FREE Excerpt of A Complete Woman by Nicole Givens Kurtz

It felt like someone had a rough, jagged knife and was slowly, bit by bit, cutting away and hollowing out my insides. I didn't mention this to the doctor as he hurried about, asking repeatedly "How are you feeling?"
Instead I said, "I'll be just fine, thank you." Always the polite one, my mother would have been proud at my reserve and my professionalism in public.

Thinking of mother, I realized that I would never be one, not now.
He smiled, convinced that he had somehow made my day a little bit brighter, somehow he, the great doctor with the M. D. had somehow helped ease the heavy burden of loss that had climbed on to my back and threatened to rip out my heart.

Making polite noises and smiling, I fought down the urge to shove the blonde, overly chipper, cookie cutter nurses aside and run down to the parking garage, hop in the car and speed towards the comforting familiar safety of home. There I could release the tight ball of hurt that rolled around in my stomach.

"Please, Ms. Johnson, there's nothing you could have done to prevent this," Dr. Anderson said. "These things happen."

Why did he keep talking? Was giving empty speeches a requirement to be a doctor? What did he know about the hollow feeling of failure felt by a woman who cannot bear children?

To further back up his theory, Dr. Anderson rattled off statistics of women who miscarry and the odds of them producing healthy babies later on.
He must have truly loved the sound of his own voice because he kept talking as he marched around the tiny room that was filled with fluorescent lights, numerous pamphlets on pregnancy and the overwhelming smell of cleanliness and antiseptics.

Or maybe he really believed that providing me with statistics would ease the knife that continued to plunge at the emotional soft parts of me and threatened to spill over in a rush of grief that would reduce me to a blubbering, needy woman like on those Lifetime movies.

Dr. Anderson didn't seem to understand that I didn't care if it was one in four women or three in four women: I didn't want it to be me.

Not again, anyway.

I looked over at Anthony, as Dr. Anderson talked about the odds of this and that. Anthony's light brown eyes stared at some spot just above Dr. Anderson's head. He was probably watching the dreams he had of him and his son, fade into oblivion.

With dismay, I recalled that his entire family was excited, as was mine, by the aspect of having a new addition to our families. In our initial excitement, we told everyone, feverishly spreading the news like wildfire. It raced across telephone and Internet lines and through word of mouth and office gossip. Now three months later, we found ourselves in this somber, desolate place. They would have to be told. Someone would have to tell them the horrible news. The child had died and there would be no forthcoming grandchild.

Dressed in baggy, dark blue jeans and a button down shirt that he refused to tuck in, Anthony looked like someone had punched him in the stomach. His freckles seemed pale and his light caramel colored skin looked greenish around his eyes and mouth.
Dr. Anderson finally ended his speech and tugged on his tie. He said,

"Okay, so, Ms. Johnson, we'll see you on Thursday to complete the surgery."

"Sure. That'll be fine." I smiled, but it felt like someone had pasted it on with sticky glue.

"I am sorry about your loss." Dr. Anderson said for the third time in the last ten minutes.

When I stood I could see the balding spot on the top of his head and the efforts he went through to comb the remaining black hairs over it.
He was really a small man.

Empty, that's what I felt inside.