By Natasha Julius

On September 17, 2014, I went for a routine 8-week prenatal check-up. It was the only routine thing I would do for more than two months.
During this time, I e-mailed a small group of people. Some were aware of the pregnancy, some had plans with me that would need to be broken, and still others simply asked after my health on the wrong day. This is the eighth of 11 such messages. They have been edited to remove identifying information and inside references, but otherwise remain largely unchanged.
November 4, 2014
Dear Friends,
Don’t concern yourself – the title of this post (“Trending Down”) is not a reference to my mental state. It is, rather, the way the midwife described my hCG levels. In the two weeks after the D&C the measure of pregnancy hormone in my blood dropped precipitously from more than 16,000 to just 78. As of last Friday it was down to 26. At that level, I might get a weak positive on an old-school home pregnancy test. Anything less than 5 is considered non-pregnancy level and zero is the target.
Zero is the target because of a consultation my midwife had with the pathologist. While not 100% ruling out the possibility, the pathologist does not feel there’s a need to be concerned about molar pregnancy at this point. If this seems like comforting news to you, you should probably stop reading now because the truth is that nothing has changed for me. I still have to have weekly blood tests until the magical level is reached, and although it should only take another week or two it could take longer.

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Posted on January 29, 2015

By Natasha Julius

On September 17, 2014, I went for a routine 8-week prenatal check-up. It was the only routine thing I would do for more than two months.
During this time, I e-mailed a small group of people. Some were aware of the pregnancy, some had plans with me that would need to be broken, and still others simply asked after my health on the wrong day. This is the seventh of 11 such messages. They have been edited to remove identifying information and inside references, but otherwise remain largely unchanged.
October 25, 2014
Dear Friends,
Yesterday was my two-week post-operative checkup. The good news is that everything appears to be in order. I’m healing and generally feeling much better.
And now for the great news. After the D&C, the products of conception were sent to a lab for analysis. One of the standard screens is to rule out a rare complication called a molar pregnancy. I urge you not to Google this as it will make your brain explode. Basically, in a molar pregnancy the cells that should develop into the placenta instead turn into small cysts. There are two kinds of molar pregnancy: a complete mole, in which no normal cells remain; and a partial mole, in which some cells appear normal and others are not. The initial screen ruled out a complete mole, but was inconclusive on the possibility of a partial mole. So the pathology lab will perform a second screen.

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Posted on January 28, 2015

By Natasha Julius

On September 17, 2014, I went for a routine 8-week prenatal check-up. It was the only routine thing I would do for more than two months.
During this time, I e-mailed a small group of people. Some were aware of the pregnancy, some had plans with me that would need to be broken, and still others simply asked after my health on the wrong day. This is the sixth of 11 such messages. They have been edited to remove identifying information and inside references, but otherwise remain largely unchanged.
October 20, 2014
Dear Friends,
After my surgery on the 10th, I was told I should feel myself again “by Monday.” To be fair, my caregivers did not specify which Monday. As of this Monday, I am finally starting to feel that things are under control.
Although recovery has been neither as quick nor as straightforward as I was lead to believe, it has never felt out of context. I understood that my hCG level, which had almost tripled in a short space of time, would likely change rapidly. Last Monday I was treated to several hours of mild-to-moderate uterine contractions; imagine the garage doors of Fresno slamming shut in waves. This was no more uncomfortable than what I felt after my first pregnancy, the key difference being that after my first pregnancy I had a beautiful baby and was awash in a fragrant bath of happy love hormones that made it very easy to ignore what was happening in my abdomen.

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Posted on January 27, 2015

By Natasha Julius

On September 17, 2014, I went for a routine 8-week prenatal check-up. It was the only routine thing I would do for more than two months.
During this time, I e-mailed a small group of people. Some were aware of the pregnancy, some had plans with me that would need to be broken, and still others simply asked after my health on the wrong day. This is the fifth of 11 such messages. They have been edited to remove identifying information and inside references, but otherwise remain largely unchanged.
October 11, 2014
Dear Friends,
Yesterday I had surgery to end my pregnancy. It involved a lot of nurses, all of whom were very kind and sympathetic; two anesthesiologists, who asked me almost identical sets of questions; and one obstetrician. By luck of the draw, the obstetrician was someone with whom I had consulted early in my first pregnancy. He encouraged me to meet with the practice’s midwives, which lead to a very positive birth experience. I remembered him being very respectful and straight-forward, an impression that was reinforced yesterday.
In preparation for surgery, I was told to fast completely for eight hours. That meant no food or drink, not even water. I hadn’t realized before yesterday how much water I’m accustomed to drinking in the course of a day. By the time I checked in at the hospital I was extremely thirsty and calculating how much longer I’d have to wait for a sip of water, and how much of that time I would spend unconscious. The receptionist asked me when I had last had food or drink. The first nurse asked me when I had last had food or drink. The second nurse asked me when I had last had food or drink. Both anesthesiologists asked me when I had last had food or drink. Apparently it’s important not to eat or drink.

