To those in our lives who still refuse to wear masks,

Do you care about me? If not, do you think it might be hard for my 2 and 5 year old little girls to spend the rest of their lives motherless? What are the right words for my husband to use to tell our children that their mother is dead?

Think about your mother. Can you remember what she looked like when you were a kid? Did her hair smell sweet when she rocked you? What songs did she sing to you? Did she kiss your skinned knee after putting the bandaid on? Now imagine she died before you even started kindergarten.

Think of all the things your mother would have missed in your life. All the times you’ve needed her growing up. How many less hugs would you have had in your life? Was she excited for you on the first day of school? Was she proud when you got good grades or your first job? How did it feel to have her shine her attention and love on you in those moments? What if that never happened? Would you leave an empty chair in her honor at your wedding?

Now imagine that there was the possibility your mother’s life could have been saved. If the people she called friends, family, or coworkers had agreed to endure a small, temporary inconvenience she would still be here with you.

Picture your mother’s face again. The face she had when you were small. Keep her face in the front of your mind and tell me what you would say to someone if there was a chance that person’s actions could prevent her death.

Imagine that person telling you they weren’t willing to change their behavior. They didn’t want the temporary annoyance that change would inflict on them. That person tells you they don’t believe changing their behavior will affect your mother. They just don’t believe it or the chance is too small for it to matter. Maybe they even ridicule you or try to hurt your reputation for insisting that if there is even a chance they can save your mother’s life with their behavior you want them to try!

Even if you truly believe COVID-19 isn’t that bad, or masks and distancing don’t work, please will you just try?

Your friends, family and coworkers are asking you to please do these small things just for now. Just when we’re together. Even if you think it’s ridiculous. Some of us are mother’s with little kids who want to see our faces grow old, too.

Thanks.

Agree With Me Or You’re a Bad Mom

This is my opinion and you need to read it. It is about babies’ and children’s health so if you don’t read it, you’re a bad mom. My opinion is validated by the way I did things with my baby so that means it’s true. Other moms agree with my opinion and used photoshop to create scary visuals and graphs that back up my opinion so you know it’s true. We have even banded together to create a nationally recognized organization that agrees with my opinion further proving that my opinion is right. You can see our graphics are labeled at the bottom as being published by the National Organization of Moms Who Believe in My Correct Opinion.

If your doctor doesn’t agree with my opinion you need to disregard that doctor’s advice because I’m a mom and my instincts are sharper than a medical degree. If you don’t agree with my opinion you are potentially harming your child which makes you a bad mom; not a good mom like me.

My Mother’s Routine

My mother has stopped trying. She no longer calls me to see how her grandchildren are doing. She doesn’t pick out a cute dress and matching socks at the flea market. It took my mother six weeks to come over and hold her second grandchild for the first time. She is busy. She’s busy holding it together during the day and listening for clues at night.

When the sun comes up my mother begins her work. She buffs, polishes, and strings gorgeous necklaces, earnings and bracelets fit for the Oscars. She loads them into her van and drives up to West Tisbury or down to Oak Bluffs to sell her jewelry at craft fairs. The way she greets people who come to her booth sounds the way it did when I was seven and pouting under the display table at the Grange instead of at the beach with my friends. “Hello, it’s all hand-crafted on the Vineyard. All real sterling and 14K gold. All real gemstones.” It’s a soft, bouncing spiel that hasn’t change in twenty-five years. There is just a hint of detachment, now, in the words now. I don’t know if it’s coming from her or from me.

At the end of the day she breaks down her booth and packs it all back into the van. Her back aches from the three car accidents she’s had in the past five years. She stops and sits half way through sometimes to organize her thoughts and regulate her breathing. It’s been almost a year since her TIA. When she gets home to the house that is not hers, to her parents house, she doesn’t seek them out. She doesn’t want to greet them or to talk about her day. She only wants to shower and to sleep off the exhaustion of holding it together for another day.

