I figured it was time for another uterine update. (This may be TMI for some of you delicate readers, but there isn’t anything terribly gross if you want to plunge on ahead.)

My midwife thinks – and I agree – that what I’m experiencing is a blighted ovum, or anembryonic pregnancy. This means that due to a chromosomal anomaly, the gestational sac grows but there’s no baby inhabiting it – it’s an empty placenta, basically.

Spontaneous abortion in this situation takes a long time, because the placenta can continue to grow and support itself without a baby for up to two months, and so body-fooling pregnancy hormone levels exist for quite awhile. Loss of pregnancy symptoms, “not feeling pregnant,” and spotting and bleeding are common experiences with this condition.

Although sadly a lot of women in this condition go on feeling pregnant throughout their entire first trimester, only to discover at their second trimester US that they’re not actually carrying a baby at all, but just an overzealous and empty placenta. That would be horrible, I think.

In perfect circumstances, an early (eight to ten weeks) ultrasound or sonogram can reveal this condition, but often an expensive peek like that won’t show anything at all. The earliest reasonable time for an US is at twelve weeks, when they’d expect to be able to find a sac, a baby, and a heartbeat. Not seeing the latter two by then would be the first proof of a blighted ovum.

My midwife and my own research convince me that I don’t really need to do anything just yet. In the case of a blighted ovum there’s really very little tissue involved and therefore very little risk of infection, and the body will eventually figure it out so there’s really no rush. There are strong arguments on both sides of either allowing natural miscarriage or having a surgical procedure, and I think I’ll just wait it out. Plus I don’t really want to get a D&E for Christmas, thank you very much.

And, surprizingly enough, there’s actually a silver lining to this whole thing: “The fact that a placenta was chugging along without a baby on board speaks for adequacy of the uterine environment and adequacy of placental growth and development.” That’s heartening news when you’ve had as many miscarriages as I have, and have often suspected the total inadequacy of your uterine environment.

But in the aftermath of being excited about a baby and then suffering yet another disappointment, I reevaluated my thoughts and feelings about the whole scene. I don’t actually want a kid any more. It could be sour grapes, of course, and if by some bizarre and shocking twist of fate I should end up with a full-term squirming baby I’ll be properly thankful, but I wonder if I’m not a bit too rigidly set in my ways to really possess a true desire to accommodate my life to another’s so very much.

I tried to see myself clearly after losing yet another pregnancy, and what I saw was this: I never wanted children until I couldn’t have them. I’d told Brett when we were first beginning to get serious that if he must have children he’d better move on. And I was literally terrified every time I ever suspected I was pregnant… until I’d lost a few. Once I knew there was a high probability that I’d not remain pregnant, only then did I start to wallow in self-pity and grief, and began to crave that which I’d rejected before.

Of course some things are different now. The terror of pregnancy I felt was the terror of the unmarried college student whose partners were generally dorks, and not men whose children I was deeply interested in meeting face to face. Motherhood meant a tremendous abdication of self and choice. Now that I’ve managed to snag a man I trust and love, I would be very interested in meeting his offspring, just to see who they were. And of course I’ve seen our friends have babies and there is a certain amount of sweetness involved. But is that level of curiosity enough to get one sucessfully through mtherhood?

Finally, I’m an aunt now. I can spoil the hell out of Parker, and send her home when she’s had too much candy. I think, old and set in my ways as I’ve become, that that might just turn out to be more my speed anyway.