The doctor comes in, after you spend a long, long moment in the room with your spouse, carefully thinking about nothing. “We have some issues,” she begins, and proceeds to methodically break your hopes into small pieces. There is a lot of crying. You will feel later that you owe that doctor no small portion of your sanity. She stays there in the room, answering questions, watching you, never looking away, never rushing you, not the least bit. She knows that today her role is being there. Bearing witness. She is old enough that she must have seen this many, many times. You later wonder if she got into this field knowing this day would be part of it. You want her to know that she is perfect, that you see her being unflinching and stalwart, watching over you until the questions are exhausted and you think you can leave, even if it is to go back into a world where there was never going to be this baby.
Oh, man, right in the feels. This is such a beautiful piece of memoir telling a compelling piece of everyday tragedy. Amanda Holm is emotive, sympathetic, emphatic and just a bit brilliant in recounting her own two abortions and the effect it had on her life, both as a self-contained incident and a rippling one. It's memoir at its best.
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