor. The doctor comes in, he looks and moves the wand around. They share a look. All my hope is now gone, I didn’t even know I was still holding out hope. I ask what they find, they tell me I have to go back to my doctor. She will talk to me about it. I go clean up in the bathroom, there’s more blood.

I cry all the way to the doctor’s office. She is nowhere in sight. Maybe done and gone, maybe back with another doctor. I don’t know. I don’t care. This is before cell phones are popular, and we don’t have pagers… so nothing is blowing up. We are taken back right away. My doctor breaks the news as gently as she can. “There is no heartbeat, your pregnancy isn’t viable” I am so fucking sad and mostly numb now. I feel dead inside. My baby is dead inside me. I failed. She tells me about the DNC procedure I need to have and then advises that I should not try to get pregnant for at least 3 months after the procedure. Harry gets irate, “how can you talk about another baby right now?”

I think he is protecting me. Hardly that, I bet he felt relieved and the last thing he wanted was her to plant the idea of trying to conceive in my head. From there we head to another clinic to set up an appointment for the DNC. I am just crying. I can’t stop crying. My baby is dead and I am a failure and my whole world is gone. They tell me we won’t have the DNC for 3 days. What? You mean I have to keep my baby inside me?

He takes me home. And of course to comfort me, he fucks me. He fucks me while my baby is dead inside me and I am bleeding and I have been conditioned to never say no to sex. My dad sexually abused me and no one stopped it or saved me. I have been conditioned to believe my body is not mine and it is for the pleasure of others and here I am with a narcissist who is preying on me and my baby is dead, and he is fucking me and I wish I was dead, but I cling to the lies that he loves me because I don’t know what else to do.

Finally we go to the hospital for the DNC. I ask to be completely knocked out because I do not want to be awake for the procedure. I remember them wheeling me down the hall, and moving me to the table and placing one of my legs in the stirrup and then nothing.

I wake up in recovery and everything is confused. It takes me a little bit to remember why I am here and when I do it doesn’t hurt as much because a side of effect of being knocked out is that your emotions are numbed. I am taken to my room. I am told by the nurse that as soon as I can go pee by myself I will be allowed to go home. I pass out, then Harry is waking me up and trying to keep me awake. He wants to leave, so he won’t let me sleep and urges me to use the bathroom. I struggle but comply because he preys on my fear of being there and pretends it’s about me, not him. I go pee, I get discharged.

On the way home I ask for McDonalds. Harry says “okay, but don’t expect it all the time. I’m only doing it because you’ve been through a lot”. We are definitely moving from the love bomb stage to the controlling stage. Looking back, it’s really hard not to victim blame myself. Then I remember how I felt, and where I was mentally and I find my compassion again.

I was told I would feel better after the DNC and it does make a small difference. But, Harry doesn’t allow me to heal. We are supposed to abstain from sex for 6 weeks, and he is fucking me before it’s even been 2 weeks. I’m still bleeding. I bleed for 6 weeks and he doesn’t care. He just takes what he wants making me think I have no choice. He even acted like I was the one who couldn’t wait the six weeks. Part of a narcissists gas lighting.

During that time, he convinced me that the universe put us through all that just to make sure we stayed together. “because if you hadn’t gotten pregnant we would never have moved in together” He turned my baby’s death into a sign from the universe. “We were meant to be together” Harry convinced me that my baby wasn’t important, that my feelings were wrong. I never grieved the way I needed to.

I can now though. As soon as I saw you on the screen during the ultrasound I knew your name was Michael. I loved you so so much and I wanted you so bad. I am also so grateful you couldn’t stay. I will always love you.