I stood, gardenIng gloves stIll covered In
dirt from digging out the last of the hole with my
hands, and let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been
holding. My husband walked over and put his hand
on the small of my back.
“I guess that’s deep enough,” I said.
“I think so.” He rubbed my whole back then. I
leaned into him, glancing up at the sliding glass
door. Our three daughters, two my own and one his,
sat at the dining-room table covered
in paints and canvases— something
I made sure to supply them with
since we’d hunkered down in
March. The oldest looked up at
me, but I quickly looked down at
the fresh dirt again.
“Should I go get it?” he said.
We’d talked through the final
part of the plan several times. Yes-
terday, my husband had made a
small box out of rough-cut pine.
That morning, we picked out the
hydrangea to plant over it. At my
nod, he knew to take the box into
the house, grab my favorite ban-
danna and go to the freezer in the
garage. He’d take the remains from
my last pregnancy, the result of my
third miscarriage in six months,
and gently wrap it in the bandanna
before sealing the box.
“I don’t want to see it again,”
I’d said. Images of the bloody toi-
let, of my arm encased in a gar-
bage bag, reaching into the dark
water to pull out a piece of tissue that
filled my palm, still played too often in my head.
I’d spent two days sitting on my bathroom floor.
I’d had a panic attack over how much blood had
poured out of me. Twice.
He returned from the garage, and I asked him
to stop for a second before placing the box in the
ground. “Here, let me take a picture,” I said.
We covered the box with a few handfuls of com-
post before placing the hydrangea—a dwarf version
called a Little Quick Fire—in the deep hole.
“We should get a plaque for it that says ellIs’
Hydrangea,” he said. I hugged him from the side.
The night before, I sat on the side of the bed
staring at the floor. He asked what I was thinking
about, and I started crying.
“Maybe we should, I don’t know, talk to Ellis?”
SOCIETY
My lost pregnancy
had a name
By Stephanie Land
“O.K.,” he said.
My husband and I—both atheists—reached for
each other’s hands to hold, bowed our heads and
closed our eyes. For the next several minutes, I said in
the still space of our bedroom that it was O.K. that it
didn’t work out with us. We understood and wished
them well. I told Ellis I loved them so, so much.
All of this went against my nature. I believe in
the right to choose. I have chosen to end a preg-
nancy before. I don’t believe life begins at concep-
tion. My pregnancy had ended at five weeks, and I
didn’t know that until my eight-week ultrasound.
It took two rounds of medication for my body to fi-
nally let go of it when I was 12 weeks along. It was a
blastocyst, not a baby named Ellis.
I’d been so confident this time.
Third time was the charm. I’d even
announced that I was pregnant
on social media at five weeks. I
wanted to be able to announce. I
wanted to celebrate. I didn’t want
to talk about my pregnancy in the
past tense as I had twice before. I
didn’t want to share only the grief.
When I typed up the words to
announce my third miscarriage,
the response was immediate.
Many, by default, said, “I’m sorry,”
which made me want to scream.
People offered unsolicited medi-
cal and spiritual advice. Then the
messages came by the dozens.
They filled every inbox I had.
Then I tweeted that my lost
pregnancy had a name and asked,
“What was your unborn’s name?”
A few days later, I pulled my hus-
band aside to a quiet place where
I read names out loud: “Oliver,
Quinn, Hannah, Olivia, Birdie,
Pearl and Wren.” There must have
been at least 200. I said them out loud not only to
honor them, but to comfort myself. Knowing oth-
ers had names for their embryos, zygotes and fe-
tuses somehow brought with it a validation and
permission at the same time. I could grieve in
whatever way I needed. If that meant burying a
box full of remains I’d assigned the name of Ellis,
then that was perfectly O.K.
I closed my eyes, standing there, head tilted
down toward our newly planted Little Quick Fire.
I thought of those names, and the parents who’d
loved them so fiercely. I wasn’t alone. They were all
there beside me.
Land is the author of Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and
a Mother’s Will to Survive
△
The author and her
husband planted
this Little Quick
Fire hydrangea over
the remains of her
last pregnancy
COURTESY STEPHANIE LAND
21