She rinses off the up-island dust thrown around by tourists’ tires as they enter and exist the fair near her booth. She remembers the people who entered her booth and the storyline of her life. The man with his hands in his pockets; he had something to hide. The woman who wiped her nose; a sign that something doesn’t smell right. The couple talking about Cambridge and then waving to a figure across the field; letting my mother know the game isn’t over. As the laser vibrations begin to target her heart and her head at the same time it becomes too much for her. She needs to lay down. She needs to sleep away the stress of this continuing saga. The plan to take away her youngest child and her reputation. But for what? “I wasn’t part of it.” she mumbles quietly enough to not disturb her elderly mother in the next room. “I didn’t know they were going to fly those plains into the towers. Stop punishing me. It isn’t fair.” And she lays her head down to drown out the pain of a daughter who hasn’t returned her calls in two months.

At 3am the whispering wakes her. Just like it does every night. Sometimes it starts a little earlier. They tell her about the past. They explain the plot. They give my mother paths to pursue to find the truth. “Ask Saundra about Carlo’s connection to electronic vibration mind manipulation at the NSA.”

“The post-master knows your number.”

“Two taps means no. Three taps means yes. Listen to the tree limbs on your window. They are telling you the truth.”

And on, and on, and on they tell her what to look out for, what to ask, who she can trust and who she can’t. Then the sun comes up, casting shadows on the whispers. It’s time to go to work and start another day.

Mom Work

Yesterday my 2-year-old told me, “You don’t go to work. You just my mom.”

Today my job is to sit on my couch and talk on the phone. I absolutely hate talking on the phone. I’d much rather do it face to face. I can never seem to judge how long of a silence to leave while on the phone before checking to see if the other person is still there or did I miss something that was said. Is she waiting for me to respond? So I start to say something at the exact moment the other person magically comes back to life. Then she thinks what I have to say is important and insists that I go first even though I only wanted to know she was still there and not waiting on me for anything so I panic and make up a ridiculous question that further detours the information I was waiting on in the first place.

Today I’m doing all of this while stress-eating mini marshmallows and chugging blueberry lemonade seltzer which is giving me unbelievable gas that I try not to belch into the iPhone that’s starting to make my cheek hot and my shoulder ache. My bladder is currently under attack from a squad of tiny octopus that beat and dig at it before turning into an itzy-bitzy alligator who barrel roles over and over inside of me; churning up more marshmallow and seltzer gas.

All of these tiny, water-dwelling creatures are actually, somehow, a tiny little parasite of a person. I know she doesn’t mean to cause me discomfort. She’s reacting to my stress. And all the sugar I’m forcing upon her. This poor, squished up little baby with her poor squished up little limbs. I feel her kicks and find it hard to imagine the feet that are inflicting them. Two bony, misshapen feet.

“Your baby has clubbed feet,” Dr. Takoudes told me over the phone when I was 26 weeks pregnant. She wasn’t in her Falmouth office that day but was able to read the ultrasound in real-time from Boston. If you’ve ever had an ultrasound you know that they ask you to wait in the waiting room after the imaging. “So the doctor can make sure we have all the right images.” They tell you. But really, it’s so the doctor can phone in a diagnosis when those images don’t come out right. When you’re baby isn’t going to come out right.

“She’s a beautiful baby,” Dr. Takoudes assured me. “This is not a life-long issue. People born with clubbed feet go on to walk and run and play sports. Sometimes they don’t even need surgery if it’s mild.” Surgery? That’s when I broke down and started crying into Dr. Takoudes’ ear while sitting at her Falmouth desk, staring at her empty chair.

Since that day in January I’ve spent so much time on the phone, and the computer. Researching clubbed-foot, talking to doctors, making appointments, dealing with prior authorizations. That’s what I’m doing today. Right now. One the phone. I’m trying to get an ultrasound and consultation with Children’s Hospital in Boston approved with a prior authorization. It’s not working.

Before I left Dr. Takoudes’ empty office in January she told me, “You want Children’s. They’re the best. I’ll set something up for you.” When I double checked with my midwife she said “Definitely go with Children’s, they’re the best.” The director of the Family Center where I reached out for support told me that after talking to the former head of Early Intervention she suggests bringing the baby to Children’s. When I mentioned it to a friend she replied with 47 forwarded emails from people she’d reached out to who all recommended we go to Children’s. Now, at T minus 48 hours until the appointment I’m being told the denial of my prior authorization can be challenged but the hearing date won’t be for another month.

