Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [113]
My checkups with Jane did a lot to ease my apprehension about the pregnancy. That winter, I rang in 2003 surrounded by the warmth of my sisters and their families. Teressa assured me that I was welcome to stay with her and Roy for as long as I wanted. “I’ll take care of you,” she vowed.
Of course, the occasional thought of Hildale only made my anxiety return. Everything was unsettled back there: my marriage to Allen, the situation with my family, and the leadership of our people under Warren. I’d begun to wonder about the way things were developing. I took great risk in silently questioning whether Warren’s behavior was right. He’d told us that none of the prophet’s wives were going to be married, and he’d also said that he wasn’t going to be the next prophet. It didn’t make sense to me because neither of these assurances had happened as he’d said they would. In Canada, I saw the fallout from Warren’s declaration about Winston Blackmore. A new bishop had been assigned to the Canadian community in the wake of what we thought was Uncle Rulon’s decision to strip Winston of his position. Bountiful was now divided over where to pledge its allegiance.
By early February, I was almost six months pregnant. I’d been to the midwife for two examinations, and everything seemed to be progressing well. When I next saw Jane on February 20, I expressed concern. I hadn’t felt the baby move in a couple of days, and I was feeling very weird. I’d begun experiencing a burning sensation in my stomach as well. The next night, I awoke to a sharp pain in my side and spotting. I kept trying to tell myself it was probably nothing to worry about, that I’d just been to the midwife. I tried to go back to sleep but was too uncomfortable. The next morning, I was speaking with my sister Sabrina in her bedroom when suddenly blood began gushing down my leg.
She raced me to the bathtub and immediately summoned Teressa, who called Jane for instructions.
“Bring her in right now!” she told my sister. I hardly had time to think as my siblings gathered me up and bundled me into the car. By the time we arrived at Jane’s, I had lost a lot of blood. I was terrified as Jane quickly started an IV and checked me over. I was hemorrhaging badly, and she couldn’t find a heartbeat. The baby had died, and my body was going into labor to expel the fetus. I would actually have to deliver the baby, with no anesthetic. I was sicker than ever before, and barely able to stand. My condition frightened Jane, but she was helpless because I was not a Canadian citizen, and due to my situation, I didn’t have access to Canadian health care. She was so concerned for me that after the initial crisis she took me to her house outside the community to keep me close.
I’d gone through labor to produce a stillborn child. The trauma was overwhelming. Jane tried to console me, reassuring me that it was not my fault. But it wasn’t easy for me to put behind me. I felt like I was to blame, and it took me a long time to get over the suffering. Part of me was relieved and part of me was devastated. This stillbirth only reinforced my belief that God was punishing me. I reviewed the last two or three years of my life, and all the things I’d done and how I hadn’t been a submissive wife. I wondered if this was why God was bringing this on me. Still, Allen had not made it easy for me, and it had been at his insistence that we have children in the first place.
At age sixteen, I’d been married for less than three years and already I’d had two miscarriages and a stillbirth. I couldn’t prevent what was happening to me, and I didn’t know what was wrong. Was it God warning or testing me? Was it that I was impure? It wasn’t just the miscarriage; I started to worry that my body was somehow just wrong. Consumed with guilt, I begged everyone to keep what had happened a secret, fearing that if Allen found out, he