It’s a choice to live in the present and the future – to live with what is and what will be instead of bemoaning what didn’t come to be.  I wanted the choice to have more.  Or not.  Instead, I have the choice to move on.  Or not.

Another mother asked me if I cry every day because I can’t have a second, a third, a fourth.

No.  I don’t.

I can’t have another baby.  I can’t.  I ache when I type those words.  I ache when I say them aloud.  And I do say them aloud when people ask, “Have you thought of having another?”  Of course we have.  We can’t.

 But I don’t cry about it.  I don’t wallow in it.  Sometimes I cringe, or ache, or sigh, or have a mini-pity party.  But it has to pass.  I have this life, this is my only shot, and I’m lucky enough to have one amazing little girl.  Lucky enough.  Lucky enough.  Enough.

I’ve said it before.  She is enough.  And that has to be enough.  Period.

It is.  It just is.  It’s not my fault.  I couldn’t have tried harder.  I couldn’t have tried more.  It just is.

I have to continue to stumble my way through this life.  I’ve learned enough to know that I don’t know it all, but not enough to think I’ll be able to cope with what’s next.

This chapter has to be over.  I have to let it go.  It’s not as simple as that.  I’m not going to wake up tomorrow healed.  I’ll wake up tomorrow and continue to choose to move one more day into the future.  That’s all I can do.

It is.  It just is.

She asked what I learned from the cycles last summer.  I haven’t let myself think too much about it, and my message wasn’t exactly positive.

I learned that new and refreshed hope is devastating when it fails.  I learned that even when you think you’ve found the answer, it’s not always going to work.

I hope it works for her.  She said something about just hoping for that one baby.  I remembered wishing that, too.  Sort of – I always wanted more than one child.

This is when I wonder if I need to step away from the support groups – I lead, I try to be positive.  But this stuff isn’t always positive.  And sometimes I leave more drained and raw.  Is this right for me?  I want to give back, but I also, unfortunately, need to move on.

I don’t know.  I’m in a funk.  I think about not writing, because who the heck wants to read I really just want another baby every day?  I looked at a picture of a newborn today and just yearned.  I imagine ways to have another.

I could write about…the new job?  Not really.  It’s fine.  Kinda nice to use my professional brain, but I’m also wiped at the end of the day.  Oh, and the building has a cricket problem.  I’m okay with a cricket or two, but this is a straight up flock.  Creepy dead, half-dead crickets.  And the kids like to chase them to make them hop.  Eeeeeee.

I attended the RESOLVE Night of Hope and got to wear one of Sherri Shepherd’s super shiny shoes.  They haven’t posted the pictures online.  Bummer.  You’ll just have to take my word for it.

I guess I’m just here.  Busy.  Living this life, feeling guilt about still wanting more.  Someone asked me if I cry every day about not having another…not at all.  I don’t.  I’ve shed too many tears – I’m too resigned.  Or too scarred.  Or I know life could be so, so much worse.

We took some portraits on Saturday.  I can’t wait for the proof album to be ready.  BabyHope had a blast (finally!) on the shoot, and I think we got some good ones.  Perfect for the new house.  That will be ready when they damn well say it will.

That’s that, folks.  Oh, there’s more.  I just won’t burden you with too much awesomeness all at once.

We lived in San Francisco at the time.  We’d been there two years.  I had to get out the door earlier than normal that morning to be at a meeting at a school (I worked in a private speech pathology practice) at 7 AM.  So I’d showered already, and had a few minutes.  I sat down at our computer and pulled up the New York Times.  The picture of the first tower on fire was on the front page, and it was known a plane hit the tower, but not printed that it had been a passenger jet.  I thought maybe a Cessna.  Mr. Hope was in the shower – I popped my head in and told him that the World Trade Center had been hit.  I didn’t know about the second (or third or fourth) plane at this point, though I know it was probably late enough, and I remember saying, “I bet this is that bin Laden guy” to Mr. Hope.  I left for the meeting.

I listened to the radio on the way, and found out about the second plane hitting the tower.  And the third plane hitting the pentagon.

