The Ashes

Today, God willing, we will sign our names 800 times, hand over a big ol' chunk of change and close on our first home. It's pretty exciting! I am beyond thrilled to have a place to call our own. We've worked really hard to get to this day.

But today is important for another reason too. I'll admit that I didn't automatically remember the date. It's not engraved on my mind any longer. But when our realtor mentioned the closing date of May 8th, I just had a funny feeling... I knew the date was important. It took me a day to place it, and even then I had to double check. But my funny feeling was accurate: today is important because it's my due date. My first due date. 

Today should have been that precious child's birthday. My baby would have turned two. Instead, my husband and I will move into our first home without a crib or a stroller. We won't unpack a set of jumbo Legos or a baby doll. It's just us (and Sterling and Everest). I wondered if this date might sting less this year for two reasons: 1- time, and 2-more losses. I guess to the first, the answer is yes, in a way, time does heal all wounds. I certainly hurt less today than I did last year and even less than I did two years ago. To the second, surprisingly no. The loss of four embryos and one (barely) confirmed pregnancy since then doesn't diminish this day. I'm sure part of that has to do with the pain simply compounding rather than dividing, but I think it's also because she was my first. She will always be my first baby. Maybe not my first born, but always my first baby. 

I also think that today stings a little more than a "standard due date" (whatever that might be) because this also marks the end of a chapter for our family. The loss of that baby marked the beginning of the infertility saga of our lives. With the loss of that first child, my dreams for our family vanished. With the death of my first baby, I ushered in the hardest season of my life. That miscarriage has divided my life into two parts: pre-infertility, and infertility. No, I didn't know that I was infertile the day I lost my child, but looking back that's when this mess all began. Like any woman suffering an unexpected miscarriage I feared that it would happen again; I worried that I wouldn't get pregnant again. When that baby died, so did any naïveté I had held onto. This day now also symbolizes what might have been. It feels like the fork in the road. Had I delivered a beautiful baby girl on this day in 2012, my life would look so different. We'd probably be trying for our second, because Lord knows I'd need another before 29. Everything would be different. Instead my life took a very different path. It was a sharp fork, one that disrupted everything and that I did not take by choice. Instead, on May 8th 2012, I completed paperwork for my infertility clinic. I had just met with my first Reproductive Endocrinologist the day before and I was preparing for my first procedure, the HSG, the next day. It was a very different day then, and it's a very different day now. 

I have no answers as to why my life took such a sharp turn. It makes no sense to me. I could write about beauty for ashes, but really, I'd prefer that child to this home. I'd rather be celebrating her birthday this weekend than packing up our rental. I'm thankful for today and all that it symbolizes, but that doesn't mean it's not all ashes compared with what could have been.