The Fruit of the Tree by Jacquelynn Luben Page A

important status in the ranks of the sick.
    By the next morning, I discovered that I would be discharged in 24 hours, and after the more intensive care of the first couple of days, my speedy dispatch from hospital was an anti-climax. No guidance, no advice—just an appointment with out-patients in six weeks’ time, and out into the world.
    I was no more than a body, whose parts had not been working properly. Like garage mechanics, they would put me back in working order and send me home. After all, what car ever receives an explanation from the repairman?
    The anger I felt after this miscarriage lasted quite a long time. Apart from the self-directed anger at my own possible lack of sufficient caution, I felt I had been very badly treated by the hospital. For a while I half believed that they had robbed me of a living child, but even after I had returned to sanity, and doubted not that their physical treatment of me had been impeccable, I could see no reason why they should have allowed my hopes to be raised, causing me so much more distress than I had experienced during my first miscarriage.
    Even if the consultant, presumably the decision maker, could not see me until a particular day, an explanation—a warning—given by the sister or staff nurse might have been a little help.
    I had given up expecting the right sort of reactions from Michael. It was obviously a blind spot in his make-up. But I expected better understanding from the medical profession. They did not provide it whilst I was in hospital, and they did not provide it when I got home, neither after this nor my first miscarriage.
    One day I was a pregnant woman, receiving the maximum care and attention. The next day I was an unpregnant woman receiving no automatic care, whatsoever. For the next six weeks, I would be regarded as a fit person, and no health visitor or other medical official would darken my door to determine whether I needed any help on an emotional level. The woman who has lost her baby has already received a blow undermining her confidence. She believes herself to be inadequate, and she believes her husband feels the same way, and quite possibly he does.
    At this low point in her life, she is dropped by the Health Service, to the extent of removing her right to free prescriptions from the very day she leaves hospital. To a woman potentially at the edge of depression, this is a negation of her worth as a woman.
    Luckily, I did not at any time reach the state medically known as depression. Of course I got depressed and disappointed, and I got angry, but, perhaps because I was aware of these emotions, I was not overwhelmed by them at any time. Once again I was told not to try to have another baby too soon; we had waited for about five months after the first miscarriage, and even that had apparently been too soon. Once again I faced that longing to be pregnant again—not even to have a baby—just to be in that blissful state of carrying around a wonderful secret—but this time I knew that the longing would fade in time and take on manageable proportions.
    And anyway, there was the advent of electricity in our home, which, despite all, could not be belittled.
    There was also a bout of flu which struck us down, one by one, starting with Michael, who was almost as bad a patient as he was a nurse. None of us had been ill for ages; in fact it was quite remarkable how fit we had remained during the entire period when we had virtually no heat in the house—until now when comfort and warmth were returning.
    Funny how I always thought that our house would be turned on magically, like Blackpool illuminations, and instead, it was a light bulb here and a power-point there. Even on the very day when one of the powers-that-be from the Electricity Board came to check the completed work, Michael was working at fever pitch to get everything ready. And even after his work had been passed, there were sealed up wires tucked away in cupboards, waiting for the day