Bumps in the Road

The hardest part isn't the loss of the pregnancy. The Lord made it abundantly clear that we'd be getting this one back. He's promised me certain things and he's going to deliver. Just not this time. It might not be this year, or this decade, or even in this life. And I'm OK with that. A promise is still a promise. No, the hard part is the loss of being pregnant. It's like being cut off in the middle of a thought, having the station fade out just as you find the song you were hoping for, or (perhaps most accurately) getting laid off. I feel incomplete, hanging in mid-air. There's no climax or denouement to this story.

It's the little things that get me the most. My ice crunching habit showed up right on time at the start of the second trimester, except that I was technically post-partum, by then. It drives me nuts, this compulsion to dip into the ice bucket and fish out chips when I don't have a "reason" to anymore. I was OK with having it all end until my mouse was hovering over the "unsubscribe" button for my Your Pregnancy This Week emails. Clicking meant admitting that it was over, done, and not coming back. I felt the same when I put my small handful of maternity shirts back in their box with all the others. All I could do was stare at it and cry a little. I pine for the missed experiences--Elena's speculations on the sex and number of babies (she tried to convince us I was having twins, at the end); James learning about babies when he's still so small, himself; being pregnant in winter (first time!) and new life with the spring. All our plans that had been thrown so far off are back to where they were--or are they?--but it feels so odd and off-balance, now. That Easter due date feels slightly bitter. Or maybe not. It's so hard to sort things out, and it keeps changing, day to day. I wonder if October will be hard for me, next year. There's no way of telling where my life will be by that time. I take things day by day, and if that doesn't help, minute by minute. It's the only way to get through.