“There are two tragedies in life: one is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.”
\n–George Bernard Shaw<\/p>\n
I think it must have been the sight of the newly assembled co-sleeper in our bedroom, bathed in soft light. I can’t say for sure what triggered the feeling, but late last night, after tucking the sheets back around Ava, I suddenly was gripped by an overwhelming sense of sadness. I felt unmoored by the idea that my little girl will have to share me with someone else–that she will have to be one of two planets around which my moon will now rotate. I found myself fleetingly, deeply grieving the seismic shift that will upend our family’s holy trinity.
\n
\nAfter the sadness came the guilt. I love this unborn child, swimming beneath my skin. I adore its tiny hiccups and wordless voice. I cherish its tether on my heart. I spent month after failed month weeping over each new streak of blood. I forced Mark to offer up “samples” in sterile rooms, while I prayed at the altar of medical fertility gods. I slipped ridiculous talismans under my bed, in hopes they would help. I laid in dark rooms, my body covered in thin, quivering needles. And then, two years later–and in our very last month of “trying,” through everything from acupuncture and medical interventions to good, old-fashioned sex–I stood trembling at my bathroom sink, reading the word “pregnant” over and over again in disbelief.<\/p>\n
The days and weeks since then have been a blur. There was the nausea and exhaustion. The burgeoning waistline. The horrible month of “failed” first-trimester screening results, genetic consultations, amniocentesis, “Down Syndrome” Google searches, and soul-searching conversations before I could drop to my knees and sob with relief. There were the all-consuming minutes and hours with my “big girl.” And now here we are, with three weeks of this last, long-desired pregnancy left to go, and I haven’t played any Glenn Gould sonatas for the baby, or filled up the pages of a pregnancy journal.<\/p>\n
I want this child to know that it is the fulfillment of my heart’s desire. And yet I want Ava to know that she fills my entire heart forever. Therein lies the rub. None of this is a “tragedy,” of course. Rather, it is two miracles–for which I am so grateful and humbled and undeserving. And yet, for one brief moment last night, I knew just what Shaw meant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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