Hope, the Forever Catch- 22

I was dumb enough to believe that I was really going to carry my last baby to full term. I was so dumb and got so comfortable that I actually looked at cribs… I hate the fact that we know our due date. I know that if one of my friends said that to me I would tell them they weren't dumb. They were hopeful and that there was nothing wrong with hope. Hope is a catch-22 my friends... it has two sides and no one ever really talks about the down side of hope.

At the end of this month, we are to take a trip with my in-laws. In April, when I was still pregnant, I thought about this… I would be close to or just over 5 months. I thought perhaps we will have had our u/s by then, we had considered finding out the sex but not telling anyone. His family would have been bugging us to know and we would just smile and say we just say we didn’t know.

I was also due approximately one month behind my sister. So when I thought about this I thought, I will be 8 months pregnant when I go to meet my new niece or nephew at the hospital. The nurses will make jokes and ask if I was there to deliver. I thought that I would just laugh, rub my belly and say, “No, we should have another month left.”

I thought about if we would send late Christmas cards announcing our new family member. About how I would have to bake most of the Christmas cookies early because I would be tired from being so far along in the pregnancy and about how different Christmas would be with a newborn. What things would our family get for our new one? Would they want a list of things he or she still needed? I thought about rocking our new baby to sleep in our rocking chair next to the brightly lit tree… none of that is going to happen now. Another Christmas will have come and gone and still no baby.

I realized tonight as time goes on (that's the funny thing about time, it keeps going even when you don't want it to) that these reminders of what I lost will be staring me in the face. Soon it will be August, and my husband and I are taking a long vacation. By the time we get back, August will be half over. Then it will be almost September, then September will fly by and the next thing I know it will be November. I will be visiting my new niece or nephew, my stomach will look normal and flat. Then I will be missing my mom because the second anniversary for her death will have come. Then it will be December 16th and there will be no baby for me to hold.

I am tired of having to rework my thoughts into what I will have and focusing on what I do have. Eventually, I end up seeing, again, what I have lost. I wish I wouldn't have to look so hard for the positive. I am tired of feeling empty armed, I miss my babies. I am missing what I have lost. Does that ever change? Will there ever be a day when I don't miss them and wish so deeply they were here with me?

See? Fat lot of hope did for me!