Carrying the cordless phone, I go lie down on my bed, trying to remember what side the doctor said is the best for the baby. The left side helps deliver better oxygen, right?

I call my doctor’s pager number, leave a message, and then hang up. While I’m waiting for him to call, I telephone Swedish Hospital’s emergency line and am connected through. I beg the receptionist to please let me speak with a nurse, and the receptionist is sympathetic enough to put a nurse on the line.

I tell the nurse I’m just past twelve weeks pregnant and I’m bleeding. Bad. “I’ve called my doctor, but he hasn’t phoned back, and I don’t know if I should come to the hospital or not.” I’m trying to be brave. “I don’t know what I should do.”

“You left a message for your doctor?”

“Yes.”

“How long ago?”

“Just now.”

“Who is your doctor?”

“Dr. Montgomery.”

“He’s good. He’ll call you back,” she says.

“But I don’t know if there’s anything I should be doing now.”

“Are you in a lot of pain?”

I feel vaguely heavy and crampy, but it’s not bad, not like period pain. “No.”

“How long have you been bleeding?”

“I don’t know. When I woke up a little bit ago, I discovered I was bleeding.”

“If you feel you’re in danger, come to the hospital.”

There’s a beeping on my phone. Call waiting. Dr. Montgomery is calling me back. “I’ve got the doctor phoning now,” I tell the nurse. “Thank you for your help.”

“Good luck,” she says.

Dr. Montgomery is more pessimistic. I tell him everything I’ve told the nurse, and he doesn’t sound surprised. “You’re probably miscarrying.”

Yes. Yes, thank you, Doctor. I know. “But is there anything I can do? Anything I can do if I go to the hospital?”

“No.”

“But the bleeding—”

“Nature’s way, Jacqueline.”

Nature’s way, my ass. Mother Nature is a woman, and Mother Nature wouldn’t do this to another woman.

“Come to my office in the morning,” he says. “We’ll take a look. See if the pregnancy is still viable.”

If the pregnancy is still viable. I know what that means.

I hang up, set down the phone and lie quietly, on my left side. I muster calm. Strength. Faith. Come on, little baby. Come on, hang in there. Don’t give up, don’t quit, don’t leave me now.

It’s a long night.

At first I don’t sleep, can’t sleep. But sometime around three-thirty my eyes close, and when I open them and look at the clock, it’s nearly six.