In 1989, I had been married for five years, toured South America with my Colombian husband, Orlando, we had recently purchased our first home and I was working in Sonoma County, California as a restaurant manager. If someone was looking from outside our marriage, you would think it was a good time to have a child. I was pretty intent on my career and wanted to rise to the position of General Manager at the time.  Out of the blue (and completely unplanned), I found out I was pregnant.  We had been using the rhythm method for birth control but regardless, Orlando assumed that I had been unfaithful (in hindsight this is a harbinger of his own infidelity) but I was astonished that he would accuse me. So, there I was 28 years old, pregnant with an unexpected child and a husband who had immediately suggested I get an abortion. This was incomprehensible to me.

I was very fortunate that my parents lived a few miles away from our 3-bedroom home in Windsor. I decided that husband or no husband, I was having this baby.  I had always wanted to be a mother.  Orlando must have come around to the idea because he ended staying and we soldiered forward into this new uncharted territory.  There were all the prenatal visits, the ultrasounds, and the sound of the heartbeat of my growing child. At about sixteen weeks, I started wearing maternity clothing and announced to my co-workers that I was expecting. In the state of California, it was mandatory to have an AFP test along with other prenatal tests.  I was surprised at about 18 weeks of pregnancy to receive a phone call that my test was abnormal and that I would need a special ultrasound at the Kaiser hospital in San Francisco (about an hour away).

My mother and I vividly remember that car trip to San Francisco.  Orlando was studying for his citizenship exam and we quizzed him on the thirteen original colonies and the constitution.  I was pretty confident that it must just be a false positive and that the ultrasound was just a formality. As with any prenatal ultrasound, I had to drink plenty of water beforehand, so by the time we arrived for the ultrasound, I was bursting to go to the bathroom and I recall having the first symptoms of high blood pressure. I remember having to walk up a hill (no surprise in San Francisco) but I had to stop several times and I started to see stars (just like the cartoons of my youth). 

I remember being in a dark room during the ultrasound as slowly more and more doctors came in to view the ultrasound.  Did I mention that this was my first pregnancy?  I had no idea what was on the ultrasound.  I couldn’t make out a thing. No one was speaking. Fortunately, they let me go to the bathroom before they brought my mother, Orlando and me into a small consulting room. They said that the placenta didn’t have enough amniotic fluid and that the fetus was not normal.  It’s all a blur in retrospect but they said they could try and add fluid to help the fetus develop although in all likelihood that if I kept the baby to term it would need a lot of care. And there was the issue of my blood pressure which was 200 over 120.  There was no way to know if I would survive carrying the baby to term. Mike drop.

I remember sitting there calmly asking questions trying to get my mind wrapped around the situation.  Tears were rolling down my face as I tried to weigh out the options based on the information they had at that moment. They needed to take blood for an HCG test which, if it was astronomically high, would point to a partial molar pregnancy and would indicate that I would have to end the pregnancy. My mother was a retired medical technologist and she warned the doctor to be sure to dilute the sample.  This in retrospect was very important as it quickened accurate results. From there, they sent me home.  Home to uncertainty as what was coming next.

The test results made it clear that it was indeed a partial molar pregnancy. This was before Google and WebMD. I do know that they told me that it was one in a million pregnancies.  As I researched this today it’s .0005% of pregnancies.  This arises at fertilization when two sperms implant one egg.  Instead of 46 chromosomes, the fetus has 69.  I remember having to wait a week until we traveled back to San Francisco for the surgery to end the pregnancy.  Kaiser had to find a specialist to do the procedure and they brought a doctor from Stanford who had performed this delicate surgery for this extremely rare condition.

When I was admitted it was in September of 1989.  At the time the Supreme Court had narrowed the rules of Roe v Wade in July of 1989.  I remember asking the resident who was inserting laminar tents (dried seaweed used to expand the cervix), if this procedure was still legal as I was then 20 weeks pregnant. He said it was but that he would do it regardless to save my life.  I don’t think I realized how serious my condition was up until that point. 

Right before the surgery, they told me that there was a chance I would lose my uterus and my ability to have children in the future. A horrendous turn of events from an unexpected pregnancy, to a wanted pregnancy to having no choice but to give it up and potentially, my ability to have children in the future. There was also the outside chance, I would lose my life.  The most poignant moment was my husband crawling into my hospital bed the hour leading up to the surgery. 

I remember waking from the surgery and only being concerned with still being able to have kids.  Fortunately, my uterus was intact but it would take a year of birth control and testing to assure the doctors that I was ready and able to safely get pregnant. There I lay in a step-down unit for a week. 

Post surgery, my husband and I escaped to the east coast to visit family and friends.  There in Jamaica, Queens was my newborn nephew, my husband’s brother, Oscar’s child, Jackie.  My mother-in-law could not understand why I didn’t want to hold the baby. It was so painful.  The last thing I wanted to be around was a newborn baby.  I held that guilt for many years although I am happy to say that Jackie is a terrific adult and cousin to my children and doesn’t bear any scars from my rejection. 

Perhaps because partial molar pregnancies are so rare, or my own ignorance, I never marked the date of the loss or gave the baby a name at the time.  A grief counselor called me about a month after the loss and I was just trying to shut the whole experience out of my life.

It was about thirty years ago when I finally named that child who never had a chance.  Their name is Angel because the sex was not able to be determined.  I have a Christmas porcelain ornament with a cherub looking up to the sky.  That’s my Angel. I light candles in churches all over the world for that Angel.  I learned that grieving Angel’s loss was an important step in my recovery from alcohol.  To sit with the pain of such a heart wrenching decision and to let grief take over and then, slowly, evaporate over time. I grieve the potential of what would have been a 34-year-old sibling to my two children.  The greatest gift that Angel gave me was the clear desire to be a mother and the knowledge that I can love something so deeply.  I will carry Angel in my heart for a lifetime.