Due date #2

Today is my due date for my second. For my little girl.

I woke up with a tear streaked face and a wet pillow.

There is so much good in my life right now and I'm so thankful for all of it. But the sting of what today is, what it should have been, runs straight into my heart. I wish that I could have met her today. I know she would have been so beautiful.

At midnight last night I found an email sitting in my inbox from my sweet T. She is facing down the same black day, the loss of her son, in just two more days. Her words were written for me, but I know the pain is hers as well. Her words tore into my heart and I was left sobbing. For my grief. For hers. For my daughter and her son. For the unknown in what lies ahead- for both of us. I've never felt so connected to someone where I knew my pain and joy were so intimately understood.

Trisha's husband, J, made this illustration for me at his wife's request. I am so touched. I will keep it close to my heart and look to it when I need strength.

May the breeze blow gently and the light continue to shine.

Due date #1

I didn't have the heart to keep with my regular titling scheme today. Because this isn't a day about where I am in my cycle or what is going on with me, it's about our first little one. The one that should have arrived today.

My first pregnancy is difficult for me to explain. I was just shy of 6 weeks when it ended. And because pee-sticks are the devils spawn (and like to throw false negatives at me even at 14dpo) I didn't know that I was pregnant until a full two weeks later. Which meant that I was only aware that I was pregnant for four days before my beta started dropping. But it was four days that I knew, for the first time in my entire life, that was pregnant.

I'm not as bonded to this first one like I am with the other two. It's difficult for me to say that because my first  pregnancy is still very significant to me. There were no ultrasounds to monitor growth, no sounds of a heartbeat thumping away, and there were very little, if any, dreams of the future. The only thing I did allow myself to do was look up the due date. Which of course, is today. It stung when it ended but I didn't cry or grieve- I was just quietly sad.

But with that sadness there was also new hope. It gave me reason to believe that I wasn't totally broken and that maybe, just maybe, Mike and I could actually conceive. Up to that point, we hadn't known if I could even get pregnant. My unexplained infertility diagnosis stuck, but it allowed us to look to the future a bit more optimistically. In a twisted sense, it was movement forward.

I will forever be grateful to my first for giving me a renewed sense of hope. It was something that I needed very badly at that time.

One of the challenges with today is that I shoulder this memory all by myself. I find it hard to not play the what-if game. Because if that baby had survived, everyone would be gathered around me with support and love. Everyone would be rejoicing in this new life. But instead, no one remembers. No one except me. This is one of the many difficult aspects of miscarriage; it is forgotten. Though maybe this is part of our role as mothers- to never forget.

So today I remember my first, my little unknown soldier, and the gifts that it gave to me.