As I call each of the providers who recommended Children’s I can hear at first the determination in each woman’s voice. “Don’t worry. Let me call. I’ll figure it out.” And the resignation when they call back to tell me it’s not going to happen. “Mass General Hospital is a great hospital,” they tell me. It’s a revision of their original statements about how MGH doesn’t have a pediatric orthopedic department and how I really want to go to the best which is Children’s. They all apologize to me despite their efforts. It’s not their faults. They wanted the best for my baby. They tried their hardest. But there is a cheaper option for my state-supplemented medical insurance so that’s who we get. “It’s kind of nice,” the nurse at the OBGYN tells me, “because they’re right off the highway so you don’t have to drive in the city!” I thank each woman for her efforts and hang up to another, final apology from each one.

Before I can finish my thanks and acceptance of apologies from my primary care provider’s office I hear a DING in my ear indicating I’ve missed another call and have a new voicemail. “You have an appointment with Dr. Albright at MGH on March 27^th.” The voice tells me. I scroll past all the office visits and non-stress-tests in my paper day-planner until I get to March 27^th. I see the number 37 written over the week. I’ll be 37 weeks pregnant before they see me at MGH? I could go into labor just getting there!

On the phone with Nick I start crying when he tells me “Look, either way we’re having a baby. It’s awesome and it’s probably the last time you’ll be pregnant so try to enjoy it.” I log back into the timed-out medical schedule website to distract myself from the tears and notice something odd. An appointment for Tuesday, February 27^th. “Shit!” I yell into Nick’s ear. “Either they gave me the wrong date or I just heard it wrong because my ears are wringing from being on the phone all day. It’s not March 27^th, it’s February 27^th; as in this Tuesday!”

The nervous excitement starts up the little octopus army all over again as I realize we don’t have child care for our daughter on Tuesdays, my mother-in-law will be away, and Nick starts to swear about how they need to realize we live on an island and can’t just jump-to for an appointment. “Can you even get a reservation for the car for Tuesday?”

“I have to go.” I tell him. “I have to make some more calls.”

A Fundamental Change

I announced my first pregnancy to my husband with my hands behind my back. We’d been engaged for five days and my ring was still at the jewelers getting sized. My naked fingers gripped identical long, slender objects. One in each hand. I instructed Nick to pick a hand. He finished wrapping his sandwich to bring to work for lunch with him and looked at me half annoyed by my games at 7am. He chose my left hand but I swung both around so he could see the identical positive pregnancy tests. They both had the words PREGNANT across the result screen in big letters although I was holding one upside down. There was a second where I could see him trying to register the information I’d just tossed in his face and then tears and a hug that lasted the rest of the morning.

I announced my second pregnancy to my husband with a bright yellow t-shirt I put on our 15-month-old. The words ONLY CHILD were crossed out and underneath were the words BIG SISTER. My husband looked at, and even commented on, the t-shirt for almost an hour before the message sank into his sleep deprived brain and he scooped us all up in one of his amazing hugs.

I announced my first miscarriage to my husband via text message while he was 40 feet in the air working with live electrical wires. “There’s no baby. They said it stopped developing and I’m going to miscarry.” I was mad that he wasn’t with me when I found out. That he had let his new job get in the way of our family; of me. I was mad that the child we’d been trying for for 6 months was already dead. My husband did not call me back right away. He told me later he had to find somewhere to compose himself away from his crew before he could talk. He was mad that I had told him in a text. He was mad that our baby was dead. We were both mad for the next 29 weeks it took for my body to be ready to try again.

I announced my third pregnancy to my husband with a printed out picture of a hamburger bun I placed in the oven. He got home before me and I told him to check the oven for me. I didn’t have a real bun to put in the oven because I figured the test would be negative. Again. I hadn’t prepared for this one. I’d resolved to the fact that my body didn’t work the way it should.

I announced my second miscarriage to my husband three days after the picture of the hamburger bun. “The doctor says it’s a good thing.” I told him. “It means my body can still get pregnant.” I faked the optimism as much as I could for him. He’d gotten his hopes up. He’d been happy for three days. I had been cautious. He needed the hope and our relationship needed the hope even as I assured myself we’d never have another baby.

