This time of year

The due date for Baby Wednesday (my first little one) passed in early August. It was a thoughtful day for me, but I have to say that it wasn't especially emotional, I think because it was all so hypothetical. If only Wednesday had made it that far. If in some other world I'd had a baby in August.

My emotions are stirred more by sensations that evoke memories... the sound of leaves shuffling along the ground, the distant smell of snow. In Nebraska we're having a bit of a respite from fall at the moment, but as we march toward the holiday season I'm remembering my loss more and more.

A casual conversation brought me up short yesterday. Mr. Ibis and I were discussing our work schedules and he mentioned that he has to work on Friday after Thanksgiving. At first I expressed surprise, and then when he added that it was probably only a half day, it hit me. I remembered, and told him, that last year that was the day - the Friday after Thanksgiving - that he came home from work early and I greeted him with a positive pregnancy test.

Nothing can ever match the elation of that first positive test. Even now sometimes when it comes to mind I get a little confused and forget whether that was this baby or the other one. The memory of that first time is so much more vivid than the positive test I had for this baby, my sticky baby, my son, that it eclipses the day I pessimistically tested (another failed cycle, surely) and then called Mr. I on the phone to tell him the news. I can never match the unadulterated joy of that first time, even though it ended badly.

And then of course I think about how it ended. And excusing myself for being pregnant and hormonal now, I have to say that it still hurts so much more than you'd think (unless you've had a loss, and then you know) to remember that. The cramping that started so mild and seemingly harmless, the first traces of blood, my denial at first, and then blind panic, and grief, and more denial. The horrific moment when I saw it, and I knew. How I couldn't deny it anymore and the truth felt so inescapable that I could only wish to be someone else, to be dreaming some terrible dream. My husband looking so totally at sea. The loss that just seemed to never end, coming over me in uncontrollable waves of grief. It still makes me cry, right now as I remember. Even as I have a kicking baby inside that could be born any day and would survive. I know that it will never not hurt, the loss of my first one.

But in a way, I have to say, that is kind of a relief. It would seem to worse to get over something like that, and forget it - for something that was so monumental at the time to be worn away to nothing by time. It meant a lot to me then and I hate the thought that it could be transient or insubstantial. The power of the memory means that it isn't - that it was significant, that that life did have a kind of permanence, even if it was only emotional and not actual.

On a lighter note, this week has been a joyful one too. Five of the girls that I have journeyed with through TTCAL and SAL have welcomed their babies into the world. Two girls from my home board on the Nest have gotten positive pregnancy tests. And two TTCAL girls whose blogs I follow have also gotten pregnant again. I am so happy for them all!