So last night we're watching TV and my husband looks at me and says, just think, in two weeks, we'll be sitting here with a whole new person in our midst!
If all goes as planned, and I have a c-section the 24th, the plan is to come home from the hospital on Thursday, Thanksgiving.
A whole new person. It's easy to forget, in waiting-for-baby-land, that it's just not a baby you're waiting for. It's a new person on the planet.
Sometimes when my husband (kiddingly) gives me a hard time about being tired or being slow, I'll say, hey, cut it out - it's hard work growing a brain, and I'd like to see you try.
Last year, in a counseling session in December, soon after he had made the decision that he wanted to work on our marriage, he said, you know, it's just hit me that there was supposed to be someone else here celebrating Christmas with us (meaning the baby lost in February of 2007, due August 2007). That our family isn't complete, and is missing someone.
I remember just turning to him open-mouthed in shock and anger. Well, hell, yeah. Wasn't that what the past 10 months had been all about? Somehow, during his "break" from our marriage, he had managed to forget all about the loss. Or just bury it so completely he never saw that my troubles had turned into our troubles had turned into his troubles had turned into him wanting to leave the marriage for something better (ie, not troubled). I remember that counseling session as the first one where I truly got angry.
And now here we are on the cusp of a new person entering our life. It doesn't negate the loss, of course not. But I......I don't know. I don't know how to write this so it makes sense. Everyone approaches loss differently. For me, there's an alternate history of what could have been - maybe some alternate universe where the baby was fine, we never separated, he never had an affair, I never left my old job, and never lost the new job, wasn't expecting a baby now. And here, now, there is what is. Expecting a new person any day now. Sitting in our living room, with a brand new person on the planet.
2 years ago
2 comments:
One of my favorite Law&Order lines comes to mind: "I concede your point, Claire. If things were different, they wouldn't be the same."
Did my miscarriage fuck me up as much as losing Maddy? Not even close. Not even in the same solar system. But did it alter my futre, my family? Yes. Yes, it did.
Hang on. Waiting with you.
I try not to think about the alternate realities. It's easy to think that an alternate path would have been the right and happy one, but we'll just never know. What if it was worse in a way we can't imagine?
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