Revelation

Today has been a day where my heart is tired. It may sound petty or trivial. We are so young and have so many options still but I am so tired of waiting. I am all waited out. Ever since New Years, I have been giving serious thought to putting the babies on the back burner and going to work. Starting a career instead of starting a family. Turning a blind eye to my ambition of being a mom by 25. Maybe it will happen later. Maybe when I'm 35 and have paid off all the debt and saved up all the money we can adopt. By then we will have it all together. We will follow the path of all of the other infertile couples. Work, then babies. It seems like the smart choice. Although, even knowing that one day we could adopt or find a surrogate or, whatever, I would still pull the nice, paid-off car into the driveway, and walk into the nice house in the nice part of whatever town we are stationed in, put down my purse, and not hear little feet running to greet me. Every day I would still be waiting in that empty home. And when I started writing this it was because that seemed like some revelation of why we need to go hard now, make things happen, do all we can to get pregnant as soon as possible. But now it seems like, well that's not really all that different from what we are doing now. What's the difference? Then at least I would have the distraction, something to show for my hard work. I can guarantee some sort of reward for a hard day at work. But I can't guarantee shit about a hard day waiting for a baby. Fighting for a baby. Clearly I can't show a damn thing for carrying a baby inside of me for five months. Here we are with nothing. And here I am at a point in life where I have never been so confused. So I guess there's no revelation, after all. 

Reality

I woke up this morning with a little boy on my mind. I made it through our due date with minimal tears and was able to keep pretty positive. I worried it would be difficult after the due date because we would have been in our first day of parenting. I'm doing fairly well, having the distraction of my wisdom tooth extraction and days of sleeping through it all. I wouldn't say I am exceptionally sad or even sad at all but today it is true that I have given a lot of thought to where we should have been now. I woke up feeling around for him in the bed, wondering why I was so well rested and why Mike was headed off to work like it was just another day. The reality set in then. We are parents, I know this, but we do not parent. We are not, regrettably, raising a child today. We are on no new adventures. And the reality of things is that we will likely not be on that adventure for a while. Our trying again has been delayed by a handful of things and, anyways, it took three years to get pregnant with Landon. We will be lucky if it takes less than that the second time around. As it is we have done nothing to prevent pregnancy since he was born in August and we are still not pregnant. I will not be holding a my own child in my arms, for a very long time, at best. And well, that's just a kind of shitty reality. 

January

I don't remember as often. I don't ever forget but here I am, days away from my due date, not quite remembering that anticipated excitement that I had for when this month would finally come. I don't remember as much what he felt like, physically. I remember in my heart the moments we were all together but I don't remember the feeling of pregnancy. I wish I could believe that floating happiness truly existed. But it's so far away now. Late at night I ask myself, was I pregnant? Do I have a child that never lived? Surely that can't be my life I'm having trouble remembering. Everything is so different now. It seems like the farther I get away from it the more doubt I have that I will ever experience those hard-to-remember feelings again. And, in part, it's already true. I will never tell my husband with pure, doubtless wonder that I am pregnant. I will always hesitate to give myself over to the expectation of a growing belly, an excited trip to the maternity store, or going full term. I won't go into appointments excited to see baby again but rather holding my breath in hopes of a heart still beating. Maybe I am wrong in some of this and I will be able to really embrace another pregnancy, but there will always be many things that I do not ever get to experience again, or for the first time even. I am forever changed and so must be my future experiences. Some days, I am made of stone. Cold so that I can be sturdy. And that wasn't me before. That wasn't a part of me. 

Tonight my soul-mate and best friend told me that January is cold in more ways than one. The cold reminds me to layer up, to find warmth and to settle into comfort, next to the people I love the most. And the cold keeps me hard and sturdy. In both ways, I weather the storm. Some days stone and some days soft and plush.

On New Years Eve.

On New Years Eve I cried. 

