The eyes have it

I've started about four billion posts in my head since April 13th, but none of them seem to find their way to the computer screen.

I'm stymied by my inability to figure out exactly what to say. This really is so unlike me. Truly. Just ask My Beloved.

I've also been busy in the garden and busy crocheting and busy getting on with things in general, in the profound absence of anything useful going on in my uterus.

And thinking. I've been thinking too. All. The. Time.

My conclusion? Really, I think it's over. I turned 39 a few weeks ago and it behooves me to face facts like the great big grown-up woman that I am. If I'm unwilling to submit to further surgeries and testing, it's very likely that I've had my last child. Seen my last second pink line. Announced my last pregnancy.

It's over.

And there is so much to say about all that, I just don't know where to begin. I could write volumes on that alone.

Life flourishes all around me. A child on every square corner of my street. Pregnant friends popping out of the woodwork. Multiples. Surprises. They're everywhere.

Except here.

And the thing is, I need to be okay with that. Because this is what it is. This is my life, for better or for worse. Every day I breathe in and I breathe out and the myriad possibilities of a clean, white day stretch endlessly in front of me.

I can write whatever I want on that page. Perhaps I can't be a mother to a living child, but I can still be.

I can grieve my lost babies and still be something more than just a woman grieving her lost babies. This is not the end. I am not finished.

Yesterday I had tea with someone I haven't seen in nearly three years. I've lost two more children since the last time our eyes met. And in those eyes I saw fear. She was afraid of me. Of the person she must be worried I've become. Of my loss and my grief and all the horror I've witnessed and felt. Maybe of the things I might say, the craziness I might suddenly exhibit, the tears I might spontaneously shed.

And it broke my heart. Because while there is an indelible story of grief written deeply in my heart, I'm so much more than that. And I want people to know it. I want them to really, truly know that I am devastated by the loss of my son and by my inability to carry the other four babies we wanted so very much, but I am alive and I have survived and I have thoughts and dreams and hopes that have nothing to do with the carnage of the last six years.

I want it to show in everything I do, and in everything I say, and in everything I don't say.

I want to be walking proof that there is life after loss.

A good life. A happy life.