Totally Hysterical

Avast ye Six Feet Under spoilers ahoy.

The irony of the title of this post just hit me. "Hysterical" comes from the same root as "hysterectomy". In fact, here's what I just looked up on my ol' friend the internet:

...the origin of the term "hysterical" which derived from the ancient belief that a woman's uterus traveled throughout her body and caused "the choking sensation sometimes experienced by hysterics."

You know, since only women can be hysterical.

Anyway, I'm way off my point.

I had Six Feet Under on my TiVo since sometime in the middle of the night last night. I TiVo something else during its first run showing, so I had to wait for the sophomore showing. I woke up a little early this morning and I was going to watch it, but I messed around on the internet instead. I cannot express to you how glad I am that I didn't.

I wish I'd seen some spoilers. E mentioned it a little, but it was brief and I didn't really think about it too much.

I got pulled in early. Nate walks through a room in one of the first scenes with some coffee and Brenda nearly gags at the smell of the coffee. (Was she pregnant at the end of last season? I don't think so. Or at least, I don't remember.) I knew right away that she was pregnant. I can be two or three rooms away from a food when I'm feeling sick and the smell from that far away can set me off into fits of near vomiting. (And sometimes, I leave out the "near" part.) Tom had some ribs a few weeks ago that I can still smell, and I have no idea when I'll ever eat them again, the memory makes me feel so queasy.

They dropped several more hints, and then just started to talk about it. Claire bitches about going over to a "pregnant house" and that they should bring wine because, in a pregnant house, they may have forgotten that normal people still drink. That made me a little self-conscious. I know the baby has dominated a lot of my casual conversations recently, and I also know that I've spent a lot of my younger years rolling my eyes at people who don't seem to have anything to talk about other than their kids. I knew that getting pregnant would kill that Kathy for good, but it's weird to be on this side of it and remember what it was like on the other side so clearly.

But boy, am I writing around the point.

When Brenda woke up with the blood, I think my heart might have stopped. You have weird dreams when you're pregnant, especially in the first trimester, and I had one a couple of weeks ago that was extremely grisly. It all came back when Brenda's hand was covered in red and she just looked at it with this clear horror in her eyes.

Then I heard the nurse say "D and C", I actually started crying. I just don't cry at fiction. It's quite rare, anyway. Maybe it's the pregnancy hormones, but part of me, knowing I wouldn't have known what the heck a D and C was before I had reason to read What to Expect When You're Expecting. I felt like I was in on the secret, like I knew before most other people would know what that meant. (Linked above for any of you who don't know what I'm talking about.)

When it became clear that it would be days before they could do the D and C, and that Brenda would have to go through her wedding post-miscarriage but pre-D and C, I kept telling myself to press stop. I just couldn't, though. It was the proverbial car wreck that you can't look away from. I had to see if she made it. I couldn't imagine it. How do you stand there knowing your dead baby is there with you?

If you watch the show, you know how many deaths there are. Every damn show starts with some anonymous death. Tom and I used to make a little bet about the age, sex, and type of death it would be. See? I know it's fiction.

I watched it all the way to the end, including the excruciating scene at the end with Brenda and Nate, in which Brenda says something so raw about what's happening to her that I literally cannot type the letters. It also happens to be exactly the same horrified thought I had as soon as my brain wrapped around what, precisely, was going on.

I watched that stupid episode at 6:00, and I just pulled myself back together about a half hour ago. I don't think this is normal.

I mean, fuck. Does anyone do this and not spend the whole nine months just terrified that something will go wrong? I've been in this fricking house alone for too long.

For those of you who are just horrified to have read all this, my apologies. I know some of you won't be altogether comfortable with this, but hopefully you've already trundled off and haven't even made it this far. What can I say? Maybe I'll be funny in the next post.