Due Date

Today is 11/11/12, the day I'm grieving the loss of another much-wanted pregnancy, the loss of a promise I had -- and part of me believed in -- for just a moment, of holding my warm, sweet-smelling baby next summer. It also happens to be the due date of my last loss, the other seemingly healthy pregnancy I said goodbye to earlier this year. And it's the one-year anniversary, almost to the day, of when the betas went south and I took a shot of chemotherapy drug to end my first, surprise natural pregnancy. I'm on a continuing loop of loss, milestones of these shadow pregnancies building up and overlapping, marking the calendar with sad observances for which there is no adequate ceremony.

Today, I could have been in a hospital room. I could have gone in early this morning, dawn barely breaking in the ashen sky, shaking and chilly from nerves but also from the intensity of the moment, the moment right before you meet the baby whose outline you saw in your mind's eye, even as all the heartbreak whispered to you to give up, walk away, cut your losses, move on. The baby you believed in. I could have been told to change into a gown while my husband went to another room to put on surgical scrubs, an absurd costume for an otherwise tough guy who becomes queasy at the sight of blood. I could have giggled slightly at this irony, but also prayed earnestly that he not pass out in the OR. I could have walked into the OR, once again struck by the surreal sterility of the room where, in just a few short moments, all the drama would unfold. I could have had a spinal, and then the opportunity to remain more calm this time, be more present when my baby emerged. A nurse could have walked over with my baby, pure joy and love in eight pounds, and I could have marveled at how much s/he looked just like H.

I could have been brought to recovery and held my baby on my chest, all that bliss flooding back to me as if no time had passed at all since I held my sweet little H, making me love him even more even as my heart made room for his sibling. I could have felt once again like I'd unlocked the secret of the universe, shaking my head and wondering how I could be so lucky. And all the pain I'd endured with the loss before this pregnancy, every hard step toward motherhood could have melted away.

I could have had this, and to me it would have been miraculous, but the truth is it wouldn't have been out of the ordinary. Because today, in hospitals all across the world, this is unfolding for mothers new and experienced, those who had to work at it but also those who have known no pain in their quest toward motherhood. And it would have done the universe no harm -- no one else would have had to suffer anything for it -- if it had just let me be one of them.

But no. Today, I sit in front of my computer, wrecked, trying to keep my mind away from my abdomen, where another fetus lay either dead or dying. Waiting to see how it will come out of me. Wondering whether there is any way to stop this loop of loss, whether we can change the course of a future pregnancy toward the above outcome, instead of arriving in this sad place again and again and again. Wondering if a due date will ever again bring the arrival of a baby to fill it up.