July 30th, 2007 - When Roxy Died (part 1)

I took the day off to finish up some songs in the studio for my band, Gentleman Caller. I wanted to have these songs finished before Roxy was born, because I knew the next couple of months would be brutal with a new baby in our house, and I would not have the energy or time. The day went well and we had 8 new songs completely finished... the culmination of a summer’s passion and effort. I felt satisfied and hopeful. Br, guitarist, fingered his pack of Pall Mall Ultra Lights and was giddy in the passenger seat with the window down, warm air rushing by. We listened to the songs, and talked about what record labels we would send them to, etc. We swung from speed-talking to daydreams and silence.

When we pulled up in front of his white corner cottage home, U (Br's wife, and a singer in the band) greeted us with bright, excited eyes.
“I’ve got to run, but I’m so happy with the way these songs sound. I’m so glad we did this,” I said.
“I can’t believe its over,” said Br.
“Ah, we’ll get back to it in October. We’ve got plenty to do in the meantime.”
He agreed. We hugged. I waved good bye as I walked to my car.

30 minutes later, I walked into our house through the garage so that I would not wake up our sleeping 4-year-old, Mason. I was excited to play the finished recordings for Terra, who was 37 weeks pregnant with our 2nd child, Roxy. I walked into the bedroom wistfully, and a curtain just fell. Terra was sitting up in our bed, her brown eyes wide, wide open.
“I haven’t felt Roxy move all day,” she said. “I’m getting worried.”
Thud.

The rest of the night we were frantic as we tried to reassure each other.
“Let’s call the doctor,” I said.
“There’s no reason to. We’ll get the nurse on-call and she’ll tell us to call in the morning if we are still worried.”
She’s right. This isn’t our first middle of the night scare. Once, in the 14th week, she had awakened in the night, bleeding.
“But I would just feel reassured if we called,” I said.
“No.” She was shaky-nervous, and unwilling to negotiate. She took out a pregnancy reference book, and I turned on the computer. "Research! Yes! Science will tell us this is normal and okay!" We read about some things to try in order to wake Roxy up and get her moving around.

Terra forced herself to eat a meal.

She drank ice cold water. Probably 2 quarts.

We went into the garage, got into the car and turned the stereo up as loud as it would go.

I was hunched, tense. She was searching her body, desperate.

We lay down in our bed. She shook her belly repeatedly. I winced. Silence. I pressed my ears to her abdomen. We managed to convince ourselves that we heard and felt something. We finally drifted off, early in the AM hours.