Making it real

September 20, 2009

Those of you who know me know that I am a planner. I really enjoy planning. In fact, I don't think it would be a stretch to say at least half of the fun of parties, trips, holidays, etc. is the planning for them. Planning creates such anticipation! Oh I love it! So for me, it was somewhat unusual that when I was pregnant with Harper, I did not purchase a single baby item. Not a single thing. Part of that was that I wanted to wait to find out if we were having a boy or girl before I started buying clothes, but there would have been plenty of other baby accoutrements to purchase and plan for in the meantime. I was hospitalized at 4 months pregnant. I was scheduled to have my ultrasound the week that I was hospitalized. We were supposed to find out then what we were having. Needless to say, things didn't happen that way and a month later we lost Harper.

I have tried a couple of times since then to peruse the baby aisle at Target. Those attempts were painful and fruitless. I decided a while back to just give up trying to make myself comfortable with looking at baby things. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I literally turn my head and look the other way whenever I walk past baby things. What would the point be in making my heart ache and yearn on a Saturday morning when all I really wanted to do was buy some dish detergent or trash bags?

Thursday was different though. I had been talking with a friend at work about the excitement I was experiencing at the prospect of adopting and getting to mother a baby. She told me she thought I needed some "shopping therapy." And then it hit me. In the not too distant future (fingers crossed), I will need to be buying a crib and changing table. I'll need a car seat and stroller. I'll need onesies and booties and blankets and baby shampoo. I'm going to need to be able to shop for our baby! So Thursday after work I thought I would try to ease myself into this.

I stopped at Target on my way home. I headed right to the baby area and started slowly walking up and down the aisles. My thoughts bounced back and forth from Harper, to fantasies of this little one who will be coming our way one day. Harper was just over 14 ounces when she was born. None of the baby clothes would have fit her. And then my eyes fell on the newborn caps. I reached out and put my fingers inside the cap and stretched it out to see how big it was. It was so delicate and soft. A mellowness came over me. Harper wore a tiny little preemie cap. I kept walking and looked at other things. But I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to buy something. Just one small item, a gender neutral thing. Something I could carry with me to remind me of the hope that I have. To make real for me the future of being a mommy that lies ahead.

I settled on package of three newborn sized little socks; white, yellow, and green. I took them home and cut them free from their packaging. I put one pair in my purse. On Friday I carried them on my lap as I drove to work, picking them at each stop light and feeling how soft they were. At lunch time I took them out of my purse and held them up to my lips and kissed the smallness I held in my hands. One day I will put my baby's feet in those little socks. I closed my eyes and pictured it.

Friday night Jeremy and I spent the evening together. We really hadn't had an in person conversation since Wednesday morning due to our conflicting work schedules this week. I wanted to show him. I wanted to tell him, but I was worried about his response. He's so protective of me emotionally. Would he want to remind me that I shouldn't get too excited because this could be a long wait, and after all, we had only just begun the application process? Would I see the concern on his face?

"I want to show you something I bought yesterday," I told him. He paused the DVD of Frasier we had started watching. "It's something for the baby," I said and looked tentatively out of the corner of my eye at him to see if the concerned expression was beginning. I knew what was going through his head, Did she buy a crib? Did she buy a whole nursery set-up? What's going on? "Don't worry, it's nothing major. Just something very small," I said as I went to my purse to retrieve the socks.

I brought the socks over to him on the couch. I explained that I had been carrying them around with me. I told him how I wanted to make this seem real. I wanted to get past the sadness of shopping and I wanted to hope. I told him how excited I was. I held up the little socks for him and he held them. "Aren't they just so tiny?" I asked. He smiled and nodded. "Jeremy, we're going to have a little baby who will wear those! Can you believe that?" He nodded again. And I saw his eyes well up. That I was not expecting. I put the little socks on my nightstand next to my bed and came back to the couch beside him. "Did you get a little choked up?" I asked.

"Yeah. Well it's emotional," he said. Yeah. It's emotional. I was so happy to share that moment with him. No concern, no fear (at least in that moment), only emotion. And I know what that emotion is. It's the bittersweet. If you've ever felt it, you know what it looks like.

There's a lot of relief for me around not thinking about carrying a baby myself any more. A lot of relief. I've been taking my Cipro regularly now and I feel so good. I feel more and more certain that adoption is the right thing for us. And the love in my heart for this baby, this child that we don't know yet, it just keeps growing.

We played some tennis this morning, early, when it was still cool. At 7:30 a.m. we were sitting on the court together, just the two of us, taking a break. We were both drinking out of our water bottles and got to talking about whether our bottles were made of the safe plastic or not. I told him I didn't think they were. "That's probably why I have chronic pouchitis," I joked. He didn't think that was funny. "You don't get into my colon humor too much do you?" I asked him. "No. I've seen too much to think the 'No Colon and Still Rollin' t-shirt is funny. I've seen too much."

I am wrapped up in my own experience of all of this. Sometimes I sit and think about Jeremy and what all this has been like for him. There were times that I was so focused on myself and on surviving, I don't even remember thinking about him. It sounds terrible, I know, but that's the way it was. I asked him months later where he was when they told me my situation might be a "life or death" situation, that my colon could be toxic and kill me. I didn't remember until he told me that he started sobbing and grabbed me and held me. We're very different, Jeremy and me. And I understand that. When he released his CD, Spine, I think I learned more about his experience than any conversation would have taught me.

Oh anyway . . . I have so many thoughts tossing around in there right now. I could go on and on, but I won't. My bed is just a few feet behind me right now and, what's that? Can you hear it? It's calling my name! Slumber awaits.