Miscarriage

I'm at work and there's something urgent and horrifying happening around the dental table. I see Deanna, one of the technicians, she's scrubbed in and everything but is sobbing, which makes me think it isn't an animal that they're working on. There's a loud honking alarm going off that I've never heard before - it's obviously from a human hospital.

I see the face of a dying human infant on the table. It is pale and deformed, underdeveloped.

I know in my gut what is going on before anyone tells me, but I don't believe it until someone explains. Deanna miscarried her baby at work and Dr. Shanti is trying to save it. Despite her best efforts, it is crashing.

Suddenly, everyone around the table and mess of machinery cheers - they have a heartbeat from the baby. I'm amazed - the fact that a veterinarian could revive a premature human infant using only the resources available at the vet hospital was astounding. Dr. Shanti must have been the best of the doctors, since she was the one chosen to work on the child.

As this was going on, the other assistants and I were conflicted, cautiously continuing to go about our business as the catastrophe unfolded in the middle of the treatment area. Whenever an animal crashes or there's an emergency, it seems to be the thing to do to continue as if nothing is happening, staying out of the way being the best way any of us assistants can contribute. But on the other hand, this was different than business as usual - this was a human life, the child of one of our co-workers. Deanna was recently married and she and her husband have been trying to get pregnant - I hear her talking about it all the time.

The success does not last - it was unlikely that it would. They lose the baby again, and this time cannot revive it. The baby dies on the dental table.

I feel horribly uncomfortable, never quite knowing how to act around the grieving. I feel extra pressure, since Dr. John Krieger is there and he's quick to judge me for being anxious and timid. Dan is there, too, and we're in another room, but I don't know how to act so I just do my usual goofy stuff that I do with him and he plays along, although it's obvious that we're both uncomfortable and have no clue what to do.

Deanna is crying in treatment, nobody has been able to be of any help or comfort for her - she keeps shrugging away from anyone who tries to comfort her. I retreat to the back hallway so as not to have to watch her hysteria. To my surprise, Deanna walks out into the empty back hallway shortly after, having needed to escape the situation herself. I don't know how to act towards her, I don't want to be patronizing or too sympathetic, since she's being bombarded with that sentiment on all sides. I tend to prefer normalcy to sympathy myself. I greet her as I would normally, and she replies with equal casualness, her sobs subsided, a sense of numbness setting in. After a moment of agonizing, I wrap my arms around her in a bear hug, which is a risk I have decided to take, since historically I'm not good at dealing with the reaction to misguided attempts at comfort or comoraderie - I avoid these situations especially because in the past I have shed embarrassed tears over my bruised feelings after trying and failing to help someone who is upset. The shame of crying over something like that was the worst feeling.

Fortunately, Deanna finally accepted an embrace. She wrapped her arms around me, too, and I rubbed her back while we held onto each other.

I couldn't help but feel good that I had done something right when nobody else was able to do anything for Deanna - especially when Dr. Krieger walked past the two of us embracing.

Deanna decided she was going home even though her husband wasn't home from work yet. She put on her coat, but stalled instead of leaving, which made sense to me, because I'd rather stay and distract myself with work than sit alone at home with nothing to do but grieve. I was trying hard to make sure I didn't overstay my welcome comforting her.

She kept asking things like, "What do I do now?" and "Now what?" and "I don't know what I'm supposed to do." I knew that she was not asking for an answer about the mourning process, she was asking out of sad desperation how she could help her infant. I could hear the resignation in her voice, but I also knew that she hadn't accepted yet that the baby was dead and felt awful that I couldn't give her answers. At that point, when I was having to come up with things to say in answer to her questions or ways to step around them, I was getting uncomfortable and wanted to pass her off to someone else before she got sick of me and I started doing more harm than good.

I was leaving, too. I got in my car and Deanna got in hers and I began driving down to some specific destination. I remember that I needed to use the bathroom as soon as I got there, wherever I was going.

Unfortunately, on my way, traffic slowed to a stop and I pulled over to the side of the road with a handful of other drivers, seeing emergency vehicles and a road block. I got out of my car and went to try and see what was going on. Instead, I saw a middle-aged woman walk past the subject of the road block, look directly at it, and hurry past, her hand over her mouth in horror. I leaned far enough that I could see paramedics bent over a man who was slumped on the pavement, but not far enough to see the wounds that had nauseated the passing woman.

Tired from the trauma of the day at work, I decided to walk downtown and find somewhere to pee rather than staying to witness another tragedy. An older woman pointed me in the right direction. That was pretty much where it ended.