I like numbers. Strange, because I never really enjoyed math much in school, but now? Numbers are hella cool.
I like doing an analysis of something, anything, and coming up with facts and figures. And dates. I love dates. Good dates, mind you. With good numbers in them. I way prefer even numbers to odd - this even impacts how I feel when a new years begins. I'm way more optimistic about a year that ends in an even number than an odd one. The exception being any year that ends in five because that's half way through a decade.
You wouldn't believe the disappointment I felt when I realized the home we had fallen in love with and wanted to buy was number 63. So very sad. Why couldn't it have been a fricken even number? Alas.
Weird.
You think I'm weird. I get that a lot.
I was delighted when our wedding date (06/10/06) worked out so beautifully. Look at that - isn't it just a thing of beauty to behold? If you're paying attention, you'll notice that yesterday was our ninth wedding anniversary. :) Yes, we had a lovely day, thank you. Went to dinner, another place for dessert, then came home, looked at our pictures and relived our wedding. Wonderful.
But I digress. Back to the task at hand. Numbers.
So yes, numbers are important to me, likely well beyond reason in most cases. Numbers matter. Dates matter. And on today's date, the number that matters most is six.
Six is important because if things had actually worked out as we'd hoped they would, today we'd be celebrating the sixth birthday of our son or daughter.
In September of 2008, following a round of IVF, I was finally pregnant. We'd tried for years (see my post Life After Infertility for all the deets should you so desire) and something had worked! We were beyond ecstatic, delighted in every way that two people who desperately want a child together could possibly be.
And then it all went to shit.
I won't go through the details of the miscarriage itself - I may revisit that in November when that particular date rolls around and I reflect on the day, but for the purposes of today's post, we'll gloss right over it.
No, today is what those in the pregnancy world have come to call the 'estimated due date'. And while babies rarely come on time, this is as close a date I can possibly get when thinking of when our little one would have been born.
I miscarried at 9 weeks and 4 days. I have no clue if it was a boy or a girl, it was just way too early to possibly find out, and that not knowing still leaves me longing me in a strange, indescribable way all these years later. I wonder on more occasions than I can count what he or she would look like. What little personality quirks they'd have. If they'd take after me or their father, or be the best combination of both of us.
I saw this image today and it spoke to me more than probably anything else has to date because in one sentence it captures everything I feel...
It's a sentiment that haunts me.
As does the moment when I saw what should have been my child's tiny heart flutter and beat on an ultrasound screen. That image - the sound, the animation - is burned in my brain, seared there for all time.
For a while I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not. To have that memory of coming so close, of seeing life, only to lose it all a very short while later. To be so keenly aware of my body's own ability to betray me yet again, ever so cruelly and with such epic finality.
I'd never made it to that point before; never had a positive pregnancy test, and never would again. That was my one, fleeting moment; my 30 second glimpse of a child that would not be.
Yet now, with hindsight and some distance, I cling wildly to the image and choose to be grateful for the simple fact that it happened and not merely full of sorrow for the hole in my own heart that it represents.
Micheal and I were talking late last night about how different our lives would be had things gone differently those years ago. We'd have a little one now who could be excited about finishing school for the summer and we'd possibly be making plans for what to do on vacation. We may or may not have Finn. We likely wouldn't have travelled to Mexico these past few years and probably would not have turned the focus on ourselves enough to lose the weight. Which means I likely wouldn't have taken up running, but chances are our weekends would be full anyway with dance classes or soccer games or any other of a myriad of activities I'd long dreamed of enrolling our child in. Back in the days when dreaming wasn't so painful.
While both Micheal and I would state without hesitation that we wanted a child of our own, we have somehow made peace with our situation and are doing our best to live a full and fulfilling life together, replete with love and laughter and yes, the coveted opportunity to sleep in.
So while it's in many ways heartbreakingly sad to think that in some parallel universe we would be tucking our newly minted six year old into bed right about now, in so many others I'm grateful for what my reality offers, too. I have a wonderful life and am viscerally aware that while we suffered, and still do to some degree to this day, we're so very fortunate. Period.
Today I allow myself the opportunity to dwell a bit on (and wonder about) what might have been. And tomorrow I'll do my best to shake it off and get back to focusing on what's good - and real - in my here and now.
