Nine baby bumps

Yesterday I didn’t cry, not even once. I have been on an every other day pattern with being weepy. The sadness doesn’t cease but the tears come and go.

MS and I decided to go to the mall in the afternoon. I knew it would be rough, considering the huge play area that is always teeming with toddlers, and the new Destination Maternity store I’d already been browsing in, not the mention all the cute baby clothing stores and cute babies that were bound to be there.

Before I found out that our baby died, seeing pregnant moms and babies didn’t bother me a bit. I saw them everywhere and noticed them more than I used to, but it made me excited and hopeful. I felt warm happy that someday I would have a cute bump and then a baby to hold and love. It was like when you get a new car, and suddenly you start noticing that make and model everywhere you go. There are probably just as many of that car on the road as there were before you got it, but now that you have one you just notice it more and feel kind of excited when you see it out and about.

That’s how I felt when we were just starting out and I saw a fellow pregnant woman, I wanted to wave and hug them and ask them when their due date was and then gush about how fun it was to be expecting.

Now, I still see the same number of pregnant women and babies. I notice them just as much, but instead of being fun, it is a painful reminder. Now, instead of comparing it to seeing your new car all over, I compare it to when you break up with someone and you feel like you see them, or something that reminds you of them everywhere you go, because you miss them so much and you’re in pain over losing them. That is how it is now when I see those cute baby bumps. I notice just as many (there were nine at the mall yesterday, in addition to about a million babies, including a set of triplets!) but each one is just a reminder that I don’t have one, that I’m not carrying a new life inside me anymore, that I won’t have an adorable baby in January the way I had been planning.