Babies, babies, everywhere...

I didn't mind babies at first. Pregnant women either. I saw my neices' babies during the first holiday (Easter) just weeks after we lost William, and I was fine. It didn't bother me. I didn't begrudge them their babies. I didn't want their babies - I wanted my baby. If I couldn't have William, nothing else mattered. I could hold someone else's baby forever and it wouldn't make a difference. That baby wasn't William, and William is who I wanted. 

But now... now babies bother me. They bother me a lot. I took D. to wrestling today and there were two babies there, one a little younger than William would be right now, one just a little older. I was surprised by the wave of sadness that overcame me as I stood there looking down at someone else's baby sucking on his little hand in his carseat. That should have been me - although my baby probably would have been in a sling, and I would have been trying to figure out how to discreetly breastfeed in the midst of a room full of wrestling boys instead of bottle feeding... but still. 

I should have a baby, and I don't. I really don't. There's no going back, no do-overs. I will never ever get that time back. And I stood there, looking at that baby's chubby little feet, wondering what William would look like now - another thing I'll never know - and I realized how angry I was. He almost made it - someone wrote that in a letter to my husband the other day, and the phrase made my heart just ache. He almost made it! It's like running a marathon, getting two inches to the finish line and then falling down dead of a heart attack.

Oh the irony. The horrible, bitter irony. Every time I think about it, I feel like I'm chewing on tinfoil. It leaves a terrible taste in my mouth. 

So I stood there at the wrestling practice looking at other people's babies, filled with jealousy and longing, and I realized I didn't want William anymore - I wanted a baby. Somehow the awareness had finally settled into my consciousness that I could never, would never, hold William again.  He was really gone from me, forever. I don't know that I'd ever wholly accepted that fact, or realized I had, until that moment. And of course, if someone came in and slapped me on the back, laughing and saying, "Just kidding! Here's your baby! Here's William, it was just a joke!" I'd take him back in a heartbeat. It's a fantasy I've unconsciously entertained, I'm sure. 

But my son is dead. There's no monkey's paw to make wishes on. He is ash and bone and memory.

And still, my womb aches. I want another baby. I can't have William, I can't ever replace William, but the longing for another baby is agonizing. It's so great I can barely stand it. I keep thinking of those fibromyalgia commercials - have you seen them? "If I looked how I felt, then would you believe me?" If my face and body reflected my pain and longing, I'd be writhing on the floor, screaming in agony.

So while before, facing a baby didn't bother me because I wanted William, who couldn't be brought back to life, no matter what I or anyone wanted or did... now, looking at someone else's baby reminds me not of the unrecoverable past, but of the potential future... of the possibility of some future child, someone not yet here, someone waiting to be born. It reminds me of my empty womb, my empty arms. It reminds me that I've lost one and don't yet have another.

Maybe this feeling will ebb a little, when I get two lines on a pregnancy test. Even knowing what I know, that there are no guarantees... I want to feel alive. I want life growing in my womb again. I want to share my body and my life with someone new, some unknown but so very wanted and already loved presence, some impossibly beautiful and mysterious conglomeration of our genetic soup cooking in my belly.

I don't know. Maybe I'm being selfish. I don't think this is the month, although I'm 9-10 days past ovulation and due to start cycling again in two to four days, if I don't get a positive test, anyway. Frankly, I'm feeling discouraged and I don't think a + test is likely. Aside from all the pre-period symptoms I'm having, I think the universe just doesn't think it's time.

The universe has pinned me and now just seems to think turning the screws - making me wait 11 weeks for my cycles to return, forcing me to sit in a room with other people's newborns, and this time, most likely, a negative pregnancy test right out of the gate - yeah, that will teach me, that will really send the message home.

I'm not in control. It's not up to me.

Thanks for the reminders, universe.

Thanks a lot.