9 months and still counting

I wonder if the question, "How many kids do you have?" will get better or worse after the spawn is born?

I was faced with that very question recently, when I ran into a former co-worker in the grocery store, someone I once worked with on a daily basis but hadn't seen in a couple of years. "I notice you're expecting," she said, "what number is this for you?"

I totally blew it. Stumbled. Stammered. Finally blurted out, "I have a three and a half year old son, Shea." She probably wondered what sort of idiot didn't know how many kids she has. Maybe she chalked it up to pregnancy brain.

"I just don't being it up," Lou noted. "I don't feel like people have to know, like I have to explain it to them."

True for me, too, more or less, more and more over time. I don't raise Harper's loss with strangers or acquaintances. It's not a topic I raise unsolicited. I'm able to answer most of the inevitable pregnancy-related questions without batting an eyelash.

But it is the people I know well, or used to know well, who somehow are just not in the loop of bad news that throw me for a different sort of loop. When is it too much catching up? It feels dishonest to me either way: either I'm forcing it by inserting the "oh, by the way, 2013 was the worst year of my life because my daughter died unexpectedly" into a casual conversation; or I'm ignoring a major, life-altering event in speaking with someone who I know or knew well. Thus the stammer. And the obsessive re-analysis of the conversation.

Ironically, I spent the anniversary of Harper's death back on Georgetown's campus, teaching my class. At about the same time Lou and I were desperately driving to Georgetown in response to the doctor's call, I was driving away, to return home. Today reminded me of the power of keeping busy. It was a tremendously busy day, culminating with a three hour class, and I had very little time to feel sad, even as the date was the first thought on my mind when I awoke.

My only break for a few tears occurred, oddly enough, through a viral Facebook gimmick, which automatically generated a movie of your history on FB. My two most popular posts? "Two pregnancies. Exact same due date. Why yes, I DO have a Ph.D. in reproduction!" and "thanks to Montgomery County hospice, we're going to bringing our little Harper home on Monday!" That last one hit especially hard. I am still sad that we never had the chance to bring our baby home, although I wonder if that would leave my house haunted by ghostly memories?

Another grieving mother, who recently lost her beautiful baby girl, posted on the SLOS board about her daughter's death, ending with the plaintive question, "What do you do when you lose a child?"

I hate that I can answer that question.