The road not taken

As the day of spawn's arrival approaches, I find myself thinking a lot about what life would be like if everything had gone according to plan. What if I'd just had a baby? A normal, healthy baby?

He or she would be close to a year old now. Would she already have taken first steps? Would we be planning a joint 4 year old and 1 year old birthday party? Would I be exhausted from running around after two kids instead of exhausted from running around after one while hugely pregnant? Would I be able to say we'd taken a family trip to Australia, or would that be a plan for the future?

Would we have already given away or sold the bassinet, the bouncer, the baby swing? Would all those tiny newborn clothes be on someone else's baby by now? What would be on those shelves in the guest room that currently serve as an alter to our Harper bean, filled with mementos and memories of her too short life? What would our family photo wall be like if Harper's picture wasn't nestled among those of Shea and Lou and I? If instead of a baby frozen in time, there were photos of a baby transforming during that first year of life? Pictures of Shea and a sibling, growing side by side?

How would I be different?

What would I be like if I hadn't had my soul ripped out and slowly recovered? If I hadn't truly experienced mourning and grief? If I remained oblivious to the friends and colleagues and strangers around me with similar experiences? If I hadn't learned to witness joy through the unflinching filter of pain? If I had never learned that sharing pain, and exposing every emotion, every moment of unending grief, could be the most freeing pathway of all? If the hours and hours I've spent crying were instead spent living or maybe taking for granted all of the blessing around me?

Would Shea still be the empathetic, sweet boy he's become, if he hadn't witnesses firsthand his mother losing a child?

Spawn is kicking me, as if to say, don't forget me. I am here, mommy, and I would not exist if not for Harper bean. If things had gone as planned, there would be no spawn to love and raise and sing to.

And that is no small thing.