Of Pink and Blue and Everything After

Here's a long story with a short ending. It starts approximately 2 and a half years ago, and who knows when it will end.

Once upon a time I was pregnant for the first time. I was nervous, excited and a little naive. Everyone asked me the same old questions, in this order: "How are you feeling?" "Is this your first?" 'What are you having?" The answers to the first two were easy--the last one drew mixed results.

You see, we never wanted to find out who was in there, until he or she came out screaming. We thought to ourselves, "Well, we have this child's WHOLE LIFE to know the gender, let's be SURPRISED when the baby is born." This thinking worked out well for us, for a while. Being the compulsive shopper that I am, it was hard to restrain myself when looking at the little blue and frilly pink things in stores, but I survived.

42 weeks later E was born screaming. Everyone surmised I was having a boy just by looking at me, and, as thrilled as I was that he was here and alive and healthy and WONDERFUL, I was a little annoyed that everyone was so RIGHT in their "knowledge." I was, by NO MEANS, disappointed that he was a boy--we were stoked, actually--but I didn't want to hear all the "Told yas!"

Moving on. Fast forward 11 months when I got pregnant the second time. Everyone told us, "Oh, it's nice not to know for your first one, but you'll want to find out what you're having for your second."

Still nope.

We held strong, but this time I knew it would be a girl. And then the shit hit the fan, and I waited and waited in the hospital to give birth to my dead, gender-still-unknown baby. And, lo and behold, she was a girl. When the dust settled and they finally told us she was a girl, I remember wailing, "I knew it! I knew it was a girl!"

So, that leads us to the third time around, meaning now. We caved this time. Well, I guess "caved" is over dramatizing things. I would love to still be that optimistic mama, knowing that I'd have "his or her whole life to know the gender." Oh, if only that were true. We actually, in our deepest hearts, did NOT want to find out what we're having. But this time around, I can't handle any more surprises. I want to know all I can know, control all I can control. I don't want to find out there's a tiny part of my brain that wishes for one gender over the other, and then be surprised or disappointed on delivery day (assuming we get there).

Believe me when I tell you I want nothing more than a living child to bring home, boy or girl. Truly, in my heart--well, I almost wrote "I don't care what it is." But that's not entirely true. I care a whole lot--just not about the gender specifically. My heart and mind and body ACHE for a living baby. I don't really care about the color of the receiving blanket.

Going into the sonogram, we weren't sure we'd even be able to find out now--I was only 16 weeks and the tech was checking out my delightful, enormous cyst rather than checking on the baby, per se. I was nervous as hell--this was new terrain for us. But the tech was lovely and kind, and was excited to show us what she could . . .

. . . and he's a boy.

I am getting tears in my eyes just writing this, because knowing there's a real live little baby boy in there wipes clean the nebulous, hazy image of a "baby." Unwillingly, I start to picture him--will he look like E, so fair and blue eyed? Or will he be curly-dark-haired like his dead sister? Or will he look like me, or C, or any one of a million family members with a great-grandfather's nose or a cousin's smile?

All the feelings I try to guard myself against, all the hopes for some unpromised future start popping up like bubbles, and it gets scary. But there's a relief in the frightened feeling, too. I remember, vividly, one day while pregnant with Calla. The realization that she was a girl--the biological, maternal, psychic realization--made me stop in my tracks and my heart start to race. Somehow, I have always had a vision of two boys.

I sound like I'm wading into wacko territory. I'll dial it back a bit.

Here's where the story pauses, for now. This little one is a boy, E will have a little brother--universe willing that this one makes it out alive. Would I be completely truthful if I said I wasn't disappointed it's not a girl? Not exactly. My heart soars at the thought of this little boy, but shatters just as equally for the little girl who will never be here, with us. It's not some 50/50 chance girl I'm sad for, it's our baby who died in January. It's her. I miss HER.

Since Calla died, I have this new thinking of pregnant mothers. We are the shepherdesses, the women who provide safe harbor for the little souls. We are the vessels in which they grow. We teach them love and life and provide passage into this realm.

Maybe that's part of why Calla's death was so incredibly painful. I failed in my duties. And here I am with another chance, to hopefully provide safe passage. For him.

