Due Date

I feel bad that I can't remember my first baby's due date. Somewhere, there's a slip of paper bearing a positive pregnancy test result with that date written on it, but I can't find it. I guess it's not vitally important - the due date is just a guess, after all. What matters is that, had the baby made it, it would have been born this month, some time in the second half.

If that had been the case, then right now I'd be huge. I'd be overflowing with anticipation, and maybe a little fear at how drastically our lives were about to change. Matt's office would now be a fully-converted nursery, with a crib ready and waiting, full of toys, and a chest full of tiny clothes and tiny shoes and other tiny baby things. My hospital bag would be packed, and when people asked me when I was due, I'd beam and tell them "Any day now," or maybe groan in semi-mock agony as I pat my extended belly and say, "I know, I look like I'm about to pop, right?"

But that wasn't the case.

It's been over seven months since that first nightmare trip to the emergency room, after I felt my first baby, impossibly small, leave my body in a gush of blood and tissue and lost hope. It tends to be overshadowed by the second - the one whose tiny body lingered for weeks after its little heart gave out, only for an ultrasound to reveal the truth that broke my heart all over again, a mere three months ago. But the first is still remembered, as fresh as the second, and held in my heart as fiercely as I would hold it in my arms if given the chance.

This is the month - perhaps even the week - that we would have welcomed that baby home. But Matt's office is still just an office, and no bags are packed. That homecoming is never to be.