Threatened Miscarriage

There is blood where there should be no blood. Or a pulling low in your belly that you cannot interpret. Or a feeling that has no language — only fear. Perhaps you are sitting in a waiting room right now, perhaps you are lying at home, perhaps you are calling to yourself from within and whispering to the tiny being inside you: Stay. Please stay.

Medicine calls it abortus imminens — the threatened miscarriage. A state in which the early pregnancy hangs in the balance. For your body it is a biological warning signal. For you it is more. It is the fear of losing a life you may have only just welcomed into your heart. It is the silence between two heartbeats, in which everything is still open.