You would be turning two today, in my imaginary world in which all babies are born alive and perfectly on time. You would no longer be a baby. You would be so much more yourself at this age, and we would know the little person you are. It is hard to imagine. As your mommy, I like to think that I know you - that I know your heart. But I don't have a clue what kind of personality you would have brought to this world. I do know that, at your two-year-old birthday party, your personality would be shining - or perhaps screaming - all over the place. I'm sorry to be missing that. This is not the kind of day I thought I would be having today, reminiscing about things that will never happen. We are all missing out, never getting to see you shine. xo

A week ago they took a septum out.

Apparently it was pretty ginormous - this thing that, at the previous hospital, I had scanned five million times with no clear diagnosis. But the new doctor out here just didn't like it, whatever it was, and went right in there to get it. Apparently while I was under the nurses literally gasped at the size of it and at how much space appeared in my uterus once it was out.

The doc told me this thing definitely could have caused a second trimester loss. I'm trying to let that idea sink in. I've so completely resigned myself to the fact that I'm never going to know what killed my baby (too many options, probably the polyps, or my cervix, or just shitty luck....) that I can't even feel happy or hopeful that the septum is gone. Meanwhile, my doctor is super psyched that we took it out and convinced everything will now be fine! I don't feel psyched though. I feel sort of numb.

I mean, I am glad it's gone. I am. It's one less thing to worry about. And while preparing for this surgery almost killed me, re-triggering my PTSD in a variety of exciting ways, I did get to find out that I like morphine a lot. And my doula sister was super awesome. And Brian fed me homemade strawberry ice cream.

What if my first doctor had put her foot down and said, I'm taking this thing out? I would have been pissed and resistant and worried and traumatized, just like I was now, and I'd have gotten through it.

So it's possible I'd have another baby by now. Dammit. I really liked that doctor. She was super nice, super accommodating, super respectful of my process. What a crock I let us both get away with! What if I'd been less stubborn? What if I'd said, take it out, whatever it is, just do the surgery. With a fortieth birthday coming up on me, it's hard not to feel stupid.

We won't go back to trying on our own, although it occurs to me that we could. Septums like this one totally screw with implantation. Maybe I could get knocked up. I just feel like we are out of time. So I'll heal up over the next month and start an IVF cycle in August. Two years after the doctors first spotted this thing... this thing that was maybe nothing or maybe a bi-cornuate uterus or maybe a septum or maybe a "normal variant" or maybe just one more quirk I'd have to live with.

The what-ifs. They are annoying, I know. I'm trying to just let them out, let them go. I'll try to be happy that the doctors fixed something, that our chances are better now. But being hopeful is just super exhausting. Ginormous septum? Sorry, universe, I guess I'm just not easily impressed.

Miss you, baby girl. I dreamt last night that I held a dark-haired baby girl in my arms. Except she was my sister's baby and her name was Maeve. I dream about babies a lot these days - almost as much as I did at the beginning. Little girls mostly, but sometimes little boys. Sometimes they are alive and full-term. Sometimes they are tiny like you. Sometimes they are just kicking in my belly. When I wake up, I don't always know if it was you I was dreaming, or just babies generally.

Most of the mommies I know have had their new babies by now. They blog about those babies a lot and about what it's like to have one missing, one in their arms. Holding that balance. I can't even bring myself to wonder what that's like. It's so far away for me that most days I don't really believe it will happen. Maybe I'm going through the motions - trying absolutely everything so that in the end, I can at least heal myself of regrets.

Most days, I don't want a new baby. I just want you. You are my one impossible thing. Miss you lots. Mama loves you.

I know I've gone quiet here, but I just thought I'd mention that I have another post for Glow in the Woods up tonight. This is my last post for Glow as a regular contributor, and I've so appreciated the opportunity to share my story in such an incredible community forum. Turning back inward now, for some more self-care. xo

In the last week I've found myself sitting with a question that many babylost bloggers seem to come to eventually: what should I do with this space?

When I started writing here, my purpose was to document as much of my grief as possible, because I felt that the grieving would be the only parenting I would get to do. I had so little of my baby girl left--having all the horrible loss and beautiful love written down someplace almost felt like having a little more of her left to me.

My secondary purpose was to find you. All you other loss mamas out there. I didn't want to be alone, and I haven't been. Thank you so much for that. So much.

And it was a way to carve out a space for her somewhere, out there, outside of my own heart.

But I haven’t liked the direction of my writing here lately. I am infertile and this has become the place where I bitch about my infertility. I’m not knocking that—I think it’s really important for everyone struggling with loss and infertility to have a place to have their say. But what I wanted was for this place to be for and about my baby, Mae, and lately I’ve been junking it up with a lot of anger and anxiety. It doesn’t feel right to me.

So I’m considering what to do here. I may start a new blog to help me work out the infertility part of this journey, and keep that separate from where I write about my daughter. Or I might start new blog space to just share my life—all aspects of it—as a loss mom, a stepmom, an infertile woman, a sister, a daughter, a wife, a city-to-country transplant, a fundraiser, a wanna-be-writer, a cook, a sports fan, a hammock-swinger… Maybe’ll just post photos instead of words for a while. I’m not sure yet. If I’m silent here, it’s because I’m still working it out.

