The Last Day of My Life

January has been, for most of my married life, the end for me.  It was the last month that I knew the innocence of being newly pregnant; the last month before I knew that dreams were shattered every day, that babies still died, that it didnt happen to "someone else".  It held the last shred of my naivety in believing that pregnancy=40 weeks=baby in your arms.

10 years ago, on February 11th, I said good-bye to my first dream, my first baby.  My first miscarriage.  My womb was empty and my heart was broken and there were- and still are- no words to express that grief.  I've dreaded February, the memories of that ultrasound, the pills to induce the miscarriage, the "I'm sorry" from the doctor.  Telling Peter.  Watching his heart break.  Crawling under the blankets. Crying.  Destroyed.  I never thought I could feel worse than that moment.

3 years ago, today was the last day of my life.  The woman who emerged after the next day would never be the same.

January is always the end of an era to me... Each year, it replays that sweet innocence, that hopefulness, that unabated joy- untouched by the grief of delivering a tiny little baby who, although he did his very best, just as his sister did 2 weeks after, could not overcome the weight of the world's oxygen and eventually fell into what I pray every second was a peaceful sleep.  I can see myself, 3 years ago, working, discussing nurseries and deliveries and candles and music and a birthing bar and god-only-knows what else.  I can see that woman who thought that the hardest part was over, that "preterm" for her would be 36 week twins, that the worst thing to happen was leaving her babies in the NICU for a few days.  A woman who couldnt fathom leaving her baby in the morgue.  Who couldnt anticipate second trimester deliveries and the cold that robs her children of their last breaths of life.  Who never imagines having an undertaker hold her babies...  Her husband putting them in a crematory... Their bodies reduced to ash and air, even as their hearts continued to beat in her own.

To think of that woman catches my breath because, truly, I no longer know her.