Sweet Naivety

Journal excerpt. Sept.7
"God! I want my baby back! God, I’d hold her in my hands the next 8 months just to let her finish growing here. If I knew I wouldn’t be able to pick her back up, I’d never ever put her down. I’d do anything to keep her. Even just for another day, just so I had a chance to say good-bye before I have to wait until I die to have her again. God, anything."

Three little weeks and the universe shifts.

In the span of three weeks, I became a mother and became a childless mother. How does that happen?

I am left appearing as a young newlywed enjoying my years of "freedom" before settling down to raise a family. I must seem rather care-free, taking life as it comes. I probably look like one of the stereotypical fresh-out-of-college naive types.

I'm not naive.

But I, at one time, was naive about the idea that babies get to live. I thought that with few exceptions, mothers got to keep their babies. I'd heard horror stories. But I never thought I'd live one. Not my baby. Surely not mine. That's something that happens to other women. That's the kind of thing you hear about in church announcements and read in magazine articles. That doesn't happen to real people.

But then it happened. I lost a close family member before birth. And then I lost my own daughter. How does that happen? And why?

Why can't all mothers and mothers-to-be stay naive? People say "parents shouldn't outlive their children." Do they know how many DO? I'm not going to hunt for figures right now, but it's something like 1 out of 4 babies conceived that doesn't live. Voluntarily have 4 children and you may "volunteer" to lose one. One in four. Am I the only mama bothered by this?

I wouldn't trade out those 3 weeks of having my child for anything. But how I wish I was naive again.