When July Never Comes

My world stopped, my heart broke, the air around me was no longer supplying life to my soul rather just enough to make it through each day. Enough air to get out of bed, go to work, eat, sleep then wake up the next day and repeat. The calendar, the weather, the new summer fashions are all telling me its summer, but I find myself frozen in December. Frozen in the same place, in the same doctor’s office each and every day because that was the last place I carried my baby.

I suffer in silence because I’m confused of my place in this world. Am I Mom? I held my baby inside of me. I saw my baby’s heartbeat. I instantly pictured our entire life from the moment of my first positive pregnancy test. But here I am frozen in time because the July I pictured, the July I planned for, the July I dreamt about is never coming so I’d rather stay in December; in a time when my baby was still with me. A time when I knew I was a Mom. Now, when people ask if I have children, I want so badly to say, “yes I do” but then what. I have to explain. I have to hear “well be thankful you were only 7 weeks” (like that isn’t long enough to count) or “at least you know you can get pregnant” (as if my baby was a trial run) or “its so common for the first pregnancy just try again” (because it's really that simple?). I’m scared. I’m scared to try again. I’m scared to feel like I’m replacing my baby that never came. I fear what it may feel like to be pregnant again. I fear the fear itself.

When we got pregnant we started designing our forever home. Now the walls are up, the siding is on, the deck is in, but my baby’s nursery is now a room. A room that is being designed for ifs and whens. It’s a room that looks as empty as I feel. I feel alone and isolated being screened for sensitive content and handled with care. I feel lost because I know it could be worse, so I feel like I’m expected to be past it all heading into July a put together version of myself but I’m not.

It may be common, it may be early, it maybe could be worse. But I lost my baby. I lost the kicks in my belly, I lost the birth of my baby, I lost the first birthdays, and first days of school. I lost everything.

I will forever have a part of me frozen in December with my baby and I think that is okay. I think it is okay to be sad, to be scared, to not be past it all even though society leaves me to feel otherwise because my truth is, I am a Mom. Because the moment I knew I was pregnant, I was a Mom and I will forever be my baby’s Mom.