My Elvis Baby

July 2005

The test was still sitting in the bathroom like an apology note that I didn’t really want to accept. It had just confirmed that I was pregnant. My son was only four months old.

I’d just caught my husband cheating for, well, I’m not sure which time it was. Anywhere from number ten to a number I don’t care to know.

We had moved into a new house, a cute ranch with a patio and the hope of a fresh start. This was our fourth fresh start since we got married in November 2003.

I knew I needed to leave; in fact, I had plans to leave, but it was complicated. Shit is always complicated when your heart is involved.

This is where a lot of people ask why I was having sex with a man I wanted to leave.

People have ways of making you stay with them, making sure you’re stuck in the hole you’re in. Stuck so far you can’t get out. That’s all I’m gonna say.

I sat in my rocking chair holding my baby boy, wondering if the new baby would help us, if somehow a third child would make him quit leaving in the middle of the night, or going on weekend “fishing trips.”

My beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed daughter was playing with toy horses on the floor by my feet, and it was hot outside, and I was tired. But I saw the flowers outside the big, beautiful front window, saw the sun and the blue sky, noticed my scrapbooking table where I had just finished putting my son’s footprints on the first page, and I felt hope for baby number three.

Later that day, I probably turned on Shakira and made my husband the best dinner I could think of, along with a dessert that I doubled and dropped off at the neighbors when I took my evening walk with the kids. I was probably happy, in that way where the sound of children laughing and a summer breeze make everything better.

August 16th, 2005

Something was wrong. I worked for my Ob/Gyn at the time, so I went into work and grabbed him immediately. We’d been through this once together already, so he didn’t even wait for the ultrasound tech to get there. He took me back to the ultrasound room, called in my friend who was also a nurse, and they were the ones to tell me my baby didn’t have a heartbeat.

My friend gave me a hug with a tear in her eye and left me alone with my doctor. We talked for over thirty minutes, surely cutting into his time with his first few patients of the morning. For this reason, I never get mad when doctors are late. You don’t know what they might be dealing with in the room before yours.

Before he left the room, he gave me a look that I’ll never forget. It was a sad, fatherly look, eyes begging me to get out of the situation I was in.

We scheduled a D&C for the next day, and I left work.

I didn’t go home though.

I had already spoken to my husband, who was not sad but mad, telling me all the reasons this was my fault. I complained too much, I went on too many walks, I didn’t eat right. I could keep going, but I won’t.

I went to my parents, where I was given tearful, understanding hugs and told to lie down on the couch, as I was bleeding heavily. A few hours later, when I was feeling a little better, my dad said, “Well, ya know, ya never met the baby, but it’ll always be a part of you. And you know what else?”

“What’s that?” I asked.

He smiled a tiny, sad smile and his voice shook a little. “You can call it your Elvis baby.”

I thought about the date.

August 16th, the day Elvis Presley died.

It made me smile too, thinking somewhere, somehow, someway in my dream world, my baby was meeting Elvis.

At my D&C, my doctor asked me if I was ok. I responded truthfully, “No, I’m scared I’ll die during my surgery.”

Afterward, he was in my room when I woke up. I’ll never forget the smirk on his face when he said, “Well. Are you dead?”

I laughed and said, “I don’t think so.”

And I wasn’t. I was very much alive, and ready for the next chapter in my life. I took my first small steps. I started making plans, slowly building the courage to move forward, and focusing on what my children and I needed.

My baby didn’t get to see a minute of this world. Elvis is dead. My beloved doctor is dead. My dad is dead.

But here I am, with these treasured memories of all of them.

What a wild, beautiful journey it’s been since that time, just over twenty years ago.

❤️⚡— GC