Twenty-six taps

By: Savannah M. Whitemarsh

Dear Baby,

Where are you? It’s been two years and eleven months since I started looking for you; since I let the specter of you into my head that is now a shadow that follows me around every moment of every day as if it were my own.

Don’t get me wrong, Baby, I was not desperate for you. I did not hope for you. But now that my body is telling me there may not be a home for you here, I find myself almost longing for you, Baby. Definitely against my better judgement because I know what longing can do to people. I see it every day, Baby. It’s not pretty. Longing. It’s sad and painful and hard to watch. But watch it I must, join with it I must, and thoughts of you make it really hard some days, Baby.

Today my last patient was a mom of a newborn. She is 47-years-old. This baby wasn’t exactly planned. Or longed for. But he is very loved, and was here with us filling up all of the space in my little office. I held him as his mother cried and cried, Baby. And my heart was splintering off in a million different directions. My focus was mostly on the mother and her needs, but also secretly relishing the perfect amount of weight in my arms. I don’t mind, Baby. It’s a comfort to hold little ones like you. Two patients before her, a 24-year-old after a very recent miscarriage. And the one in the middle? A 30-something on her last round of IVF. I don’t even work in a fertility clinic, Baby. Some days are like this. And it makes no sense.

You may be keeping your distance because, okay, I’m a little long in the tooth, Baby. You might be worried about my baby box sitting a little too far out in left field, you know, not exactly dead center, compliments of “probable endometriosis.” That is fair. But Baby, you cannot use the three nice-sized uterine fibroids as any kind of justification because the good doctor said, “for now they are not encroaching” on the already-deviated-to-the-left-to-the-left uterus. What a relief. And the Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome? Sure, it can account for mood issues, and joint pain, and seemingly irreversible weight gain, hair loss (RIP eyebrows), infertility, and all other things semi-tragic for a lady of a certain age (or any age), but we’re treating it, Baby! Yes, my thyroid is kind of jacked but blood tests every month show that it’s slowly but surely moving to the range it needs to be for you. And please, PLEASE, don’t think that the swim will be anything like the time I did that horrifying triathlon sprint. Swimming out to sea, blind, in choppy waves, nearly drowned by swimmers twice as strong and thrice as ruthless. You can make it! The one Fallopian tube that was at one time closed to you, Baby, is now open. A right, good painful AF procedure cleared it all up for you. I call it The Invasion, Baby. I went to war for you. The Sono-Hysterosalpingogram was something only me and your ever-patient Dad have to endure. And hopefully only the once.

Did I tell you we have names for you, Baby? We had a name so beautiful your brand-new cousin wanted it, too. And it fits her just right. It’s your fault, Baby! She got here first. You would be closest in age to little Helena and the newest little Hoffmann arriving around Easter. Lyla would be your oldest cousin, and she would love up on you like no other. Josephine would make you laugh. Elizabeth will share her cake with you. Nora would teach you how to sing and Grayson would teach you about space. Ask him about Uranus.  You’d make brownies every Christmas with Hailey, and play cowboys with Henry, Levi and Gus. We have lots of new names picked out, a whole Pinterest board of others I keep private so nobody sees evidence of my almost longing. I swear we’ll give you a name worthy of you, Baby.

And everybody asks where you are, Baby. This is the hardest part. Because what do I tell them?  You’re still in fairyland, I know. Playing a trick on me. Your sense of humor is something I imagined liking most about you, but it’s not funny anymore, Baby.

I feel like I have no one to talk to. Sometimes because I don’t want to be a whiny burden, but mostly because people genuinely don’t know what to say. Except “relax” and “let it happen.” “You’re next.” “What’s taking you so long?” “You don’t actually want kids. Don’t do it.” Or worst of all, “I know exactly what you’re going through, I tried for like…six months.” No, I don’t punch anyone, Baby. That wouldn’t be right. Most of the time I wish people would say nothing. Ambiguous grief is hard for humans to wrap their heads around. Elephants get it. Humans, not so much. Give me something to tell them already, Baby.

Is any of this convincing you, Baby? No? Then let me tell you a story of your Dad. He walks this road with me and does all he can to understand the lightening fast trajectory of excitement to misery, Baby, as I see another “NOT PREGNANT, YOU SUCK” on the end of that little stick, after having convinced myself (every month), this is it. I feel it this time. But it’s everything I’ve felt before, I just deny what it means. Your Dad is really patient and tells me ‘it’s okay,’ and ‘I love you no matter what.’ He says ‘whatever you want,’ to me when I tell him, “let’s just call the whole thing off.” But he wants you, too, Baby. The first night we had all your cousins come to visit, he cradled a whimpering Levi and soothed him back to sleep. He cleaned up toddler piddle and made spaghetti. Just like a real Dad. And I did…I longed for you right then, Baby.

Rosie will be the best dog to you. And you’ll have lots of aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandpas and cousins and friends and all the birds on the back porch to love, love, love you, Baby. Like I do already. Even though you’re still not here.

Come soon, won’t you?

Love,

mom