stars
For whatever reason, I've been looking up articles on twins and miscarriages tonight. I don't know why I like to torture myself like this but I do, and for me, at least, it's the kind of morbid fascination that I can use to pass the time like nothing else.
The stars on my wrist are itching as if the babies they memorialize are wriggling about. I can still remember the feeling of breathlessness when I first thought I was pregnant last year... the what ifs that ran through my mind, especially with the onset of George lying about his drug use and the fact that we were just getting off of Food Stamps. And then when I went to the doctor after three big fat negatives, and the day he gave me the big fat blood test negative I started bleeding and passing clots. There goes my baby, I thought, there goes our little girl. I knew it would've been a girl, with thick brown curls and gorgeous green eyes and his merry laugh, his gypsy wanderlust, and my smiling lips, my artist's hands.
I'm terrified that before my life is done, there will be four or five stars on my wrist instead of just two. Sometimes the heaviness of knowing that my babies died comes back to me. I envision the moments when the tattoo artist put the stars into my skin and remember the weight being lifted off of my shoulders, out of me, away from my heart. I have to remind myself that it wasn't my fault.
I had baby dreams about Chris yesterday. He and I weren't married yet but we lived together in a tiny house in downtown. He was coming home and I was sitting at the dining room table across from a home pregnancy test with a positive symbol on it. I heard him come in the door and almost couldn't stop wiggling from anticipation. He walked past and kissed me on the cheek, setting his jacket on the chair and walked straight past it. We discussed his day for a few minutes before he finally noticed it on the table. He read it and dropped a carton of milk and picked me up and spun me around laughing. We both had tears streaming down his face and he reached for his phone to call his mom, but I stopped him. It's always been a dream of mine to be able to give my mom an ultra sound for a gift as a way of letting her know I was pregnant, and I told him that, and he just said he was so happy over and over and over while he was cleaning up the spilt milk.
He has a long history of twins, both fraternal and identical, in his family. My mother miscarried twins before she had my sister. Maybe I can finally realize my dream of having twin sons? Chris and I were discussing this the other day laying in his bed and he told me, "I want kids some day. And they will be boys. I will have sons, and they will be rowdy and strong and wonderful."
He says beautiful things like that, and it scares me, because the last man to tell me such beautiful things took them back just as easily as he said them. I'm not sure he liked the taste of his I Love You's because they were not real. He told me he had hoped I was pregnant and then took it back before I could tell him it was a false alarm. He told me he wanted me to be his wife and then took it back, but told me to keep the ring because it looked good on me. He stole a piece of my heart and buried it beneath a patch of sunflowers in the red Texas earth.
I have no doubt that mine and Chris' sons would be strong and beautiful and perfect. I hope they would have his nose, his forest green eyes, his dirty blonde hair... my smile, my curls, my creativity. Our babies would be amazing. <3
The stars on my wrist are itching as if the babies they memorialize are wriggling about. I can still remember the feeling of breathlessness when I first thought I was pregnant last year... the what ifs that ran through my mind, especially with the onset of George lying about his drug use and the fact that we were just getting off of Food Stamps. And then when I went to the doctor after three big fat negatives, and the day he gave me the big fat blood test negative I started bleeding and passing clots. There goes my baby, I thought, there goes our little girl. I knew it would've been a girl, with thick brown curls and gorgeous green eyes and his merry laugh, his gypsy wanderlust, and my smiling lips, my artist's hands.
I'm terrified that before my life is done, there will be four or five stars on my wrist instead of just two. Sometimes the heaviness of knowing that my babies died comes back to me. I envision the moments when the tattoo artist put the stars into my skin and remember the weight being lifted off of my shoulders, out of me, away from my heart. I have to remind myself that it wasn't my fault.
I had baby dreams about Chris yesterday. He and I weren't married yet but we lived together in a tiny house in downtown. He was coming home and I was sitting at the dining room table across from a home pregnancy test with a positive symbol on it. I heard him come in the door and almost couldn't stop wiggling from anticipation. He walked past and kissed me on the cheek, setting his jacket on the chair and walked straight past it. We discussed his day for a few minutes before he finally noticed it on the table. He read it and dropped a carton of milk and picked me up and spun me around laughing. We both had tears streaming down his face and he reached for his phone to call his mom, but I stopped him. It's always been a dream of mine to be able to give my mom an ultra sound for a gift as a way of letting her know I was pregnant, and I told him that, and he just said he was so happy over and over and over while he was cleaning up the spilt milk.
He has a long history of twins, both fraternal and identical, in his family. My mother miscarried twins before she had my sister. Maybe I can finally realize my dream of having twin sons? Chris and I were discussing this the other day laying in his bed and he told me, "I want kids some day. And they will be boys. I will have sons, and they will be rowdy and strong and wonderful."
He says beautiful things like that, and it scares me, because the last man to tell me such beautiful things took them back just as easily as he said them. I'm not sure he liked the taste of his I Love You's because they were not real. He told me he had hoped I was pregnant and then took it back before I could tell him it was a false alarm. He told me he wanted me to be his wife and then took it back, but told me to keep the ring because it looked good on me. He stole a piece of my heart and buried it beneath a patch of sunflowers in the red Texas earth.
I have no doubt that mine and Chris' sons would be strong and beautiful and perfect. I hope they would have his nose, his forest green eyes, his dirty blonde hair... my smile, my curls, my creativity. Our babies would be amazing. <3