They had canceled school by the time I got there and were evacuating the building.  Our meeting continued as planned.  The school was on the top of a hill, and I remember everyone (it was a large, litigious meeting) kept looking out the windows as if expecting to see a plane coming for us.  They closed the bridges in and out of San Francisco at some point that day.

I honestly can’t tell you what happened at that meeting.  I listened to Howard Stern in the car, and they said the towers were gone.  Gone?  I thought – what does that mean?  Gone?  I couldn’t even fathom.  And then they were talking at that point about multiple planes potentially still in the air, maybe hijacked, maybe overseas, even.  There was a lot of confusion.  Traffic in the city was terrible, and I couldn’t call anyone on my phone – the cell networks were overloaded.

I went to work.  All our therapy appointments were pretty much canceled by the time I got there.  Schools were out, city buildings were emptied.  I couldn’t reach Mr. Hope via phone.  The other therapists and I sat around for a bit, then walked over to a bar off Polk street and just watched the coverage while we drank – it must have been barely 1PM.  There were many others like us that day – sitting in small groups, stunned and glued to the coverage on the television.

My grandmother always talked about remembering where she was when she found out about JFK’s assassination.  I’ll never forget 9/11.  It’s changed the fabric of our lives in ways we’ve forgotten, but I’ll never forget the event that changed it all.

Ah, the feelings this brings up.

I’m a little excited to use my degree again.  I’m a little excited to have some extra income.

I’m anxious about childcare arrangements.  We set something up for the fall that isn’t ideal for work, but with some help and manipulation, I think it will work.  I’m nervous about moving (again) in the middle of this.  I’m a little worried about being spread too thin – it’s not like grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, or being the primary caregiver for BabyHope is going to fall to someone else just because I work.

And I’m sad that it’s yet another step away from family building.  But that’s what it has to be – that’s what each day is anyway, it’s just marked in a different way.  It’s saying to the world, “Hey, my kid is getting older, I’m done, I need a job!”

The “position” really couldn’t be more ideal.  It’s with the school district we’re moving into (where I used to work), doing speech therapy with the “walk-in” kids at a central location.  It’s a by the hour position, so if I’m there, I get paid, if I’m not, I don’t.

Dipping my toes in, I suppose.

She’s also been pretending that she has a baby sister.  Named Ticki.  Or Vicki.  Or Tara.  Or today, Casey and Charlie.

“Why don’t I have a baby sister?”  she asked a couple of weeks ago.

Today, it was, “I want a baby sister AND a baby brother.  They will grow up and talk to me and play with me.  That’s what I want.”

I know she’s three.  I know she doesn’t really know what she’s asking for, but it makes my heart come up into my throat.  People must have these conversations all the time with their children, but somehow for me, it’s a conversation I wish I could avoid.

She’ll never have a sibling.  She doesn’t understand it.

You know what?  Neither do I.

We’re in an apartment, and my bundt pan is in storage.  So this is really an olive oil orange sheet cake.  I thought I had lemon olive oil and I was going to use that, but apparently I didn’t.  So I used the regular stuff.

I didn’t expect to like this.  The batter was, well, oily.  And thick.  But I just ate a piece and it reminds me of a cake donut.  My daughter likes it, too.  A winner!  I do wonder if you could dirty fewer dishes…

For more participants and the recipe click here!

Today, we got to make 3 kitties (remind me to tell you how I’m worried I might be raising a crazy cat lady).  We scooped and poured and smoothed and tweezed those tiny little pieces.  We baked.  We waited (what seemed like an eternity to a certain 3 year old).  We didn’t use enough of the little colored pieces.  But it’s all okay.

She loved it.  And of course, so did I.

We’ve moved.  I’ve had another period.  I want another baby, but I don’t dare say those words aloud.  Typing them will have to suffice.

We had a great 4th.  It’s hot.

I’m trying to figure out what’s next.  Maybe there isn’t a next.

I’m happy, I’m angry.  Sometimes at the same time.

My period was a day or two late.  I told myself, if I get to Monday morning, I’ll test.  Maybe the miracle I’ve wished for will come true!

I closed my eyes and imagined, for a minute or so, being pregnant again.

My period started yesterday afternoon.

No tears.  Just more wasted hope.  It’s never really gonna end, huh?