I announced my fourth pregnancy to my husband three days after I took the test. It was one of those cheapo tests that gives you two lines if you’re pregnant and only one if you’re not. I didn’t want to waste yet another one of the expensive tests that report the words PREGNANT or NOT PREGNANT. For three days I was a complete bitch, mopey and irritable until he finally mustered the courage to ask me what was wrong. I thought of the line on that test that was far too faint to mean anything good and I stabbed him with my words so he could hurt as much as I did; I said, “We’re going to have another miscarriage.” He just looked at me without saying anything. He didn’t look upset or mad this time, but I was sobbing. After 18 months of trying, five rounds of a fertility drug that was turning me into a psychopath, and two miscarriages I had nothing left in me but hate and sadness and a desire to quit. “I’m not doing this anymore.” I told him. “I can’t do another round of those pills and I can’t do another miscarriage. I just can’t.” He gave me one of those hugs and told me it was ok.

Even 22 weeks into this pregnancy I haven’t retaken the test on one of the expensive pee-sticks. I probably should at this point. The tests from my daughter sit in her baby box as if she’d want my old pee when she’s older. The other two sit in a cigar box I painted with baby birds flying away from the rest of their family who sit together on a tree. I saved the original, barely-there positive test from this fourth pregnancy, but even as this little girl kicks me from inside while I write this it is difficult to be certain of anything anymore.

Where Has Our Village Gone?

While skimming the latest gossip off one of my town’s Facebook groups I came across a post by a woman who described her evening of attempting to photograph birds at a local, public beach. She described the stillness of her perch and how quite she needed to be so the birds wouldn’t be afraid to approach where she sat. Suddenly, she says, a family shows up and stops a little bit away from her. Not close enough to disturb the birds. She can tell they’re there for family photos. There’s a mother, a father, two kids and a light screen. The mother, this woman telling the story says, immediately loses it on the kids yelling for “Just one hour!” Completely disrupting this woman’s own photo shoot she’s worked so hard to set up with the birds.

I get it. It’s really annoying. There is absolutely no such thing as a quiet piece of space on our island in August. I complain about it all the time. I think it sucks that this woman’s work was interrupted. I started reading the comments people had added to her post. One after another they shamed the mother for yelling at her kids or for making a racket at all. How dare she disturb the peace of this beautiful place!

Well, I had my own little melt down at my house. Phone in hand. I wanted to rant and rave and defend this mother but all I could do in the moment was leave a snarky little comment about the difficulties of motherhood and not mom-shaming. In retrospect I could have been nicer and less sarcastic.

It really stuck with me though. This story. It perfectly illustrates the way I’ve felt over the last two years. It makes me ask: Where is our village? You know, that village that it supposedly takes to raise a child. Never mind two. Where is the support and understanding? The neighborly helping hand?
I’ve only been doing the mom thing for a little over two years and I’ve already had a few public meltdowns. They’re not something I’m proud of. I don’t set out for the day planning on screaming “Don’t you dare!” as my toddler launches a jar of spaghetti sauce onto the Stop & Shop floor. It’s just something that happens when you don’t have a village.

Moms need a break.

Last summer I was walking my dog down the narrow sidewalk on my street and pushing my kid in her stroller that veers left so I have to hold on extra tight so it doesn’t go off the curb into traffic. My dog was a 90lb, very energetic hound. I loved her very much. She was my first baby and I’d had her for seven years. I swore I’d never get rid of her, but we had already started searching for her new home which left me with a constant feeling of sadness and dread. My daughter had decided to get all her teeth in the span of a month so we hadn’t been sleeping very well. My husband was away for a 9-week work training thing, it was 90 degrees and I was due for a melt down.

