Yin Yang

I had a very active imagination as a child. Most of what I imagined revolved around this enormously large family I was going to someday have. In my fantasy family I was the mother of 12 children. I imagined each of their names (first and middle) and memorized their birth order. I spent a lot of time sitting through sermons zoned out to this imaginary place. I used to go there when I was bored at home and there was nothing to do.

We had the board game Life, the one where you drive a car and get a job and a spouse and a couple of kids and then have to navigate around through life circumstances until you get to the end. I have no memories of playing this game with anyone else. It was mine alone.

I would get a spiral notebook of paper and list each of my favorite friends at the top along with the color of their plastic car. As I got older, I wrote a boy's name from my class for them to marry (giggle!). I never got past the 30th or so square. As you landed on "Congratulations! It's a Boy!", etc. you actually got a blue or pink peg to add to your car. I drove me and my girlfriends around that stretch of board over and over until there were no pegs left. I remember having to precariously balance them on top of each other as the peg holes were used up.

I was going to have a big family.

When I got married, I pared down. I wanted four. Just four. Such a modest number. Birch wanted two. I had heard this clever phrase I was going to use once that last one was born. "Birch wanted 2 and I wanted 4 so we compromised and had 4."

When we had the first dead son in Sept of 2008, I was immediately thinking of the soonest we could try again. When we had the second dead son in March of 2009, I was immediately thinking of the soonest we could try again. That was a much harder sell. Birch was done. We had laid in bed at night awaiting that last one and played "Worst Case Scenario" and had decided (yes! okay! BOTH of us) that this was it. One more dead baby and we were cutting our losses. But all reason left when I again exited that hospital brokenhearted.

And, somehow, this wonderful man that I have married has handed me the game ball. He'll play another game. He feels in his heart that he'd be rooting for the losing team, but he won't deny me just one more chance at glory.

Birch has a colleague in Louisville whose wife lost one around Sept of 2008. They talk. They have things in common worse than work. I heard Birch talking to him on the phone on Friday. She's pregnant again...was going to an ob appt that afternoon. He heard from him again on Monday. She spent her weekend recuperating from a D&C, mourning another.

I don't want to do that again.

I have a blog friend. Don't know her in "real life" but she has what's called a Dead Baby Mama Blog. I stupidly read a lot of them, though not as obsessively as I used to. I've tried to not allow this to become one of those. Don't know how successful I've been.

She's buried two sons in a row. She's also had two healthy sons bookmarked on the outside of those two. And she's pregnant again. When I read that the other day, I remember thinking "Why? Why would you do that again?" Ironic, I know. But I'm imagining spending every day, no matter what I appear to be doing, preoccupied with the question of whether or not I am still carrying life.

I don't want to do that again.

BUT, what if it goes okay for her? What if in the end, she's holding something wrapped in a blanket that yawns and roots and squeaks? Something warm. Something that doesn't just lay there dead and beautiful? What if it's worth it?

I imagine myself there in that room with that live baby- sore, exhausted, in love and elated all at the same time, thinking "What if I'd been too scared? What if I hadn't tried this one more time?"

I'll never look at an ultrasound machine as a miraculous technological wonder. It's an object of fear. I can't imagine purposefully subjecting myself to that wand, waiting those excruciating seconds to see what's behind the curtain. Dear God, I don't want to ever seek out answers on a black and white screen again.

But, for all women who've ever seen the miracle of life, seen the heartbeat of a fetus you've created, seen a 19-weeker squiggle and twist...well, there are just no words. How amazing that God allows us to witness such a miracle as this. How miraculous that we get to be a part of it at all.

So, as you can tell, I've put this issue to bed. I know exactly what I'm doing. It's settled. I have peace like a river. I have...

nothing. I have no direction. I have no peace. I have no decision.