Not sure what to say.

I've sat down numerous times since my last post, thoughts swirling and I start to type, then I delete it all and sigh and close the window.

I'm just not sure what to say.

I don't want to bore you with the details of the interminable wait that is the luteal phase, especially when I know that the likelihood is getting excited and worked up and then feeling let down and disappointed when it doesn't work out. Or whinging about how I don't have a good feeling.

Yesterday, I felt quite positive and nearly posted that. Some instinct held me back, said it was too soon. Today, I feel quite negative, and I am posting this. I guess negatives can always turn into nice surprises, and no one would mind that.

I think, as I've been waiting to find out the results of this last go round, that I've slunk off into a corner and am hiding there. Things are all right, they are fine, I'm doing well, thanks for asking, how are you, nothing much happening, just really busy. It isn't that that is untrue - I took on a massive project at work on top of what I'm already doing and it is swallowing me whole, but in a good way, and I am enveloped in my silly little story at home (up to chapter 8 and just shy of 40,000 words).

But beyond that, I feel isolated and watchful, a little like a lizard on a rock. I am finding it painful to be around much children and baby stuff, and the bombardment of ads for Mother's Day don't much help. I can distinctly remember what was happening last year on Mother's Day - I was 5 weeks pregnant and thinking 'I hope I have something to celebrate next year.' And, well. Here I am again. A shadow mother, with a shadow baby, afraid of the light exposing how empty it is. The physicality of loss seems returned this week. I am not sleeping as well, I feel large and heavy. It weighs me down, my shoulders are bowed, my head down so I don't stare at the belly of that pregnant woman or track the child on the tricycle. I so very much want to have the hope that we will be there again, that we can have that, and I just . . . don't. Not today.

My friend G posted on FB that a year ago she'd just found out she was pregnant. I can remember when I found out too. April 28. That day slipped right by me between illness and work. I'm finding myself glancing at the calendar and remembering, and it makes me wince. There is a pain in my chest when the idle thought 'Oh, right, 4 weeks. We went to Benihana to celebrate.' or 'Right, Memorial Day. We'd just seen the heartbeat and were getting ready to tell everyone.' I had thought that passing the due date would end that sort of hell, but it seems I may be doomed to relive every moment of that pregnancy again and again.

Today I miss my baby. I miss the life I'd thought we would have now. I am tired of being happy with less than that. I wish for more, and keeping the fear at bay is difficult. I am tired today, and sad. And I am tired of being sad. I am unhappy that this is now my life. Forever my life. Forever missing Gabriel and wondering how things would have been, how he would have been. I never wanted this.