Hope

As I write this, you lie curled in fetal position. A strand of my hair still entwined in your fingers from ten minutes ago when you turned and pulled my face close to yours, shut your eyes. Your soft, fragrant breaths hitting my nose in rhythmic caress before I silently, slowly extricate myself from your slumbering grasp.

You have just turned one year old. Your two front top teeth are coming down. One has broken through. Its neighbour on the left side, also. Three new teeth coming! I pause to watch your small chest rise and fall, the sides of your rib cage expand and release. Your tiny, open mouth is perfection. The length of your eyelashes astounding. Your face is still flushed. Ruddy from 48 hours of fever. I have nursed you through two days. You refuse food. You consume nothing but breastmilk. I rock you. I hold you. I sing to you. I love you.

What did I do to deserve you? What did I do to deserve you?

Last year I lay in this bed, just as you are doing now. Fetal position. Belly round and firm. Pillow between the knees. I could feel your kicks, your own tossing as I tried to sleep. It was like carrying heaven on my insides. Certainly, I felt angelic. The moving, stretching limbs inside me, a fallen, shooting star exploding. The labouring and birth, the ultimte act of Divinity.

Twelve years ago today, I saw blood on my panties while peeing in the washroom of a local diner on the way to visit friends. I was miscarrying my first pregnancy at 12 weeks. I look at you now.

Never did I dare dream this.

Every tear I shed those years my body remained mute and unresponsive or screamed aloud each attempt after futile attempt, treatment and drugs. Broken. Empty. Barren. Every tear I shed was some silent prayer that you would come to me.

Never did I dare dream THIS. This YOU.

I had donned a suit of armour. Every bloodstained month was another screw tightening its visor in the face of Hope. Terrifying, hope. My shield, protection. Don't hope too much or you will know devastation. You will know despair and sorrow. Do not go forth to meet the dragon Hope.

But I plodded forward alone, my sword at the ready. My knees were shaking. When I lifted my visor, I expected to be devoured for good. When I lifted my visor, a flame shot through my belly and buried itself there in the endometrial lining. A shooting star exploded.

Into you.

What did I do to deserve you?

Every pull of those 35 vials, every prick of those 35 needles, the tiny round dots of blood on my belly. Every failed month. Every tear shed. Every fucking thing was worth lifting my visor to look upon Hope. To not steal myself against it, finally. Instead, to let it enter me. Devour me. Spit me out. With you intact. Inside me.

A year ago today, I crossed the threshold of my farmhouse with you in my arms, just shy of one week old. Tonight I found out some truly, happy news concerning you and me and this next unfolding year. I can feel my first baby I lost a dozen years ago smiling somewhere out there. Looking down upon us and grinning. A twinkling in the universe. In the ink black night, a light glows a little brighter somewhere.

I stop typing and just savour the sound of your muffled intake of breath. Its song of release through your nostrils. Your shirt has this dinosaur on it. The words on your chest say, "I'm kind of a big deal." No shit.

You roll to your other side. My heart sings. It giggles and flips, in turn.

We begin another new adventure together...