The Night Before DD-Day

DD-Day: due date day.

Tomorrow, Nov 15th, was our due date for Pedro and Archer. We've been out of the hospital for three months now. In addition to all our apprehension and grief about tomorrow, we are also blown away by how long pregnancy is. We feel like it was forever ago that we held Pedro and Archer in our hands, and yet only now are we reaching the date at which they would have been full term. Wow.

Our thought for how to spend tomorrow was to scatter the boys' ashes: to send them out into the world on the day they were due to enter it. In reality, I'm not sure we're ready. We've been trying to land on the right location; we both like the idea of a botanical garden in Mendocino that looks out over the Pacific Ocean. But it is a 3 hour drive, and it feels really far away if we want to "visit" the boys. And the finality of it: once those ashes are out there, there is no getting them back. We're not sure we're ready to commit to a place, ready to say another kind of goodbye. So we may spend the day in nature but keep they boys' ashes with us for a while longer. Forgive me if this is too much information. If it is, feel free to skip to the next paragraph. Actually, maybe I will too.

I think the last time I wrote, Bruno and I were about the launch out of the family nest into a nest of our own. So much has happened since then. We camped out in our empty new house for about a week, and then our stuff arrived, tattered and torn and minus the legs to our dining room table, but let's call that water under the bridge at this point. (We received so many creative ideas about what to use in place of the missing legs that we were almost disappointed when they finally arrived) We are now unpacked and rattling around this big California house with our small NYC furniture, calling to each other from different wings of the house and smiling at each faint echoing. The tiki room is shaping up spectacularly, and was recently the host to a fire-lit, sweet and savoury pancake breakfast put on in honor of our friend Michelle's visit. Maybe some time I'll post the recipe!

Bruno and I both started working again: I have my first tutoring student, a lovely guy preparing to take the GMAT. Bruno did a phenomenal job with his job search and ultimately chose to work as the vice president for a start-up. He is really excited about the company and the people he'll be working with. I'm so proud of him: in addition to everything we are going through, this was a really scary time to be out of work, but he hung in there and found the next right thing for him. So far, we are both finding that being back at work now (three months later) feels right: it is helpful to have concrete things to focus on and prepare for.

We still attend HAND meetings, and they are still incredibly helpful. Since we started with the group, new couples have started attending, so we are now able both to learn from and take comfort from those further along the path than we, and give comfort and hope to couples just starting. It is amazing how sharing one's thoughts and feelings and hearing those of other people going through the same thing is so helpful. I guess that's why I get so much out of writing these updates. Thanks again for reading and, when you feel moved, for responding.

This is probably enough for a first post. We are beginning to find our "new normal". I still cry pretty much daily, but the feelings are much less violent. The near-constant rage, self-loathing, disgust, grief and despair of the early days has mellowed into individual moments of sadness, of profound loss, of missing my sweet boys, and of fear. Fear about whether I'll be able to achieve and hold on to another pregnancy, fear of infection in general, fear of infection specifically from the California menace: the ants that traipse across my kitchen counter and make me dream of toxoplasmosis (the previous owners had a cat that I'm sure pooped in the yard which the ants walk through...). I think one of the long lasting remnants of this tragedy for me will be an obsession with infection. Ah well. I'll find a way to make it funny and put it on the stage.

All love and more soon,
Lisa