Its Been a Minute

 Weeks ago, I started a post.  I did not publish it.

Then I started again. Never hit publish

I thought about what I wanted to say.  

And didn't write anything down.

In each of these instances, I ended up in tears. 

Finally, I spoke with my husband and my friends about what had been bothering me. 

Chrissy Teigan had recently announced that her son had been stillborn. This is devastating.

I was so sad for her and her family.

I was also jealous.

She held her baby, for however short of a time it was.  But she got the privilege of holding him.

I was not so lucky.

24 years ago, I was dating a great guy and had discovered that I was pregnant. We were excited and began making plans for our future. 

Sometime later, I was bleeding.  Doctors discovered there was no longer a baby. It was early enough in the pregnancy that this could happen.  I was young.  There would be more. 

I wanted that one, though. My first baby. 

The loss hurt. A lot. For both of us. The sounds I heard from that man broke my heart. 

I hid my feelings.  I mean, I grieved, probably not like I should have, but I did it. Over the years, it's come out, little by little.

Growing up in a house where you'd tell someone about how you were feeling and being told you were being a baby or that there was something more important than how you were feeling, you learn to tuck that away. So that's what I did. 

We got married as we had planned and lived. I got pregnant again. And again. And again.

It got to the point where I wasn't seeing the point of being around anymore. There was a day that I thought about how I easy it would be for me to open the door of the car and just fall out on the freeway while my husband drove me to work. 

I would get pregnant and not think about it. I would walk through Sears and go to the baby section praying to God, "Please, if this one will work let me find the Noah's Ark bedding set."

Three years later, I finally found that bedding set.  A few months later, a boy was born. 7 weeks early.

Today he is 21. He hit every milestone on time.  To Hell with gestational age. He did it all right on time for when he was born. 

Then came another, and finally a girl. 

3 in three years. 

Still...

I never let myself get too excited about having a positive pregnancy test after that first one. I didn't want to feel like I felt after I was told there wasn't a baby anymore. 

Now I have the honor of watching the three I got to hold grow into these amazing adults that I know will change the world somehow.

But I always wonder.  What would that baby look like? What would they be? Who would they be? How different would our lives be if that baby was born?

My life is great and I am well past the time of having more babies and am preparing for the time when one of the kids tells us we're going to be grandparents. But the hurt is still there, a dull ache, wishing that I had been able to have the honor of holding that baby. That I didn't grow into a woman who expected a loss instead of hearing a heartbeat. What kind of woman would I be if I HAD been able to see and hold that child of mine?