MDW x3

Our family loves visiting Maryland each Memorial Day weekend! This year Mary Allison ran "3... 2... 1... blast-off" into the Chesapeake Bay on repeat until she stuffed her face with watermelon and her first brats from the grill.  She was thrilled to see so many creepy critters and sang "the itsy bitsy spider" each time she came across one. Afternoons included boat-watching with even more singing. "Row, row, row your boat, Mary is a dream," she says. I can hardly believe my animated little girl used to be the tiny 6-week-old babe that we introduced to the ocean two years ago! 

 Happy Memorial Day, y'all!

-b + c + m

Untied calendars

I'm five days away from Tiny's due date. The family bassinet isn't set up. I haven't read Mary Allison picture books about becoming a big sister. I still have an innie, can still zip up my jeans and tie my own shoes. May 24th will come and go and I won't be any closer to meeting my baby.

I missed Dot's 12-week ultrasound by three days. The automated phone service from my midwife's office called to remind me. I abruptly stopped looking for matching clothes for my kids, erased my imaginations of Christmas Eve with four stockings to stuff, and buried my maternity clothes as far as I could in tubs under my winter wardrobe. Dot's 20-week ultrasound was scheduled on Mary Allison's second birthday-- I missed that one, too. I'm only a couple weeks away from my third trimester but I'm not any closer to meeting this baby either.

But somehow the calendar keeps moving forward. I crossed off lots of due dates at work, passed my yearly evaluation, survived a Mother's Day that didn't seem worth keeping, and celebrated friends' birthdays, anniversaries and baby showers. Our annual trip to Maryland is only a week away, and we even have a closing date on an adorable house penciled-in on the calendar at the end of this month. I still haven't figured out how the calendar keeps going when my timeline is at a jarring, deafening halt. 

I don't like to leave words untied, without a conclusion, but miscarriage and infertility feel a little bit like that. Untied. Unfair. Unfinished.