Remembering

It does me no good to look back and wonder about what could have been so I actively try not to but I can't help it this week.  Last year at this time, I miscarried my third child.  Although I never held him or counted his toes or even felt him move, I still miss him like we were together for years.  Rarely does a day pass without me thinking of him and how he should be here with us.  He should be howling me awake at night, greeting me each morning with that special gummy smile of a baby seeing his whole world walk into the room, sitting snug between his brother and sister on our Christmas card this year.  But he won't.

I say "he" because I felt like I was carrying a boy, not because we know what we lost.  I forget the official lingo but basically there was nothing left of the baby by the time they brought me in for the D&E so we were left with one more question mark to go along with why did this happen?  Did I do something wrong?  How could this be?  When is enough just enough?

I named him Nathan because it's a name I love but wouldn't have used if he had been born (too close to Jack's real name of Jonathan, too cutesie with Natalie.)  When we put the Christmas tree up, I will hang the ornament I bought for him.  It doesn't say his name and isn't indicative of the loss.  Nobody would look at it and think it was anything except a pretty butterfly.  Only I will know it is for my lost love, the child who lived under my heart from the time the leaves started changing until they all fell to the ground, the child who will live in my heart forever.  I wish I believed in the kind of heaven where he would be sitting on my brother's lap, safe and happy forever.  I don't though.  The religion of my youth would say he is in limbo, probably the cruelest doctrine ever conceived (of course by a quorum of childless bachelors).  I don't know where he is or if he is at all.  That haunts me.

My mother alluded to it last week but aside from her, I doubt anyone else remembers.  I don't expect that anyone would; why should they?  It wasn't a "real" baby.  I know there is a vastdifference between a miscarriage and the death of a child.  Rationally, there is.  I'm just not feeling very rational right now.  So, this week I grieve for the baby I lost, remember the rage and the pain that felt like I was on fire, thank the universe for the two healthy children I have and hope that my unborn baby -- not a replacement, that isn't possible -- will be born safely and get to live the long, healthy and happy life that her sibling deserved.