Gone

I lost the baby.

The almost eight hours in the E.R. seemed interminable until I found out, but really, it’s nothing when you consider what was undone when I finally left. 

Seven weeks of dreaming about the baby because even when I was asleep, he or she was on my mind. Seven weeks of telling him or her to hang in there with my hand on my tummy. Eleven weeks with this child nestled in my belly. Or the seven years now MJ and I have talked about someday, when we’re ready, when we have a baby.

The midwife who came in after the ultrasound told me, “You’re only twenty-seven. You’re young, you’re healthy, there’s no reason you can’t be pregnant again in a few months.”

Maybe in a few months, that’ll seem like something worth saying.

Right now, I want my January baby.

My walked-in-commencement-with-me baby.

My we’re-not-ready-but-we’re-ready baby.

My calling from the top of the stairs, “Um, babe” with an edge of panic in my voice and a pregnancy test in my hand baby.

I want that baby.