the view from the other side of the fence...

My friend kellee blogged about something that reminded me of a time in my life that I had put away in the old memory banks. I have never really talked about how I felt then, even to Marty. So, since this is my journal so to speak, let's haul it all out for inspection.

When I got pregnant with Elizabeth, I was working as a teller at a bank. It was a easy job, something I didn't appreciate then. Unlike insurance, where I go home at night and worry about what I didn't do, or what I have screwed up, or who the heck is going to sue me, the bank closed at 5:00, and by 5:10, I had forgotten all about it. As long as your drawer balanced, and mine usually did, you had done your job.

Just like most jobs, you get close with the people working next to you in the teller window, and the customers that come in every day. I was so excited about being pregnant, and this kind of job is wonderful for people like me who like to focus on one thing and obsess about it constantly. A customer would come in and ask how I was doing, and I could complain about the morning sickness, and the constant peeing, and how I had an ultrasound coming up, and they would give me encouragement and tell me about when they were pregnant, and then it would start all over with the next customer that came it. It is the joy and torture of living in a small town. Especially one where Marty grew up and now fights fires in, where his dad is one of the main mechanics in town, and his stepmom works at the only investment firm. They all know me.

By June, I was four months pregnant and starting to show. I kept the perfect ultrasound picture I had gotten of Elizabeth in a silver frame in my teller window. For some reason, most of my customers thought that it was hysterical that I did that.

Around that time, one of the other tellers, (lets call her Megan) announced that she had taken a pregnancy test, and it had come back positive. We were all excited, and she and I talked about babies and pregnancy quite a lot there for a couple of weeks. She finally had her first appointment, and planned on coming back to work afterwards. I was excited to hear how it went. It was fun to share that kind of stuff with someone going through it the same time as me.

However, she called and said that there was a problem and she might not make it back. Nothing too alarming, but she would explain it all when she got back.

The next day she told us that she went for her appointment and her doctor found something odd when he measured her, and sent her over for an ultrasound. Ends up, she was not 6-8 weeks pregnant as she had thought. She was approximately 6 and a half months along. She had been getting her period like clockwork every month and never had any morning sickness so she had no reason to suspect anything. She had been feeling movement, but with no reason to suspect anything, she thought it was the rumbly gas feeling that you sometimes get.

There was a little more to be worried about though. In March, she had anesthesia to have her wisdom teeth cut out. Around that same time, she noticed she was gaining weight, and started taking diet pills. She drank alcohol at parties. She was on the pill. She didn't know that she was pregnant, and lived life as most of us do when we are young and not pregnant. I must explain that she was a smart woman, that she wasn't some confused 19 year old. I think she was around 25, and was working her way through college, married, happy. She just had no reason to suspect she was pregnant.

The news sent a bit of worry throughout the bank. She insisted that everything was fine, the baby was a girl, and had a strong heartbeat and the ultrasounds showed no abnormalities. Her doctor put her on a special high calorie, high protein and vegetable rich diet. It was unbelievable how her body adjusted once she knew that she was pregnant. Within a month, she was bigger than me. We were all surprised at the change. She was having bi-monthly ultrasounds to monitor the baby's growth. Time moved on.

On September 8th, we had an after hours baby shower for her. They had asked if we wanted a joint shower, but to be honest, I was a bit resentful at how her pregnancy had taken center stage. I didn't want a joint shower, we were not having twins. I wanted my own shower. Call me bitchy, I guess that I was. But there it is.

So we had a shower, and she got a ton of awesome gifts. I was excited to see what all she got, since I was also having a girl, and knowing that people would not want to show favoritism, I assumed I would get many of the same things. It was fun. We had cake and we all laughed and cut up, and then we all went home.

The next morning, she was scheduled to work at a different branch than me. We got a call from her branch supervisor at 8:20ish that said that she had come in and was complaining that she had awful indigestion from the food at the shower, and felt like she was going to have to throw up. Her stomach was cramping. The supervisor asked if her cramps were coming at regular intervals, and said that a dawning came over her face. Surely not. Surely this isn't labor?? They told her to go on to the hospital and at least get checked out. We got a call about an hour later, that yes, she was in labor.

The next call came around noon. I knew something was up immediately. My branch supervisor worked in the window next to mine and they called her window. I remember vividly her saying, "OH!! Have you heard anything?" and then she went completely silent. I could see she was crying, and she hung up without saying a word and left her window. Within minutes, they started calling the other tellers to the back, one at a time. They called me last. Megan's baby was stillborn. It seemed that a blood clot had traveled down the umbilical cord. Megan was in danger at that moment because they could not stop her bleeding, and they were going to have to go in surgically and try and stop it.

I was horrified and scared. I wanted to go home, but I couldn't because we were already shorthanded. Plus the word was spreading, and customers were coming in and asking questions. Even asking me what had happened, and would Megan come back to work, and how was I holding up. It was a horrible day. Megan pulled through, but she was in the hospital so long that she missed her baby's funeral.

It worked out that Megan was off for 8 weeks, and the week she was scheduled to come back, I got put on bedrest. I didn't have to see her until I came back to work from maternity leave in January. Here is where you get to see the spoiled person that I am inside, I suppose. For although I ached for her loss, and know that what she went through was a thousand times worse than what I did, I still want to get this out.

The bank never had a shower for me, and it made me angry. It made me feel that the loss of her child caused the joy of my child to be diminished. There was no reason to NOT have a shower for me, because Megan was off work and would not know of the celebration.

When I came back to work, no one asked to see pictures, unless we were in the breakroom, while Megan was working. No one asked how Elizabeth was doing, or how I was doing. It broke my heart. This was the happiest time in my life and I could not talk about it. And even if a customer who didn't know what had happened with Megan asked me a question about my new baby, I would feel that I had to whisper, that I needed to make sure she didn't hear me talk about how my 2 month old was already sleeping through the night, and eating like a pig, and had the most beautiful red hair you have ever seen. I felt ashamed for having a healthy, happy, beautiful baby. It sucked. My ultrasound picture had long since been taken home, and I didn't feel that I could put up a new one of my precious baby. Instead of saying that I had to be off a certain day for her checkups, I would just quietly mark "Need off at 10" on the schedule chart.

This went on for nearly a year, until Megan quit the bank. She said it was time to make some changes in her life, and she left. I have never seen her again. I have no idea what happened to her, if she had more children, finished her degree, or if she is even still in the state. But the damage was done. I was used to not sharing my motherhood, and it continued. I still didn't talk about Elizabeth much at work. If I said anything about her, I would still feel a bit of latent guilt. I felt like my talking about her brought Megan and her little girl back to the minds of the people around me. It was a hard time.

I guess that is all I wanted to say, just that this kind of tradgedy is hard all around, and does affect the lucky ones, too.