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Posted on January 26, 2015

By J.J. Tindall

CHICAGO
I created myself
From a dank creek.
A fusillade of selves, really,
Self-made and re-made
From an orgy
Of trade.
Jerusalem and Gomorrah,
Giza to Gaza,
Gargantuan Ozymandias
Of stacked prairie mud.
Steel shoulders,
Digital loins,

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Posted on January 24, 2015

By Helene Smith

If only.
(ENLARGE FOR PROPER VIEWING)

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Posted on January 23, 2015

By Natasha Julius

On September 17, 2014, I went for a routine 8-week prenatal check-up. It was the only routine thing I would do for more than two months.
During this time, I e-mailed a small group of people. Some were aware of the pregnancy, some had plans with me that would need to be broken, and still others simply asked after my health on the wrong day. This is the fourth of 11 such messages. They have been edited to remove identifying information and inside references, but otherwise remain largely unchanged.
October 10, 2014
Dear Friends,
When preparing for surgery, the best thing you can do is explain it to a four-year-old.
This is the conversation we had at dinner on Wednesday:
Me: So, sweetheart, on Friday I’m going to go to the hospital and a doctor is going to help get the embryo out of my tummy.
Daughter: Aw. I thought you were going to say a baby.

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Posted on January 22, 2015

By Natasha Julius

On September 17, 2014, I went for a routine 8-week prenatal check-up. It was the only routine thing I would do for more than two months.
During this time, I e-mailed a small group of people. Some were aware of the pregnancy, some had plans with me that would need to be broken, and still others simply asked after my health on the wrong day. This is the third of 11 such messages. They have been edited to remove identifying information and inside references, but otherwise remain largely unchanged.
October 7, 2014
Dear Friends,
I realize to my chagrin that some of you are too young to remember the Challenger disaster, but for those who do – particularly those who were in grade school at the time – you were probably huddled near a TV screen that day, possibly in your classroom. We were supposed to witness a marvelous mix of the extraordinary and the mundane; an ordinary school teacher launched into space, tailor-made for a month’s worth of lesson plans. But that’s not what we saw, and those weren’t the lessons that were taught.
Imagine if, after the violence of that explosion, a chunk of the wreckage still managed to make it into orbit. And, being a well-engineered piece of scientific equipment, imagine it continued to beam signals back to Earth. Nothing intelligible, just random beeps and static, but sometimes strong enough to interfere with terrestrial electronics. Imagine all of the garage doors in Fresno opening and closing at random; container ships steaming in giant circles; surface-to-air missiles locking onto non-existent targets. What would you do? Would you wait for the signal to die out slowly, hoping the nuisance never rises to the level of a second disaster? Or would you launch an expedition to find that rogue chunk and deactivate it?

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Posted on January 21, 2015

By Natasha Julius

On September 17, 2014, I went for a routine 8-week prenatal check-up. It was the only routine thing I would do for more than two months.
During this time, I e-mailed a small group of people. Some were aware of the pregnancy, some had plans with me that would need to be broken, and still others simply asked after my health on the wrong day. This is the second of 11 such messages. They have been edited to remove identifying information and inside references, but otherwise remain largely unchanged.
October 1, 2014
Dear Friends,
Once again I apologize to those who are only hearing of this now. To recount the circumstances to each individual would require more energy than I have, so a group e-mail will have to suffice.
When I last wrote, I had received confirmation through bloodwork that my pregnancy is not viable. I was told there are three options in terms of how the pregnancy will end: the natural option; the pharmaceutical option; and the surgical option. My midwife, at the recommendation of a consulting OB/GYN, suggested a second, more detailed ultrasound scan to determine the feasibility of each option. That scan was performed on Friday.
There is no good news in a situation like this, but this is as close as it gets:

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Posted on January 20, 2015

By Natasha Julius

On September 17, 2014, I went for a routine 8-week prenatal check-up. It was the only routine thing I would do for more than two months.
During this time, I e-mailed a small group of people. Some were aware of the pregnancy, some had plans with me that would need to be broken, and still others simply asked after my health on the wrong day. This is the first of 11 such messages. They have been edited to remove identifying information and inside references, but otherwise remain largely unchanged.
September 23, 2014
Dear Friends,
Apologies to those of you who are hearing about this for the first time. I have been living in two worlds for the past few days.
As some of you know, I went in for my 8-week prenatal checkup last Wednesday. When the midwife performed the ultrasound, there was no fetal heartbeat and little evidence of embryonic development. An ultrasound technician was brought in to confirm that there was a gestational sac, but she also could not find evidence of development inside the sac. The midwife ordered a series of blood tests to confirm the diagnosis of a non-viable pregnancy; she felt there was a possibility that fertilization happened later than would have been suggested by the date of my last menstrual period. I did not hold out much hope. In order for that to be possible, I would need to ovulate almost three weeks late – a considerable variation from an otherwise regular cycle. However, I agreed to treat the pregnancy as viable until the testing was complete.

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Posted on January 19, 2015