I survived Christmas pretty wonderfully. I hardly longed for my big baby belly for more than a fleeting moment. It was easy to just think of something else. On New Years, it was just Mike and I. I was having a hard time not thinking about what was missing all day. I hadn't anticipated New Years as an obstacle until I woke up feeling that certain way. I think I had had a terrible dream leading into the morning but I can't remember now what that was. Mike and I had dinner and a few drinks and really just sat around. When he went to bed and was asleep enough I got back up. I had a little time to myself but after a bit he found me crying, rocking in the glider. I didn't have much to say and I was reluctant to go back to bed with him. He just pulled me up out of the chair and guided me back to bed. He payed there talking to me, waiting for me to say something back. I told him that I just want our son back. I don't rarely ad,it to feeling and wanting impossible things, but I really just wanted to hold my son. Even if it meant going back to the day in the hospital and doing it over again, I just wanted to hold him. Some days I a, so sad and full of guilt that we didn't hold him when they offered. I hate that he is up in heaven now, knowing we passed at the opportunity. It re,I da me of how much we were lost little kids in that hospital too,. In the same token, we had never been more old and made of stone. We just didn't know what to do. I also find,my told Mike how terrified I am that this was not a one time occurrence. He was almost mad at me for thinking that something in me could cause us to lose more babies. Eventually, we talked about how much we both wanted to be parents and how far we could go. Trying to make me feel better he said if he only ever had me he would feel fulfilled in life. I told him I wasn't sure I could ever accept never being a mom. I think I would adopt as a final resort. He agreed. I finally exhausted myself enough to fall asleep. 

Since then I've done well at keeping busy. I found a book I love and have read 850 pages in three days. I have cooked and cleaned. I have worked hard at the gym. I stop for a second when I'm on Facebook or Instagram and I see that someone due near me has had their baby. There were quite a few people due around the same time as I was. I try not to think about what it would be like to be excitedly waiting for and then finally holding a living, breathing son. I feel robbed of the baby shower and the "no baby yet" texts and the misery of carrying a watermelon in my belly. I start resenting the things that I have done since August. Drinking, working out hard and heavy, trying to lose weight. Going to school. 

I actually feel less sure now than I did when I was pregnant. I am less sure that I am capable of or even meant to parent. I don't know if I am up to the challenge. I don't know if I'll do a good job or if Mike and I will come together as a good pair in raising a child. I'm scared as much now of being a parent as I am of not getting to ever become one. 

I think one of the struggles of New Years was what it represents. In 2010 when we started trying we thought that would be our last NYE as just a couple. This time it was a huge slap in the face. For four years I have planned around the possibility of becoming a mom. I have made choices about school and work and fitness based on the idea that surely it will happen soon. And here I am, four years later, and I am still in school, I'm still overweight, and I still have no work experience. I wonder if I'm just being irresponsible. Starting a family and then a career? It's my plan but does it even make sense? I wonder if I could, if I should, become a working woman, a money maker, someone that holds their own, and then try the family thing again later. Just wait. Just be a normal adult woman my age. Put my heart on a shelf, walk by and dust it every so often, and then pick it up and hope it still works when everything else has fallen into place. Follow the natural order of things. Maybe, even, take what we have gone through as a sign that we aren't supposed to be parents. Mike tells me all the time that it just wasn't our time. I feel like it was with my whole body but, clearly, it wasn't. Maybe we should just stop trying. I mean, if it's meant to be it will happen, right? Normal people don't have to force it. But I'm afraid that if I don't, that might really be the case, and it might not happen on its own, and I might not be ok with that. I know there is a hole in me and through all of this I think I still believe that being the mother of an earth baby is what will fill that hole. 

And the point of all of that is that I'm doing ok. I'm keeping busy and trying to remember that I decided to rise above the struggle and overcome with leaps and bounds of success. I will get fit. I will get my masters. I will find more happiness. And while I do that, I'll keep doing ok.