Something.

There they were, walking amongst the fleece jackets, a young couple with a baby in one of those framed backpacks that you really only need when taking on Everest. Really, I heard the baby before I saw him, but my daughter had been chanting "outside" for fifteen minutes. He was just one of the noises in REI today. I'm not one of those babylost mamas who cannot be around pregnant women and babies. Maybe practicality prevents me from dwelling on other people's babies, or maybe it is simply that I want my baby, not just any old baby, but I think babies are keen, pregnant women beautiful, and families heart-wrenchingly touching. Still, when I noticed them in front of me eventually, after Beatrice ran off to baby bicycles with her father, my knees got weak.

It was her that made me want to vomit, run away, shake violently, take a generous shot of Jamesons. N. She was in my prenatal yoga class for months. She cried every Sunday morning when we went around the room said our names, how far along we are, what are issues for the week were. An architect by trade, I think she was having trouble wrapping her brain around this all-encompassing feeling of unconditional love. She was afraid. Every week she cried over a new fear. She once cried because she didn't know how she was going to be ready in time. And there I was, sitting in remarkable flexibility, like some swollen Buddha, saying "Pregnancy is a wave. Follow the wave."
"All the baby really needs is a boob, a diaper and your arms."
"Enjoy this time of expectation and planning."
"Revel in the long days of waiting, and sleeping, and relaxing."
"Be kind to yourself."
"You are doing everything right for your baby."
"Your baby is happy with just you. You cannot spoil a baby with too much love."

I virtually flaunted my laid backedness. I was so fucking cool. I was the only one in class who knew what it was like to have a baby and I had done it naturally at that. It was like I held some ancient secret that I wanted to share will all women. "If I can do it, you can do it," I said. "I was only in labor for 21 hours. It is a pain that is productive. It isn't like other pain." I was such an asshole.

And there she was, like I once was, with my husband after our first child, walking around loudly in an outdoor store, planning for our first hike, camping trip, bike ride...everyone listening to us. We didn't care. We were new parents, and our life wasn't going to change. We were taking the kid on our back and hitting the road.

I cringed. I slunk back into toddler wear, and began hyperventilating. Sure, I wanted to see the kid. I would have once run to her, drooled over her beautiful boy, told her how stunning she looked, how perfect her baby was...but I was completely paralyzed. Stunted. Immobile. Wholly inadequate. Instead of gushing, I wanted to tell them about Lucy. But I couldn't. I just could. Not. I mean, they were happy. Look at them, picking up expensive little onesies for camping, blissfully unaware that babies die because of nothing. Their world still had order, justice, kindness...I couldn't tell them that their baby was one yoga mat away from a dead baby. I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror hiding behind a rack of clothes, trying to figure out a way to my husband and baby. I look so sad. So broken. So sleep-deprived and depressed. A person no one notices in the store. A person no salesperson asks to help. I hopped rack to rack until I somehow managed to pop into the aisle with Bea and Sam. He took one look at me, and said, "Come" and held me. He put the keys into my hand and said, "Go to the car if you want." And I thought, "Yes. I will run to the car." But I didn't. I didn't run. I decided to let fate decide if N. would see me, talk to me, ask me about my little girl. I am tired of hiding from people who are happy...she didn't see me. Too wrapped up in her own very loud new baby world.

Why do i feel so compelled to write about these moments? It happens to me everyday. To every one of us. Something that takes my breath away, reminds me of a before-time, of my ignorance, of my grief, of my dead baby in a more concrete way than simply the usual background chanting of "Lucy is dead". It happens so often, in fact, it is more out of the ordinary to not break down crying in public for one reason or another. But here was this woman. A woman so scared, so sure something was going to go wrong, and here I was so laid back, so sure everything was going to be just fine. Never again will I take anything so important for granted. Never again will I look at a pregnant woman and think, "Suck it up. It'll be fine." I was like some sort of twisted Greek heroine who told the gods that she was too smart for them to take her baby. I think the cliff notes of my life would summarize this chapter of my life as: Hubris killed Angie's daughter.

Maybe the moral of this post is simply: today I didn't run away from my demons. I didn't confront them, like a brave person, but I didn't collapse and run to the car either. Maybe I was supposed to remember my arrogance today. Maybe this is progress. Maybe this is something.