the mirror has two faces

here i am, simultaneously anticipating my dead baby's first birthday and waiting for my sister to call and tell me she's in labor.

(are you kidding me?)

i really am excited for her to become a mother. i'm really glad that she will be more able to relate to my stupid mom stuff. i'm so excited to become an aunt! i am really, really happy about our growing family, especially in light of the fact that we've pushed my mother so close to the sidelines she's almost in the parking lot. we are creating this whole new universe; we are creating this close extended family life for our kids. and my sisters and i, we're the new matriarchs. it feels good.

i am going to be with her during her labor and birth. we've talked about it- what she's learned in lamaze, and what i've read about what could be helpful. it's been making me a bit, i don't know, uneven-feeling, talking about something i've always wanted to experience but probably NEVER can. also, there's that whole thing about WHAT THE FUCK DO I KNOW ABOUT IT? i've never been in labor. on the other hand, i want to be an OB nurse, and this is going to be my first real-live birth. i sometimes wonder how i will feel helping women in labor and not being able to totally relate, but then remember how many male OBs there are. i may even be better than a bitch OB nurse who had nine vaginal deliveries. the real issue, i think, is my envy.

(don't worry- i realize that once those babies come out dead, i'll be star OB nurse of the fucking century...i wonder if i'll feel like i'm just doing the necessary until my REAL job presents itself (a dead baby)...like batman...haha)

talking to her waiting to go into labor...it's also sucking me right back into that huge pregnant body i had one year ago to the week...that whole WAITING to go into labor. the waiting. the wondering. the fucking anti-climactic WAAAAAAAITING. this morning i thought about how sometimes, when my insides start gurgling and kicking about, i'm still pregnant. i think i'll feel pregnant forever, in those moments before my brain kicks in and starts screaming, "YOU HAD A DEAD BABY YOU FUCKING IDIOT AND YOU CAN'T GET PREGNANT AGAIN SO JUST KEEP TELLING YOURSELF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE!!" i get sad for myself that she will (most probably) wait and wait and then begin labor but i will continue to wait. i get sad about it. i get sad about how my waiting ended in a silent ultrasound in the ER. i get sad about still waiting, in those moments when i'll be pregnant forever and ever.

i've been trying not to anticipate the actual birthday. i know that these weeks and days leading up to it are worse, but maybe the anticipatory grief is it's own player. i imagine the things i want to do that day. i can barely think about it without losing it. i didn't think i would feel this way, but i do. i can't believe i will think about having a one, two, ten, seventeen, twenty-three, forty-five year old daughter who is missing every year of my life on september the 9th. i can't believe my flesh will feel that torrential mourning when it feels and smells the summer warmth turn chilly. (fuck. fuck. fuck. FUCKKKKKKKKK.)

this year, i think i want to make a cake. it is a birthday. she was born that day, even though dead. i think i want to make a cake every year. i think i feel like she's not here, but i still appreciate her and everything i've become since she became a part of me. this all sounds really zen and accepting and big of me, but for real, when i think about that cake i feel like i want to die. to me, that might mean i'm on to something...