Amor Vincit Timorem

**Written 5/7/2010

I had my routine blood draw today. It's now the third time I've had it done. Each time gets a little easier and a little less interesting. I know all about the skeevy bathroom in which I supply a "sample." I know how many vials will be drawn and what they are for.

This time, though, was different. Let's be honest: I wasn't planning to have to do this--any of this--a third time. I still feel like an impostor, as though I'm playacting someone I'd really like to be. When it was my turn to go in, I already knew the drill.

When the kind phlebotomist asked for my arm, I blandly offered the right. Then, the questions:

"Is this your first baby?"

"No, my third."

"Oh! What do you have at home?"

Now, if I was feeling like a smartass, I would have replied 'A two-year-old and an urn.' But I wasn't feeling up to it. I told her of my son, and then of Calla, stillborn just 4 months ago. She looked at me, so sad, and said she was sorry, and then said:

"Well maybe this one's a girl."

Well. Yes, maybe it is. (What if it is?) She was so nice, so gentle with her words. Turns out she goes to the same OB/GYN practice as I do, and the same doctors delivered her two children as did ours--the same one for her son as my son, for her daughter, my daughter. We chatted as two mothers with a common thread. I left.

It was the first time I'd ever said it: three times. Three babies. Our third. Oh my god, what am I doing?

***********

I've been taking a boxing class for the past month or so, and I have to say I absolutely love it. It's a one-two punch, if you will--an amazing, sweaty, all-out workout, combined with a great way to relieve all the aggression I have built up inside. Nothing gets out that anger like punching the shit out of the focus mitts.

This gym, also, is located on two floors of a church: the basement and the tippy-top floor. Throughout the class, part of the workout involves running up and down the stairs, from the basement to the top floor, with sets of pushups in between laps. My point of all this is that throughout this particular gym are posted many inspirational quotes. One of which is "Love> Fear." Another, which is on the t-shirt of each instructor and trainer, is "Amor Vincit Timorem," or "Love Conquers Fear." (Thank you Latin 1 and 2, as well as the memory-refreshing power of the internet!) Every time I run by, panting, huffing, puffing and sweating, I'm reminded of what's going on inside my body. Love MUST be greater than fear--why the hell else would I choose to go through this again.

Unless I'm really a lunatic. Which is entirely possible.