In January my sister and brother-in-law told my dad and me that they were pregnant by giving us Christmas presents they'd "forgotten" to give us the month before: photo frames for each of us that said "#1 AUNT" and "#1 GRANDPA." (Actually, I had accidentally found out a week before -- it's all MySpace's fault -- but that's a different story.) I was SO excited! I've never been an aunt before, but as far as I can tell, it's all of the benefits of parenthood, none of the responsibilities. ;) Not to mention that her due date was only five days after my birthday! I told her if she had the baby on my birthday, she didn't have to give me any other gifts.
But last week, in her twelfth week of pregnancy, she called me. She'd had some bleeding, went to the doctor, and the sonogram showed she had what's called an anembryonic pregnancy or, more poetically, a 'blighted ovum.' When the egg and sperm cells join, they form one complete cell. That cell divides to make two complete cells, then those two cells divide to make four complete cells, etc. By the time it has moved to the end of the fallopian tube (usually that takes about three days), it's a ball of 16 cells, and then it floats in the womb for a day or two, continuously dividing and making more cells, until it finally attaches to the wall of the womb.
In an anembryonic pregnancy, though, either there's some chromosomal abnormality in the egg to start with, or something goes wrong in the cell division process, so the body realizes that particular fertilized egg would never develop into a healthy baby. The egg, or the tiny ball of cells, never develops into an embryo.
Unfortunately for Sis, however, the pregnancy sac and placenta kept developing right along, and she was starting to eat and gain weight like she was pregnant. But there was no embryo in there. She miscarried the embryonic sac and the placenta two days after she saw the doctor.
The interesting thing is, as we've been sharing this news with people, we've learned that everyone's had a miscarriage! Everybody we've told has either had a miscarriage themselves, or their mother/daughter/sister/aunt/cousin/best friend has had one. Two of my sister's good friends from college both miscarried their first pregnancies, then got pregnant again a few months later and now have happy, healthy babies. Sis and Brother-in-Law will wait a few months, but they will try again.
"It would've been worse if there'd been an embryo," Sis said. "I mean, it's not like it had a soul."
I had actually been pondering that myself. Some people believe there's a soul at the moment of conception. But what if the fertilized egg then splits into two, becoming identical twins? Identical twins have two different souls. And considering that 30 - 50% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage -- often before the woman even realizes she's pregnant -- if ensoulment happened at conception, that would be an awful lot of souls that never saw the light of day.
Sis said she thinks the embryo has a soul once it has a heartbeat. Her fertilized egg/cell-ball never had a heartbeat.
