On being 1 for 3

Three pregnancies.  One baby.

It's a darn good thing that one baby is so over-the-moon awesome, otherwise I'd probably feel a lot worse.  Yes, she makes up for an awful lot of her momma's heartache.

Still... one for three.  That's not a good batting average.  If I'm a football team, I'm the Detroit Lions. (Or the CU Buffs, but I don't really need to kick me when I'm down.)  Yikes.

It's a strange feeling. 

One minute, I'm kind of amazing.  I'm making a person with this incredibly bright future ahead. 

And then the path splits: there's the one I've seen ahead of me, full of ultrasounds and heartbeats and childbirth classes and maternity leave.  Somehow, the road I took veered off and doesn't much make sense.  This is the road where I don't have a baby in May, and I shouldn't even be sitting here writing this post, but that other road is suddenly blocked to me and I can't get back on.  ROAD CLOSED, it reads.

Two roads diverged on a Friday evening, and I took the one I never again wished to travel.  The one I've been worried about literally since we started talking about getting pregnant.

But here's the worst part.  The very, most worstest part of all:  I think I may have done this to myself.

Here's what I said in February: "We should start trying early, just in case I have a miscarriage."

Then again in May: "I hope we get pregnant soon so if I have a miscarriage, we'll still time to have two close in age."

Even after the positive pregnancy test, I made Casey go out and get another box.  "I'm going to want to test again in a few weeks," I sheepishly explained, "just in case."  My mom even joked that I just like peeing on the sticks.

I didn't want to write the 1 week-post-find-out letter.  The one I wrote to Leah.  It seemed too early and I put it off.  I did it of course, but more out of obligation, and I found myself wishing those were words I really felt.  Knowing that, when the baby turned out to be healthy, I'd be really glad I'd written them. 

With Leah, I had such confidence in the pregnancy.  Sure, I worried.  Every pregnant woman worries.  But I also bonded with her from day one.  I didn't this time around, and I think it's because I knew this was coming.  In some Shakespearean twist of fate, did I bring this on myself?  Was it simply a self-fulfilling prophecy?

So I'm mad.  And sad.  And kind of mad at God, because He knew this was what I feared from the beginning and still, here we are anyway.  When I get up there, we're having words about this.  Harsh words.

And I'm again struck by the sense that it's silly to grieve for something that never really was.  Have all the early abortions you want, people, because I've seen what's in there, and I'm telling you... it's nothing.  Physically, it's nothing.  Unless you really wanted it to be something, in which case it's everything. 

When that everything is gone... well, it leaves you sad, mad and cursing at God a little. 

One day soon, I'll count my blessings and have a reasonable person's perspective on this.  One day soon I'll recognize that we can have another baby, and this isn't the end of the road.  But for today, I'll stamp my feet like a toddler and cry, because I don't want another baby.  "I wanted this baby!"  I'll stubbornly yell, as if by yelling I could will it into being.   

And then, I guess, I'll pick up and keep going.  Because that's what the rest of the world will do.

Even though it feels like a little piece of my world has ended.