I was teaching at the time, and I remember that I had to call out “sick” for an audition on a Thursday. Thursdays were rough, because I had 4 kindergarten theatre classes back to back. The audition was for the role of a mother, who had been told that her child had passed away.
I had an uneasy feeling about the project. NCIS or something. And it felt dark, given the state I was in. But I needed the work, so I called out sick. A Kindergarten teacher that I was working with was furious that I hadn’t given her ample notice. I felt guilty too, because I was lying. I was never big on skipping out for an audition, but again… when they came around as rarely as they did, I felt as if I had to at least try.
By this time I was 11 weeks along. I was performing in Oedipus The King- Mama (music of Elvis Presley LOL), dancing and singing and I had just produced my first (and only haha) short film – To Desdemona, Love Juliet. We had all night shoots, and during the day I was wrangling kids and then doing barrel jumps in the show in the evenings. It was a lot. I had never been pregnant before, and my husband and I were elated, but it wasn’t going to “stop my career.”
We had known each other for 9 years and had been married for 2. It seemed to be perfect timing.
I went to the audition, and realized that I couldn’t cry on cue. I was pushing it, but the tears were just underneath all the angst. I knew I wouldn’t book it and I also felt guilty for calling out sick from school. I drove home completely able to spill the tears that I had just wished would show up ten minutes earlier.
I went home to our ugly Hollywood Apartment with the aqua shag (ish) carpet in the living room., and lay down on the couch for a nap. After all, I was in my first trimester, and exhausted.
And then, right before I nodded off, I felt the blood. And I knew. I knew.
We had just put down my 21 year old cat a few months before, and I was still reeling from that loss. The vet had been kind. Cried, and reassured me that our very obese tailless cat had “not died of malnutrition.”
I remember looking up at the ceiling in my apartment thinking-“ this year could not get any worse.” (We hadn’t yet experienced Trump as a president, Covid or the Eaton Fire). So, this was as bad as anything I had ever experienced.
I drove myself to the doctor. And there, Pam (I can’t believe I remember her name), showed me that there was no heartbeat. She had no funny thing to say, nothing about an obese cat or silly reassurances. She just patted me on the knee and said “I’m so sorry, J, it’s gone.”