Six months

It's been 6 months since I've seen my little boy. And I'm not quite sure how I've survived.

March 9, 2005 at 5:29pm he came silently into the world and I had just one moment of joy before my world shattered. I heard the doctor say, "We have a nice little boy" before I fell back to sleep. The next sound I heard was the squeak and rasp of the bagging as they tried desperately to revive him, but I already knew something was wrong because they hadn't shown him to me. I hadn't seen his tiny face peeking over the blue cloth draped in front of my face the way I'd seen it happen a thousand and one times on A Baby Story. I hadn't heard him cry.

They should really rename that show. It should be called, "The story of a couple who are incredibly lucky to have a happy, healthy baby because birth is a horror show for some unfortunate couples who never get to take their baby home." That would be a much better title, I think.

I lay there at the start of my nightmare, falling in and out of sleep, and I knew it was bad.

And it was, which is why six months later instead of celebrating his half-birthday I'll be painting our powder room and sneaking peeks at his tree. Thank God for the tree.

Oh I wish I could go back and see him again. I wish I could just touch him one more time. There's so much I wish I could do that I didn't think to do then when everything was a haze of grief and morphine. I didn't count his toes.

I wish I'd counted his toes.