Raw nerves ...

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a book review for Books In Every Room. The book being reviewed is An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination: A Memoir.

It is true that we lost our daughter early, at only 7 weeks. Some will call us lucky that it was so early in the pregnancy. Hell, I call us lucky sometimes. I know how much we loved her that early on and can't imagine how much more painful it would have been weeks or months later.

But, as with so many of us in this struggle, there was so much more.

She was the light at the end of a long tunnel of injections and ultrasounds, prayers and tears. She was the reason I seemed to suddenly crave bacon in the mornings. She was the cause of jokes about increasing the size of already large breasts and my utter exhaustion.

She was also our child.

I try very hard to not think about our miscarriage. And when I do, it's more in the abstract form than the specifics.

The specifics involve diving into a blood-filled toilet, trying to grasp a shred of uterine lining to take to the doctor's office.

And, instead, coming up with the full amniotic sac. Seeing her budding arms and legs, and the roundess of her still not fully formed head, all floating in the liquid that was meant to nurture and protect her.

The specifics involve standing in the bathroom, our child in the palm of my hand, and wondering what I was supposed to do next.

The specifics involve watching a close family member going through her own pregnancy, 2 weeks behind ours, while listening to everyone gush and laugh over how big she'd get.

The specifics involve my brother-in-law asking me for our baby name book while I sat in a recliner, still bleeding from the loss of our child.

The specifics involve wondering which personality or physical trait she would have gotten from us. Would she have Patrick's fair coloring or my more olive complexion? Would she be patient like him or have my more easily flaired temper?

The specifics involve still not having even touched the nephew who was born just days after our own estimated due date. It's been almost a year since he was born.

These are all things I try so desperately hard not to think about. Because it's easier when I don't. Even almost 2 years after our loss, these specifics only leave me sour and angry.

So abstracts are what I think of - we were pregnant and then we weren't. It keeps me from having to fully explain - or feel - the full weight of our experience.

And I've learned that even though we made the decision to stop treatments and adopt and are, for once, confident we will be parents, it doesn't erase what my heart misses.

Not even close.