What Might Have Been - The Bangalore Review

I always thought population control was a necessary trait in every nation. By that I simply mean not having kids, not genocide. From a social and personally financial point of view having no kids is the best option for the up and coming youth of this nation. After all in 2017 “there was not a single location in the country where someone working full-time minimum wage job could afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment.” (Miller, Rent Control). A two-bedroom! Mom, pop and kid only household. If you have two after a certain age and in some states you have to get another room by law. I can barely afford a one-bedroom right now and it is just for myself, how can someone afford a whole family? Add over-population, stress and lack of resources due to overuse of government programs and the incentive to have children dwindles. I honestly could not see a reason, a logical one, to have kids. Then an illogical one presented itself.

One day I was driving with my ex to God-knows-where on a sunny afternoon. We were happy back then, when it was just me and her and all the problems that broke us up hadn’t occurred yet. It had been a while since we’d been intimate. I believe that is what started the conversation, though I am not sure. All I know is that it lead to a revelation I was not expecting.

At one point she brought up a doctor’s visit she went to a couple of weeks back. Apparently she had been bleeding outside of her period cycle and there was some coagulation. I knew about the doctor visit. We thought it was an unusual side effect of birth control pills and it would take a few weeks of not using them to get her back to normal. No biggie. By now the symptoms had disappeared and it seemed everything was back to normal except our sex life. Then she dropped the bomb.

“I had a miscarriage”. She said and the words tore through me like a javelin. Awe struck, I let silence rule for a few seconds. I truly wish she would have preempted the statement with something like “I have to tell you something” or at least an “oh, by the way”. It gives testament to how long she had been wanting to tell me and how she could not keep it in anymore.

Here is how birth control works.

Hormones in the birth control pill prevent ovulation, and it thickens your cervical mucus to block sperm from entering the cervix, and thins your uterus lining so that a fertilized egg cannot attach to it. The combination of these events makes it unlikely that you will become pregnant on the pill. (Brann, Pregnant)

According to her doctor sometimes the egg does stick to the uterus lining and starts to develop. Now, I don’t believe the term “miscarriage” is suitable for my ex’s situation considering it was still closer to a zygote than a fetus. But it happened. Something started to form and she found it at the bottom of the toilet bowl one day. Then the bleeding stopped along with her sex drive. I understand. It would be kind of traumatizing to me too if I was in her position. So I gave her time and support as always.

It was during that conversation that something I said made me realize why people would want to have children.

As we were rolling along I assured her that she had nothing to be ashamed of, that she should have told me earlier and trusted me as her husband and proceeded to build her confidence back up. I was not angry at her, after she understood that she started to feel relieved and I began to joke around. I knew my humor always perked her up, so I let it roll like a stand up special. At one point I said, “My child died.” I don’t remember in what context or what came before or after that. That is how strong the statement was, it made me seclude from the entire conversation and into a dread I have never experienced.

I was not upset at the fact of having a child die, more like the concept of almost being a father and it dying. Or maybe the idea I almost became a father and it did not happen. Maybe at the idea of, in a way, actually losing a child. Whatever it was, I was suddenly in distress. I did not let her see it because her insecurity would had surely returned and somehow she would have blamed herself for it. But hearing those words out loud… it hurt.

It was then I understood that a child goes beyond finances, or the benefit of the country. If I could feel pain at the hypothetical concept of losing a child then the opposite must be true also. How much joy could have come from having one? It would have been happiness that parents enjoy in an undying bond to their young.

It is a love connection so deep the sole thought of harm coming to them makes a parent’s stomach turn. Kin is not a natural impulse, it is an emotional one. And through the link of value to a genetical half, life is cherished. Through emotions a two-bedroom apartment is not an inconvenience. It is a paradise called home.