Disjointed thoughts on Augusts past, present and future.

             Through the cracks in the blinds I can see the trees rolling in the breeze, but it’s disjointed as though each leaf is not connected to a larger branch.  My body shakes in a sob without tears, a shudder disjointed from the peace around me.  The evening sky is not so dark, as summer is not yet really half over.  But it’s August 1 and I am sad. 

There has been no word about the house yet; no closing date, no second appraisal, no closure at all.  We’re selling, true. We’re almost sold, true.  But the “sold” sign out front feels disjointed from reality.  We haven’t really “Sold” anything.  And when, and if we do close, we close the door and hand over the keys to the only house that Gabbie really could have ever called home. Disjointed, I guess, since she never came home.  I’m sad.  She called me home and the largeness of my womb gave her ample space to move, an action that killed her, a disjointed, and perhaps illogical conclusion, maybe but the truth none the less.  All of my girls were born with the cord wrapped around their necks; each time my womb was large.  Two out of three are alive. I make beautiful babies but it’s like roulette.  The odds remain the same and yet still you put the money down on the same color thinking the last few times were red, black has to come eventually.  A conclusion that is false, each time you put money down, the odds do not change that your color will come in.  Each time I get pregnant the odds do not change that my baby will be any more or less alive than the last one.  But the control groups remain the same, my body will still get bigger than necessary, and provide the baby with too much room to move, and the cord may still wrap around the baby’s tiny neck.  As you can see I struggle with this.  It’s not blame per se.  It’s terror.  There is no other reason that Gabbie died than the asphyxiation from the cord being wrapped.  If she had less room, she’d not have turned so much.  I don’t blame myself; I could not stop my body from making too much fluid.  I could not stop Gabbie from turning.  But the fact remains: she had too much room.  Both of her sisters did too. All of this is a disjointed fear.  How could it possibly happen again?  Yet I know the odds.  I was on the wrong side once. 

 This time last year we rolled the roulette wheel.  This time last year I was beginning the countdown to ovulation.  One day in all of August and suddenly the odds mattered.  One day.  We were trying for a boy.  We read articles that said no sex for 5 days before, and none for four days after.  We tried to increase the odds of having a boy.  So for one day in the first half of august we tried to have a baby and had a 50/50 chance of making a boy.  We made a girl.  In August we conceived Gabbie.  It’s August again.  A few ocean sized tears spill out from behind my glasses.

 It’s August and now we are preparing to hand over the keys to the only place Gabbie ever knew as home.  We are preparing to look for a two bedroom apartment.  I am preparing daycare coverage for one.  I feel as though my heart is taped back together today with too old tape that the adhesive has dried up on.  I am trying to prep myself for going back to work in a month and that after 7 months of being home with my girls, I have to leave them.  August, a year ago we started preparing for a life with Gabbie and now, a life without her.  Forever.  This time last year we conceived Gabbie and now I have to conceive of a lifetime of a family smaller than it should be.  I want to look forward to the possibility that I may one day, perhaps next August, or the one after, try to conceive again. Maybe I will get there in time and be okay with the knowledge that I will have to look at those same odds with a body that still makes too much room for babies.  Yet I so desperately want one, one that will stay forever. In time I guess, slow down, breathe, it's only August, it's only been three months.