My uterus on my sleeve.
That's where I wear it.
Why?
I guess because that's where I keep my heart...and because the two are beating as one again.
Maybe the two vessels are more similar than not.
Maybe the uterus quivers and groans like its counterpart, the heart.
Maybe both are sentient organs, flush with feeling and much to say.
I wrote and wrote in May about the 'maybe baby' who didn't come to stay.
Well, in July we conceived again...but just a few days ago we said goodbye, again.
I guess I could pretend nothing happened, just keep my uterus tucked in nice and quiet.
But the open door policy in my womb and the soul baring policy of my heart just happen to coincide with my mounting desire to write and write and write, so here we go.
My womb. Two times abandoned in the last few months. Wow. I could go a lot of different directions with that.
But I will start...here.
I forget how old I was. Maybe 12. When I lay in bed, stretching my mind as wide as it would go toward the farthest piece of the Universe I could imagine. Then, tracing with infinitesimal awe the likelihood that I myself would ever exist...
What if my parents had never met...or what if they just didn't get cozy that particular night in 1979...or what if a different sperm had won the race, or the DNA did just a slightly different twist?
Boggling.
It's overwhelmingly All or Nothing.
Conception, birth, health, the gift of existing...or...not.
(Is it any wonder I had a full-blown existential crisis when I was 16 and stayed waaaay down deep till I was 22?)
This life is a gazillion to one lottery, or...
That's where I wear it.
Why?
I guess because that's where I keep my heart...and because the two are beating as one again.
Maybe the two vessels are more similar than not.
Maybe the uterus quivers and groans like its counterpart, the heart.
Maybe both are sentient organs, flush with feeling and much to say.
I wrote and wrote in May about the 'maybe baby' who didn't come to stay.
Well, in July we conceived again...but just a few days ago we said goodbye, again.
I guess I could pretend nothing happened, just keep my uterus tucked in nice and quiet.
But the open door policy in my womb and the soul baring policy of my heart just happen to coincide with my mounting desire to write and write and write, so here we go.
My womb. Two times abandoned in the last few months. Wow. I could go a lot of different directions with that.
But I will start...here.
I forget how old I was. Maybe 12. When I lay in bed, stretching my mind as wide as it would go toward the farthest piece of the Universe I could imagine. Then, tracing with infinitesimal awe the likelihood that I myself would ever exist...
What if my parents had never met...or what if they just didn't get cozy that particular night in 1979...or what if a different sperm had won the race, or the DNA did just a slightly different twist?
Boggling.
It's overwhelmingly All or Nothing.
Conception, birth, health, the gift of existing...or...not.
(Is it any wonder I had a full-blown existential crisis when I was 16 and stayed waaaay down deep till I was 22?)
This life is a gazillion to one lottery, or...
We are all living, breathing miracles
born with purpose and destiny.
And that is what I absolutely believe.
That's why I am flooded with supernatural peace
even as I bleed away another potential child.
What can compare with the weight of a human being?
Only the weight of their absence.
The weight of an embryo is relatively light;
but sometimes its absence is gravitational
like a black hole,
pulling at every passing thought
(like my fingers irresistibly, wistfully drawn
to the sweetest sunset cotton baby dress
as I walked through the thrift store today)
I truly, deeply feel for those who get into orbits of grief, loss, impossibility, and the thousand other woes that attend this most noble organ, our uterus.
But my reason for letting my empty womb out to talk today is not because she's sad.
This lovable friend of mine, who has brought me three babies and lost me three babies,
I let her share our little un-birth announcement with you because...
she's glowing.
I'm glowing.
I can't explain it, but I feel so full of other gifts:
the pure tears
the thankful prayers
the wonder of being alive
the three I have
the more
I may.
Dear uterus, I love thee, I marvel at your ways.
I love how both You and my Heart
stay in your orbit...
around the sure and certain Sun
who saved us
when we were 22.
Thank you God, for all you give and take away.
In the light of your majesty I find
family "planning" and birth "control"
such funny ideas.
All my babies have come and gone
by the word of your power.
It is a
great mystery.
"For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you."
Psalm 139
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