Still afraid in through the looking glass.

I’m still fucked up.

Our friends had a baby yesterday. A son, who we were all convinced would be a daughter. Another new life to shepherd into our little community.

Why do I feel anything other than joy? I remember tearing up with tender pride at Sammy’s bris, coincidentally the same day as my OB/GYN preconception appointment. And then later, a few months after the miscarriage, pacing the hallways of the convention center, lost with rage, when I read Noa’s birth announcement at a conference. I felt like a monster then, but it was so raw, explainable, understandable. I thought I had grown since then. I thought I was okay.

But today I see the pictures of this sweet baby, his happy parents and all I can think:

Will we ever get to send an email like this? I still don’t believe it’s going to happen for us. I still don’t believe that our joy can be anything other than fleeting. Everything good will eventually be bittersweet because I’ll just end up remembering it as the time before everything went to shit.

Even as our son kicks inside of me.

We flew back from a trip via Philadelphia on Monday night. David, absentmindedly, asked me when we were last in Philadelphia. I answered immediately, because it’s seared into my brain. I went to a two-day conference, and then we drove to Delaware together for a weekend at the beach with our friends, last September. I was pregnant then, but it was already dead. We didn’t know. I was so innocent, so ignorant. I thought I was giddily hiding our future from our friends, but I was really just hiding potential. And not even potential, really, because it was already dead. I can only remember that time as bittersweet.

I am so afraid that he will die before we get to meet him.