I saw some of my neighbors walking their dog ahead on the sidewalk so we crossed over to the other side where there was no sidewalk, but it would keep our dogs from meeting. My dog did not like meeting other dogs while on a leash. The other family was walking much slower so as we overtook them, on the opposite side of the road, my dog decided to lunge out into the street just as a car came speeding down the road, almost pulling me and the stroller with my then one-year-old into the line of the car with her. I managed to whip her back towards me with her leash just in time and proceeded to absolutely lose my freaking s***. Completely. Utterly. No s*** was left. It was all lost. All over the street. In front of the other family with their dog. In front of the neighbors whoes lawn I was now standing on. In front of the passing cars. I screamed holy hell at my dog who cowered on the ground while my daughter shrieked in terror. When I was done yelling we walked home while I cried.

I was embarrassed and ashamed. I worried someone would call animal control on me or DCF. I hid in my house with my daughter and my dog and just howled. All I could see when I closed my eyes where the faces of my neighbors just looking at me. They looked at my like I was a crazy person. Like I was unstable. I felt like I had no right having a dog or a kid to take care of.

A year later I can think of how different it would have been if one of those neighbors had come up to me and asked me if I was alright. Would I like them to walk my dog back while I pushed the stroller.

How different would I have felt if after witnessing me at one of my lowest points someone had said, “It’s okay. I’ve been there.” I swear to you I would have hugged that person and cried into their shoulder before picking myself up and going on to be the best mom I could be for the rest of that night. I would have felt okay about not feeling okay. My mood would have lightened. I would still be embarrassed but I wouldn’t feel ashamed. I wouldn’t feel alone.

It is time for us to bring back the village. Moms need a break. Dads need a break. We all need to give each other a break. It’s scary inserting yourself into someone else’s business. And maybe it will backfire and just get you an ear full of “Mind your own business.” But that person will know, deep down, that she isn’t alone. Or maybe she will sob in your arms for a minute before apologizing and walking off ready to deal with the next thing life throws at her. Maybe she will feel like she is part of a community that cares about it’s people.

Wisdom

People get wiser with age. Except me. I get dumber. I used to consider myself a smart person. I graduated high school early and went straight to college a week later. Then I graduated college early and got into graduate school. I crammed a three year graduate program into two and a half years and completed my dual masters program, with honors, by the age of 25. Now, when my husband enthusiastically asks “who’s that” while nodding towards the TV I answer “It’s Snuffy!” before realizing he was talking to our two-year-old daughter. I feel embarrassed because that’s one of the only right answers I’ve had all day.

Two year old tantrums in the grocery store and I cooked the wrong kind of macaroni and cheese for lunch. Again. When I give her a choice between the blue dress and the pink jumper her answer is NO! I burn the quiche and leave out a whole cup of flour from the chocolate chip cookies that lay steaming in a swampy puddle on the tray. I finish vacuuming the living room and find a whole box of crackers dissected on the kitchen tiles. Every accomplishment is shadowed by another disaster. My husband comes home to dishes stacked on the counter and a naked, screaming toddler. He always tell me how good a job I’m doing.

Escape

There is no escape. No way out. I try to quietly ease my body off the sofa, heart pounding, eyes sharp with fear. My breath sounds like a thundering herd of beasts stampeding away from a predator. I try to stop my breath all together, but it’s no use, my will for life betrays me and I let out a sharp, exhalation. Was I detected? No. My captor has not shifted gaze. Still transfixed on the images and shrill sounds coming from the television. My weight comes to rest completely on my sore feet. I’m up. I’m yet unseen. I edge quietly towards the kitchen. Not daring to look back. Fearful of what will happen if my movements are detected. I turn the corner into the dark kitchen and feel the cool linoleum under my toes. A wave relief flows through my core and I start my route towards the bathroom, but as I reach for the doorknob I hear it behind me. A scuddling and then a high pitched cry! “Mommy!” I’ve been detected. Yet another trip to the bathroom where I’ll be joined by my toddler.

Butterflies

I’ve been neglecting my blog in pursuit of another creative outlet lately. I hope to share it in the near future. I promise to come back. Here is just a quick free-write I did during a writing group. It speaks to the theme of this blog but is in no way a finished piece. The prompt was butterflies. 

