How I Learned 

There were things that went well.  
There was the simple, sweet act on the certain night that was the perfect marriage of  
matter. 
There was the correct, hospitable temperature and the hopeful resting afterwards.  
There was the decided-upon day to tell, the expected elation and prenatals nightly.  
Again, the hopeful resting.  
There were the quiet murmurs and whirs of the ultrasound machine and the tiny  
spinning spinning spinning in the heart space.  
There was so much limeade and the thin pizza with ricotta and olives.  
There were the vials of deep maroon blood that came back from a lab heralding the  
other things that were going well: 
our Rh factors were compatible, my hCG levels doubled appropriately, I didn’t appear  
anemic.  
There was a lavender lotion Seamus rubbed into the soles of my feet each evening  
and the muted thuds of the child’s knees against my abdomen after mint ice cream in a  
mug.  
There was an undeniable love for the strangeness and familiarity of the child.  
There were the ten or so minutes at the end of my yoga class when I could lie flat and  
put my hands on the child, 
tap tapping gently on what I assumed was the bottom or lower back.  
There were rosemary crackers and trips out for more limeade.  
There was a calm when I called my mother from my parking spot after the doctor  
explained about the mass in the child’s lung.  
There was the way I got to the station for Seamus.  
There were still things inside the child that were going well.  
The heart continued its spinning even as it was pushed out of place.  
The trachea remained unpinched and available for intubation.  
The other lung grew on and on.  
A straightforward amniocentesis showed the abnormal growth as an isolated  
phenomenon.  
We considered this a bright spot.  
There was the way Estanya, my favorite ultrasound technician, some weeks smiled tenderly and  
told me the mass wasn’t measuring any larger.  
There was the way it rained almost every Friday that summer, so after we arrived home  
from the hospital I could sleep well for an hour or two, 
with a pillow between my knees and the window by our headboard open.  
There was the morning my older daughter, almost three and eating oatmeal said, 
“I miss the baby, Mum,” and that went well because I knew exactly what she intended  
and I felt ready, too.  

ELIZABETH O'ROURKE

Elizabeth O’Rourke has been featured in On Being, Mom Egg Review, and Writing Fire. She received an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and teaches poetry at the Mamaroneck (New York) Public Library. Her writing focuses on the sacredness and mysticism of her daily encounters with the world and what it asks of her.