lasts and truth

I really, really want another baby.

There, I said it. It’s ridiculous, it’s selfish, it’s probably a million other things as well. But it is true. I can’t tell you how much I wish it wasn’t. I was kidding myself if I tried thinking I didn’t. I wish I didn't have to carry around this massive weight like a deep, dark secret. Everyone thinks it's ridiculous of me. I know it is. But it's still there.

My friend and coworker had her baby a few weeks ago. I was working that day and so I got to see him at just a few hours old. I held him then, and my heart just ached and I had to try hard to keep the tears from falling. I got to spend time with them the other night, and as soon as he woke up I held him. I got to feed him and cuddle him against my chest and rock him and just hold him. And it was amazing. I listened to my friend talks about struggling to find a rhythm, how to keep him asleep at decent times, how to get sleep herself. I had answers that I didn’t share. It’s not my place, she has to figure that out on her own.

But man. THAT right there is my skill set. Like Mel wrote about a few weeks back. That is what I know how to do and am good at. And I love it. Every sleepless, exhausting minute. Babies are all what is right and good with the world. The most innocent of creatures that only want love and warmth and snuggles and a full belly back.

Something has been missing from my life. I’ve been trying to fill it with other busyness...traveling on my own, going to shows, visiting more with friends, various projects of all kinds. It’s all been just a temporary lifting...nothing that sticks. Nothing that lasts.

This time last year I was pregnant with a doomed pregnancy. I was waiting to miscarry on my own. For a pregnancy that was such a shock, but still so very wanted, that felt like a last chance.

Miscarriage leaves a baby-shaped void that nothing can fill. It leaves behind a grief that you can’t describe. It leave an ache in your heart so strong that sometimes it feels like it will kill you. It leaves a baby-shapes hole in your soul that sometimes feels like it might swallow you up in it. It leaves a sadness that lingers in every breath you take. Miscarriage leaves behind a feeling of such utter loneliness. It leaves behind anger and confusion.

I don’t notice it all the time. That’s not to say I forget ever. But life moves fast and it’s not always at the front of my mind. Sometimes in a crowd I feel so lonely. I watch other happy families or pregnant women or infants in carriers and I get swept up in the all-consuming grief, and that baby-shaped hole opens back up. And sometimes I fall in.

I don’t want to feel this way. I wish that I could move on from this. I’ve been trying to find other ways to fill the void, but nothing can. I feel it when I see pieces of it in my home...the crib mobile in the closet, a stray bib, baby sock, or toy thy didn’t make the bins in the attic, the pieces of the dismantled crib tucked way in the back, the breast pump sitting on the top shelf of my closet. Things tucked away out of plain sight but things that I can still see every now and then. I feel it when I look back at old pictures of  my tiny new babies. I felt it when I held my friend’s precious, tiny son.

It’s muscle memory, remembering what to do without even thinking about it. It’s instinct. It’s me. It just is.

(((I know I’m one of the lucky ones. But it does not diminish my pain or fill the baby-shapes hole in my heart.)))

Infertility robbed me of time. All those years I lost trying to make things happen. Miscarriage robbed me of the hope that everything would turn out ok. I don’t have any hope that I will ever have another baby. It seems pretty impossible to me, seeing as I’m now over 40 and have miscarried 4 times in between two lucky shots. Every month that goes by the already slim odds get smaller and smaller.
I’m just waiting for time to officially run out. I hope to have come to some peace about this by then.

But man. I wish my last baby wasn’t the last baby I miscarried.