Saturday, September 29, 2007

25 Days, 18

When we bought our first house a pig just like this one came to live with us.

We would use his chalkboard to announce birthdays and holidays or just proclaim our love for one another. The only rule was that every entry had to start with "Pig says:".

As we began our in vitro journey we started noting significant numbers on Pig's board. Number of eggs, number of embryos, number transferred, blood HCG numbers. Pig eventually became a talisman to protect the pregnancy. That was in June of 2005.

We've since sold that first house and bought a new one and Pig came along, unchanged, to live in the window above the kitchen sink. I then had a baby and proceeded to raise him for 20 months before I felt safe enough to erase the numbers, which were barely even visible anymore.

There was an expected moment of bittersweet when I wiped the last number away, but I was truly surprised at the relief I felt, too. It had never really occurred to me that those numbers, though the best and luckiest numbers of our lives, were also a daily reminder of the desperate fear and pain of two years of infertility and loss.

I realize now that I was moved to erase those numbers because something rearranged itself in my heart and head to allow me to finally consider us a normal family--no longer a miracle of science, just a regular family of three.

Although I will never take for granted the gift that we've been given in Dash, I don't have to spend every dish-washing moment in remembrance of what almost never was.

So now we are, finally, blessedly, back to this:




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