Month three

Today is the third anniversary of my daughter's death. Three months ago today,  our Harper bean died.

Today,  I feel a need to repeat that over and over. To tell random strangers on the Metro (I didn't really do that). To shout it as I walk down the street. Come to think of it, that last idea has some merit - between the homeless, those marching on strike,  and the protesters,  shouting in downtown DC would hardly attract much attention....

I have to repeat it because it's so hard to believe. It feels like forever ago. It feels like yesterday. I can feel her in my arms,  I struggle to remember what she looked like.

Time continues to creep by. As the old soap opera said,  like sands in the hourglass. Normal days - and there are many of them - continue to envoke guilt,  as if I'm betraying Harper by living. A stupid emotion,  I know intellectually,  but what can you do?  It is what it is.

I try to look ahead. Try to think about another baby. I am too old, too impatient,  too much of a control freak to just leave it to chance,  so I have begun a love-hate relatIonship with my ovulation monitor. Another low fertility day,  another 24 hours until the next result. Tick, tick, tick...

It would be about now I'd be returning from maternity leave. Doing transitions to daycare. Pumping at the office. Or what of Harper had survived with SLOS? That's a life I can't even imagine.

And now I wonder when I will begin to stop counting.

"That's our baby, " Shea said proudly,  pointing to the family picture,  a remnant of the memorial service,  in our dining room. "Her name was Harper. But she died."

That's our baby.