 

We’ve watched the Elmo about butterflies about 30 times now. I’m starting to memorize it. But it’s the easiest to pull up on the TV and quickest way to distract my monster, I mean toddler. I wanted to be a good mom. I wanted to tell my daughter, Now we’re going to wash the dishes. Pull up a chair and role up your sleeves. But instead I turn on Elmo and listen to Telly and Baby Bear try to catch the butterfly that’s swooping around Sesame Street. I turn on the faucet as quietly as possible and load the dishwasher quickly so Azealia, my monster, doesn’t hear and want to “help.” She loves to help! She loves to help so much that we’re almost out of dishes.

The first to go was the brand new butter dish I’d ordered from Amazon. I always thought that only rich people had butter dishes. The rest of us poor folk spread cold butter, strait from the refrigerator, onto bread that ripped under the force of the knife. So when Nick got his raise, I ordered the butter dish. It was only $11.95, but it made me feel rich. Then Azealia helped and it shattered on the ground a week after we got it.

Next was the plate that held the mac n’ cheese I was about to eat so that Azealia would see me eating mac n’ cheese, and herself decide to eat mac n’ cheese. A method learned from my monster’s nutritionist who helps her eat. Anyway, I was about to sit and eat this orange feast with my monster when she decided to “help” mom have some of her water bottle across the table, right onto my lunch and shatter the plate. Since then we’ve lost most other ceramic kitchen items to my child’s attempts to help. Now I turn on the Sesame Street about butterflies a little too loud, and the faucet on very quietly and half wash our plastic plates. Not the perfect mom.

Tomorrow Was my Second Child’s Due Date

TRIGGER WARNING:

Tomorrow, May 26, 2017, was my second child’s due date. I will never get to meet this baby but s/he will always be a part of me. This is the letter I wrote to my second child after an excruciating incomplete miscarriage. I’ve included this letter in a memorial box I painted of our family (pictured in the feature photo of this post). The design is one I saw online when looking for support and found comfort in it. I do not know the original artist. Inside the box is the pregnancy test I took in September and the following letter as they are my only tangible relics of this child. I’m sharing this letter as part of my healing and to lessen the isolation many feel when grieving someone no one else knows exists.

 

Dear Baby,

I knew the day before I took the test that I was finally pregnant with you. It felt like a long time that we’d been trying. So, when I got up to take the test at 3am I was so excited when the pregnancy pee stick read, pregnant. I couldn’t go back to sleep. I got out the bright-yellow t-shirt I’d bought your older sister months before. The words ONLY CHILD were crossed out and underneath it said BIG SISTER. I laid out the shirt with a new diaper and waited for Azealia to wake up. It was September 15^th.

Azealia, you and me got up at 6am and went out to see Dad who was getting ready for work. He kissed us good morning and continued getting ready for work. Making his lunch, running to the bathroom, keeping your sister out of the kitchen cabinets, not noticing the bright-yellow t-shirt or the bright yellow sun beams coming from me. He’s a dad and sometimes dads need time to catch on so I put Azealia in her high chair and started to get her breakfast ready. Dad said, “that’s a nice shirt.” and mommy’s heart fluttered, but dad went back to his cereal. A minute later Dad was looking at the shirt again. Confused. “What does that mean? Like, Azealia doesn’t have a big sister. I don’t get it. If you were pregnant we wouldn’t know if it was a boy or girl.”

I tried, Baby. I tried so hard not to laugh at your dad, but I couldn’t help it. “Azealia IS the big sister.” I told him. “She’s no longer an only child because she has a younger sibling.” Daddy was so happy! He jumped up and gave us all a big hug! We were all so happy.

Later, after I brought your big sister to daycare, I started to feel the cramps. I thought it was because you were my second baby and you were going to stretch mommy’s stomach out faster. I wasn’t worried. I went to the hospital and did the blood work the doctor wanted because it was taking so long to make you. When the doctor called I told her the good news. “We had a positive test this morning!”

“Great!” she said. “Everything feels ok? No bleeding or cramping?”

“Some cramping this morning.” I told her and there was a pause that was just a second too long.

“Okay, I’m just going to have you go do one more blood test to check your levels in a couple days. Just to make sure everything is progressing alright.” She told me to call her if there were any more problems. I started to worry.

