November 30, 2010

Every now and then when I get a chance I'll think back to the first several months of our marriage and how I spent them in grief. I think about the pain of trying to become pregnant with the anger that you should be anyway. Some times I'll come across the journal I kept and I'll flip through the pages. I'd like to say that I sit and give that period of my life the time, but I don't. I quickly shut it and walk away.

People are wrong to think that having kids will negate the feelings of a miscarriage. It does not, but it has made it easier. I won't lie about that. Holding Molly in my arms that first time made it easier. The hurt isn't constant any more and it's hard to image our life with different children and different ages.

Then today for the first time I came across something that ripped it back open and filled me with wonder about what life would have been like. I came across a blog I hadn't read in awhile. Probably for the same reason. It's written by a woman who wrote on a trying to conceive forum with me. We both got pregnant around the same time. On the little icon was a picture of her two children.

I could have a child that age. A boy or a girl. What would they look like or be doing now? Molly has changed so much since she was a baby. At almost three she is so much more of a preschooler than that newborn or her toddling toddler self. What would having a four year old be like. What would our first year of marriage be like if we welcomed a healthy baby instead of losing one and living in fear of losing another?

I do believe that if we got to have our November baby there would be no Molly or Natalie and so for that I obviously can be happy that life is what it is. Things did turn out ok.

I guess seeing what could have been made me realize that deep down I want that child too. I want to know what they were. I want those first minutes together. I want all the amazing milestones that happen next. I know I can't have it all, but it doesn't stop me from wanting it.

I wish you were here. I'm your mother and I love you. No matter how small you were and what meaning you have to some people I am still your mother.

How I wish I knew more of you than just a date.