Tonight is book club. I look forward to tonight all month. I’m surrounded by people who I trust and feel safe with. It’s hard for me to be with people I don’t know well or didn’t know me when I lost the boys. There are lots of mine fields that people unknowingly step in (please refer to the horrible, “when I have a baby I’m not having any drugs” labor discussion at a Christmas party I went to last year or “do you have kids?” question). I made cupcakes but I didn’t frost them so as not to lose half the frosting on the Cling wrap – I hate that – frosting is precious. Since I’m going straight to book club from the office, I told the host that perhaps her two little girls would help me frost for the payment of one cupcake each and then her husband could drop them at the daycare center at the gym pumped full of sugar. She laughed and we agreed that I would come over early for the book club and the four us would frost cupcakes.


It dawned on me about a minute later. I may never have my own child to help me frost cupcakes. There may never be some small little hands playing in caramel frosting with cake crumbs all over their face, smiling a jack-o-lantern smile at me. You can’t teach a dog to frost cupcakes. I have 3 dogs, a cat and 2 dead little boys. This may be my life forever. This may be my story forever. I can’t even describe the pain in my heart right then. I pushed the thought from my mind, went home, made my cupcakes, cleaned up the kitchen and put myself to bed. As soon as my head hit the pillow the tears started. I curled myself around the puppy and whispered quietly, “this may be it. This may be my life.”

I don’t want this to be my life anymore. I don’t want this story anymore. I’m ready for a new chapter. But what do I do? I’ve lost hope – with each passing month, each period, each miscarriage, I’ve lost hope.

My dear friend,

What a beautifully, though painfully, written post. I'm crying with you as I read it (and those silent crying in bed make your pillow soaking wet moments are just the worst). I'm so very, very sorry that you have to walk this horribly difficult road that seems neverending. I wish for you more than anything that you will have those sticky-fingered cupcake frosters awaiting you. I know you don't have hope for it right now, but I will hope for you and pray for you that God will make this path so unbelievably clear and tangle-free that you might glimpse that future for youself. The loneliness of a mother's heart who longs for her children must be the deepest pain ever created. I'm holding your hand right now and wishing I could blow the pain away like dust on a table.

Many, many hugs.

Oh, sweetie.

I know that sinking, sick feeling. I don't know how to stop it or make it better. I'm sorry it's hitting you right now, so hard.

I'm sitting with you, nodding, wondering. This is a lonely, rocky place to be. I just have to hope that the future is better, that either we find ways to have our children or that we find enough joy and strength in something else to fulfill us. I don't know how that happens or how it could be. I just hope (awful, untrustworthy word and feeling that it is) that it will be.

i can't say anything more than, i feel that fear too.

it's terrifying.

i wish i knew that it was going to be ok for us all.

thinking of you, martha, and everyone.

Martha: I wish I had some wise words to share with you, but I think Eve said it best. I only want to send you-- and all of you other wonderful women-- love. I wish for all of you that your hopes and dreams will be fulfilled. God knows, you all deserve it.

I don't know what to say to you, except I am hoping and praying for you. I remember the bleak nine months after Gabriel and before Flora, as well as the anxious months when I was pregnant. I wish you most of all peace. And hope. Lots and lots of hope.

Martha - I am hoping and praying for you as well. Through my pregnancy with Matilda I just wanted a doctor to tell me 'Don't worry she'll be OK' but they never did and she wasn't. Now I need people who've walked this path before me 'You'll be OK'. And I really hope that I am and we all are one day.

While you don't have the strength to hope, we'll all hope for you.

My little boy stood next to a girl at the little carnival at Mardi Gras. She had hair and eyes almost like his, and for a minute I couldn't see straight. It was like his big sister's ghost standing behind him in line, and I should have been holding a little girl waving at them both. So I know that kind of pit of feeling. I see the pretty Easter dresses on the rack and think, so much for that. I've donated my dolls, and I have tried telling my mother to cut up my wedding dress skirt to make my sister's going away dress or something.

Then my husband asks, my little boy asks, everyone asks me when we'll try again. Well, 2 out of 3 says what? So I think I know that feeling you're talking about, wanting not to have to think about this when you're doing something fun, not wanting to be hammered with that feeling that you're going to be it...hating that random scene in a movie that triggers it...

At least, though, let me tell you - I adore my son. He is wonderful, but everyone - including my own mother - told me to forget about the first one when I got pregnant with him, as though that "took care of it," let me just erase the hopes and dreams I had the first time round. Not that it makes what you're feeling any better, it's just that I want to try and tell you I can understand that losing hope even though once made it through.

Sending love and peace your way no matter the outcome, Martha.