the actual day

i've been thinking about what i would write today.

would i post a bunch of pictures, neatly documenting all that i have left of my pregnancy and birth of a baby that didn't live? would they, in a colorful row, evidence that i am indeed NOT crazy...that i am a mother to a dead baby?

would i bake the cake (red velvet), decorate it (whipped cream cheese frosting and strawberries and pink sugar crystals), photograph it (in my usual suck-ass picture-taking style), and then post it and tell about how i nearly lost it in the supermarket yesterday? how i thought about how one year ago yesterday i was wandering around the supermarket with husband, looking at all the babies and talking about how we were going to have her any minute, buying nursing bras and newborn diapers, with a dead baby in my belly? how i tried to hide some tears while trying to decide whether to buy one of those stupid *1* candles? how i then decided that the 1 candle would be way to creepy, even for a deadbaby-crazy mom?

the day is here, and i have no pictures to post. i have my stack of stuff: a positive pregnancy test, some photos of a pregnant me, some photos of a dead baby girl, a stained baby hat and receiving blanket, some letters of condolence, a couple of letters of donations in her name. let's not forget, and i almost did, a cardboard box of ashes in a gray plastic shopping bag. not much. who said recently that it's the ego that holds on to objects to prove that we are? i don't even know if i got that right...i just know that i believe it. i just know that i don't need those things to know her. i don't need those things to know it really happened to me. i don't need those things to keep me anchored in that time and place, because really, what she has given to me has no time or place or weight.

this thing has two lives: my suffering as a mother to a dead baby and all the raw, fleshy, memory-laden sadness and anger...and my growth and learning as a mother to a baby that will only teach me about myself and life and never piss me off with diapers exploding with shit, waking me up in the night, and fighting relentlessly with her siblings. the first mother needs to have stuff; the first mother needs to revel in the things, the evidence, the horror...she needs the memories, the details. the second mother wrote that airy shit in the last paragraph.

but today, today is the actual day...

i bought some chocolate mimosa tree seeds last week, and i want to start them today. mimosa trees have tiny, ferny leaves that close up at night (and when touched) and big, fluffy, pink perfumed flowers. the regular variety has green leaves, but the chocolate has brown. it grows 3-6 feet per year, with a 10'-30' shade umbrella. i think it is the perfect tree for sitting under...whichever mother i am that day.

i finally, after calling to follow-up about four times over the past year, got the call that p@ige's plaque is up in L&D. can you imagine it took this long? i might go over and see it today. and take a picture. (i hope it's not too hard to get a good photo of it, being brass and all...i suck.)

i want to try to write a letter to the sister of a co-worker who's carrying a baby with anencephaly. she wants to carry the baby to term. i want to tell her that her choice is beautiful- that she can appreciate what she has as the delicate thing it is, especially because i wish i knew i needed to when i was pregnant. i also want to give her a listing of blogs that i found written by moms who chose what she is choosing...because i am always surprised by the number of people who still have no idea what blogs are, and i don't know what i would have done without my deadbabymafia. (and in doing so i hope you all realize what i really mean to say is thank you, except in a much deeper way than those words can ever express...)

i want to contact the village cemetery and find out how we can create a small stillborn area where parents can scatter their baby's ashes. i imagine that some will choose to scatter their ashes there because they can't afford a plot and headstone, but others will choose it simply because they didn't realize they would need a place to visit when they were sitting in a hospital bed making decisions about their dead baby. i have no idea what that space would look like, if its creation is even possible, but i want to find out.

those are all the things i imagine i can do today...but this day, this actual day, my alive daughter told me that we need to wait for everyone to come over before we sing the happy birthday song.

"not this time," i told her, "nobody is coming over for this birthday. it's just for us."

i will try to extend her memory out of our bounds; i will try to plant and photograph and write and dedicate. i wonder if i will ever get over the fact that p@ige is only for us.