It’s also because I’m writing offline. I’m taking a fiction writing workshop, and I want to channel what writing energy I do have in that direction for now, to see if I can make anything of it.

I’m grateful to my daughter for that. Grateful to this space for that. This deep grieving has unlocked my heart for writing. Reminded me that life is short, that nothing is handed to us, that anything I want I am going to have to fight for. She gave me that gift, and I feel like I owe it to her to go after my dreams when and how I can. Right now I dream of finishing the novel I started 18 months ago, just as much as I dream of having her sibling.

Those are my preoccupations—a book and a baby. Both dreams derive from Angel Mae’s short time with me. So even though they take me away from this space, they don’t take me away from her. I don’t know where she is, and I don’t like to ascribe intent or magical powers or even emotions to her, but somehow I can feel her pushing me. Even when I feel weak and grieved, I can feel how she has made me strong.

I’m not ready to say goodbye to this blog yet, because it is her space. But I think I’m going to let it lie fallow for a while. Maybe she’ll help me to decide what it should be. If you are looking for me, you can still find me on email, at Glow, on the swap site, or on the book of face. Meanwhile, thank you for reading here and for all the warmth and understanding you’ve poured out to me. I’m so grateful to have met you.

At work yesterday morning, in a meeting with my boss and a consultant, they both complimented my beautiful new necklace - made for me by Tina for the Mother's Day swap. They asked what was written on the charms. And I told them. It is a very small workplace where I have been for only a few months--I was not really planning on telling them about my daughter at all, even though I wear some kind of memorial jewelry there every day. But I did tell them - the 30 second version, reasonably calmly. They ooohed and ahhhed and looked surprised and made sympathetic noises. Then we went back into meeting mode - it took them a minute to refocus, but I didn't feel scrambled at all. It was sort of a relief to "come out."

* * * * *

At the soccer game yesterday afternoon, another soccer mom whom I'd only just met asked me if Lilly is our oldest. "She is my step-daughter," I said, "and she is our only."

* * * * *

At the Chinese restaurant last night, as I was waiting to pick up our order, I heard the owner wishing Happy Mother's Day to customers ahead of me. When I moved to the front of the line she looked me up and down. "Are you the mother?"

"I am the step-mother," I said.

"Ah," she said smiling. "It is the same thing. Happy Mother's Day."

* * * * *

I am feeling pretty good about each of these conversations. They each made sense for where I was and who I was with. And I think the first conversation of the morning made the other two conversations easier. I need to trust that I will always publicly own my baby girl when it's important, when it matters, when it's safe. And I need to take credit for my daily mothering of Lilly, which is a huge part of my life.

But as I walked back to my car with that bag of Chinese food I thought: what a strange, strange world I live in now.

We are all in a flurry here. Laundry, packing, trying to check items off our three-headed hydra of a to-do list. We leave for vacation in a couple of days. Tomorrow night I will drive Lilly two hours to the airport for a week-long adventure with her mother. The next night Brian and I will drive south to indulge at our favorite restaurant, to visit my mom, to seek out blooming dogwoods and 70 degree days.

I am beyond exhausted - running only on excitement, adrenaline, and the promise that when that to-do list is indeed crossed off, I will be able to sleep for 18 hours on the blank, anonymous canvas of hotel room sheets.

I have had enough of winter, and as it has gradually receded over the last weeks I can see how it has ravaged me, and how I will have to do things differently next year. Take the damn vitamin D pills. Make at least one trip south before winter gets too deep. Build a sauna in my bathroom (ha!).

Enough of that. It is warmish outside, and I've got a full six month before I need to begin dreading winter 2012. My long-awaited, hard-earned vacation is almost here.

But I can't shake the idea of next winter, because there is an unbelievably even chance that I could be pregnant then. We had our first IVF appointment yesterday, at a new clinic, and the more I think about it, the more I can't quite believe how well it went. For some reason this particular RE grasped pretty quickly that, for me, the issue is maintaining a pregnancy, more than "getting pregnant". And she was able to explain how, because IVF so tightly controls hormone levels, it will probably greatly increase my chances of both getting and staying pregnant.

That was good to hear, because that is what my intuition is telling me too. I think our eggs and sperm are just fine, thank you, but my uterine lining is just not hospitable. And she's got a plan to fix that.

Plus she was on it. All about prevention and early intervention and seeing an MFM next month and giving me as much progesterone as my little heart desires. All about preventing another loss. Boy, was it nice not to have justify myself to a reluctant medical professional, not to have to fight for obviously needed help.

We will probably do our first IVF cycle in June or July, and this clinic has over a 50% rate of making take-home babies on the first IVF try for women in my age bracket. That's high for this procedure, and way higher than the 2% (if that) chance I've got on my own. Of course, there are lots of statistical black holes I could fall into, but right now I feel like taking any chance at hope I'm offered. Even a 50% chance.

I'm so deeply glad it's spring, but my mind keeps wondering ahead. 50% chance that next winter I'll be pregnant. Hm.