I called your dad and let him talk me down because that what he does. He told me not to worry and to enjoy being pregnant and to take care of myself and you. So I did. The cramps stopped. I started to get tired. Another week went by and I started to feel sick. The doctor kept making me go back for more blood tests every few days because my “levels” were low for your age, but I googled it and found out that levels are different for everyone. We were fine. When you were six weeks old in mommy’s belly we went for your fist picture. I couldn’t’ wait to see your little heart-beat. We didn’t get to do your sister’s first picture until about nine weeks and I thought I’d lose my mind waiting.

I had to go alone because Daddy’s new job wouldn’t let him take a day off yet. I tried not to look too excited in the radiology waiting room because then people would know why I was there and you’re not supposed to tell people you’re pregnant until about 14 weeks just incase something happens. When we didn’t see you on the screen at first I wasn’t worried. We could just see the sack you’d be in on the tummy ultrasound, but that early it’s easier to see a baby with the wand. The tech let me empty my bladder before it burst and then started the less-than-glamorous probing. I’m not great at seeing things on an ultrasound, but I started to realize I still couldn’t see you.

Right when my heart was about to break the tech assured me that I’d gotten the dates wrong and that you were only five weeks in mommy’s belly. That’s why we couldn’t see you in there. I knew I wasn’t wrong and that she was, but I let us both believe her. I had to believe her while I was stuck there. Skewered on the elevated table.

More blood tests. Two more ultrasounds. Lots of calls with nurses. Finally, on October 13^th, they told me you had stopped developing right around five weeks in mommy’s belly.

Mommy’s body broke down. I started sobbing, but my mind was in a different place. I thought maybe they made a mistake. Well, I knew they didn’t. But, I told myself they made a mistake and I kept this secret place in my mind where you were all right while the rest of my body crumbled onto the ground and I watched it happen, but I didn’t feel it in this small space that I crept and crammed myself into. It was sad to watch everything happen from that space. Like watching a really sad movie. You feel for the character, but you know it’s not you and you can walk away from the sadness.

I’m really not sure how to describe it, Baby. I knew I was hurting, but I didn’t know exactly how much or exactly why. I knew I loved you. I knew it before I made you. It took me longer to fall in love with your sister. Not because of anything she did. I think it was just because I’d never had a baby before. I didn’t know exactly what it meant to make an entire person who is her own self and who I had to protect and comfort and teach. But your sister taught me how to love someone more than myself and that’s why I loved you so early. I knew what you could be.

Your sister would have loved you, too! You were going to be born in May, just after her 2^nd birthday. I’ll tell her about you when she’s a little older and can understand a little better why you’re not here. Did you know that Azealia learned to say “baby” the same week we made you? After we knew what happened, when she would say it, it felt like a little tickle and a pin prick both at the same time.

On October 28^th, I gave birth to you. I felt the first contraction in the grocery store. We’d just gotten the ice cream and were about to leave anyway. By the time we got home I felt like I was having real, active labor contractions so I called the doctor. She told me to take Advil and use a heating pad. I have never in my life found a heating pad effective enough to relieve the feeling of being torn into two from the inside out. I fed your sister lunch with my regular, old heating pad tucked into my sweat pants and tried to smile through the pain so I wouldn’t scare her. I couldn’t do it. I started crying.

Finally I couldn’t take it anymore so I put Azealia in the living room and ran to the bathroom, but she was worried about me and insisted on following. Your sister sat on my lap and hugged me while you came out.

But, you didn’t leave me completely. Or maybe I wouldn’t let you go. The next time they took my blood to check my “levels” you were still there, but a little less. And the next time a little less. You stayed with me for a long time. I kept you with me for a long time. Mommy kept bleeding, but you’ve stayed with me through Halloween, then Veterans’ Day, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas, New Years and Valentine’s Day. Leaving just a little bit at a time so that mommy wouldn’t have to lose you all at once.

On March 4th Mommy had more blood work and for the first time in 28 weeks you weren’t there. I love you. I loved you before I made you. I never got to see you, or hold you in my arms, but I love you. You were real. I know it’s just a story, but it says in the Velveteen Rabbit, “Once you are real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.” I will always love you. You will always be part of me.

With all my love,

Mommy