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.

Don't Ask.

NOTE: This post was originally written at the beginning of May, 2010. The next several posts will be published in this fashion--I've been writing quite a bit on the down low.

I'm just going to come right out and say it:

I'm pregnant.

Please, no congratulations, no asking how I'm feeling--emotionally or physically, no gender or name questions. I'm putting this out there so it will be on MY terms.

The weekend after we returned from our vacation there was a home-and-garden show in town. As we were getting ready to go, my stomach gave a sudden lurch and the room began to spin, briefly. After a few swigs of Pepsi things were back to normal.

Except it kept happening. The kind of feeling where if I could just puke and get it over with, I'd feel better. Kept happening. Almost every day. And then I knew.

Two weeks later, it was confirmed. With a digital readout, no less. I wiped the drool-that-I-wish-was vomit from my face and looked at C. Holy. Effing. Shit.

It's, er, a little sooner than we'd--what? Expected? Planned? Not that we were doing either of those things. You'd think after two times around this block I'd have figured out how it works. Guess I'm a slow study.

So, I'm feeling an ocean of emotion: overwhelmed, grateful, hopeful, cautious, optimistic, shocked, grief-filled, stunned, freaked out, paralyzed with fear, emotional and physical nausea ad nauseam. Disbelief. Shock. Fear.

Did I mention I'm shocked?

And the third time, things tend to let loose a little sooner. As in, I'm sporting a belly. At 10 weeks. Which makes for a truly awkward experience pretty much everywhere: Me, trying to hunch over to hide it, others looking me not in the eye, but in the belly, willing me to spill the beans. (Or is that look, "Poor fat MB, can't lose the gut from Numero Dos."?)

I realize how-lucky?--we are--it takes some couples months, years to conceive again--if they ever do. Quite frankly, I can't believe it happened so quickly. I truly thought my body would be all, "Hell to the NO, sister! If you think we're doing THAT SHIT again, you CRAZY!" But here we are. Like it or not. Ready or not.

Don't get me wrong: my underlying emotion is joy. But schlumped on top of all that joy is grief, fear, anxiety, disbelief, shock.

And my mantra throughout--what? Nine months? Three months? Who knows how long it will last? But one of many mantras I recite is, "Just because I'm pregnant now doesn't guarantee I bring home a live baby in November." I have to be cautiously optimistic. I am hopeful, I am NOT peaceful, I am nervous. But I'm trying to be prepared--for the best and the worst.

Why am I telling you this? Personally I'd prefer to go live in a cave and re-emerge at Christmas with a live newborn. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to say it out loud. As of this writing, at 10.5 weeks, very few people know. Our parents,our siblings, a handful of close friends, my doctors. But it's happening, ready or not. Like it or not.

But maybe if I write about it, I won't HAVE to talk about it. I won't have to answer the "Are you finding out the gender?", "Do you have names picked out?", "How are you feeling?", "Are you excited?", "When are you due?" questions. Read the blog, read the blog. And don't ask me anything. Just think positive thoughts and send good vibes but please, don't ask.

My doctor, at our first visit, was amazing. And she began to give options for delivery. I can't see that far. I can barely see til next week. I'm trying to take this one day at a time, as though every day is the last. Sounds morose, but when you've seen the other side, you can't go back. Believe me, I WISH I could be the old pregnant me. She was fun. She ate bacon with reckless abandon. She didn't think about babies dying inside or the possibility of returning the crib and the clothes and coming home from the hospital empty handed. She wore cute maternity clothes, made a plan for the hospital, thought having a C-section was her biggest delivery fear.

Girlfriend has left the building, y'all. It's the new pregnant me, now. She's not fun, she doesn't want to talk about anything newborn/pregnancy/clothing related, and her expectations for delivery--should she get there--have been lowered to bringing home a living baby. That's it.

So help me, Universe, through however long this lasts. If this is all I get with the little soul inside me, so be it. I'm going to try so very, very hard to not bitch, to not fuss, to not complain. If this is the only time I have with this tiny little one, it's up to me to make it real, and positive, and loving.

Oh my word, what have we done? How the hell am I going to do this?