Added bonus? Tomorrow's an even numbered day.
I like doing an analysis of something, anything, and coming up with facts and figures. And dates. I love dates. Good dates, mind you. With good numbers in them. I way prefer even numbers to odd - this even impacts how I feel when a new years begins. I'm way more optimistic about a year that ends in an even number than an odd one. The exception being any year that ends in five because that's half way through a decade.
You wouldn't believe the disappointment I felt when I realized the home we had fallen in love with and wanted to buy was number 63. So very sad. Why couldn't it have been a fricken even number? Alas.
Weird.
You think I'm weird. I get that a lot.
I was delighted when our wedding date (06/10/06) worked out so beautifully. Look at that - isn't it just a thing of beauty to behold? If you're paying attention, you'll notice that yesterday was our ninth wedding anniversary. :) Yes, we had a lovely day, thank you. Went to dinner, another place for dessert, then came home, looked at our pictures and relived our wedding. Wonderful.
But I digress. Back to the task at hand. Numbers.
So yes, numbers are important to me, likely well beyond reason in most cases. Numbers matter. Dates matter. And on today's date, the number that matters most is six.
Six is important because if things had actually worked out as we'd hoped they would, today we'd be celebrating the sixth birthday of our son or daughter.
In September of 2008, following a round of IVF, I was finally pregnant. We'd tried for years (see my post Life After Infertility for all the deets should you so desire) and something had worked! We were beyond ecstatic, delighted in every way that two people who desperately want a child together could possibly be.
And then it all went to shit.
I won't go through the details of the miscarriage itself - I may revisit that in November when that particular date rolls around and I reflect on the day, but for the purposes of today's post, we'll gloss right over it.
No, today is what those in the pregnancy world have come to call the 'estimated due date'. And while babies rarely come on time, this is as close a date I can possibly get when thinking of when our little one would have been born.
I miscarried at 9 weeks and 4 days. I have no clue if it was a boy or a girl, it was just way too early to possibly find out, and that not knowing still leaves me longing me in a strange, indescribable way all these years later. I wonder on more occasions than I can count what he or she would look like. What little personality quirks they'd have. If they'd take after me or their father, or be the best combination of both of us.
I saw this image today and it spoke to me more than probably anything else has to date because in one sentence it captures everything I feel...
It's a sentiment that haunts me.
As does the moment when I saw what should have been my child's tiny heart flutter and beat on an ultrasound screen. That image - the sound, the animation - is burned in my brain, seared there for all time.
For a while I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not. To have that memory of coming so close, of seeing life, only to lose it all a very short while later. To be so keenly aware of my body's own ability to betray me yet again, ever so cruelly and with such epic finality.
I'd never made it to that point before; never had a positive pregnancy test, and never would again. That was my one, fleeting moment; my 30 second glimpse of a child that would not be.
Yet now, with hindsight and some distance, I cling wildly to the image and choose to be grateful for the simple fact that it happened and not merely full of sorrow for the hole in my own heart that it represents.
Micheal and I were talking late last night about how different our lives would be had things gone differently those years ago. We'd have a little one now who could be excited about finishing school for the summer and we'd possibly be making plans for what to do on vacation. We may or may not have Finn. We likely wouldn't have travelled to Mexico these past few years and probably would not have turned the focus on ourselves enough to lose the weight. Which means I likely wouldn't have taken up running, but chances are our weekends would be full anyway with dance classes or soccer games or any other of a myriad of activities I'd long dreamed of enrolling our child in. Back in the days when dreaming wasn't so painful.
While both Micheal and I would state without hesitation that we wanted a child of our own, we have somehow made peace with our situation and are doing our best to live a full and fulfilling life together, replete with love and laughter and yes, the coveted opportunity to sleep in.
So while it's in many ways heartbreakingly sad to think that in some parallel universe we would be tucking our newly minted six year old into bed right about now, in so many others I'm grateful for what my reality offers, too. I have a wonderful life and am viscerally aware that while we suffered, and still do to some degree to this day, we're so very fortunate. Period.
Today I allow myself the opportunity to dwell a bit on (and wonder about) what might have been. And tomorrow I'll do my best to shake it off and get back to focusing on what's good - and real - in my here and now.
Added bonus? Tomorrow's an even numbered day.
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