The missing piece

My neighbor Susie has a Shel Silverstein book called, "The Missing Piece." It's the tale of a little shape traveling around searching for its missing piece, and she's read it with Mary and Lucy a few times. They delight in the prose, and repeat it often.

For the past two years, I've felt as though our life had a missing piece. I would take the girls to school, and turn to bring a younger sibling home with me, only to discover I didn't have one. I would see mamas toting babies and get that pang of desire for my own little papoose. Pregnant bellies became like magnets for my hands. The feeling grew stronger and stronger until finally I could deny it no more. We should have another baby. Curtis enthusiastically agreed. Practicality weighed in, and I could persuade myself and Curtis that our life, our house, our car weren't ideal for another baby. But then, I would get another missing piece moment and realize that sometimes the heart outweighs practicality.

And so, we got pregnant in April. With a due date of January 17, a special day for our family because it is our beloved Great-Papa's birthday. The minute we knew, we were overjoyed. We did tricky wine-glass rearranging so as not to raise suspicions. We began our debate over which of us should have naming privileges. We plotted our home remodel project, and researched larger vehicles.

I felt great. I felt too great. In nine weeks of pregnancy, I had only three hours of queasiness. At our first appointment on Monday, the baby was measuring small but had that ever-important heartbeat. The ultrasound screen showed a little blueberry with two small eye sockets, staring straight at me, and that beautiful beating heart whooshing away. The doctor expressed concern about the baby's size, and asked to see us back in a week to make sure things were all right. And then late Thursday night, it became very clear that things were not right at all. At 2am on Friday, an ultrasound confirmed that the baby's heart was no longer beating. And I am utterly, completely devastated.

Perhaps this is too personal to share on a blog where I usually write only of the kids' antics and birthday celebrations and my latest gardening failures. We hadn't announced the pregnancy, so I'm sure this comes as quite a surprise. I'm not up to phone calls quite yet, so I apologize for not being able to tell my close loved ones about this personally. But there is a huge part of my heart missing, and I cannot imagine keeping that hidden away. I cannot fathom why miscarriages are so taboo that we cannot share them and grieve for those lost babies, as we do for others whom we love dearly and lose.

The only thing that I know for certain right now is that our missing piece feels larger than ever.