Almost

We almost didn't have him. It was my fourth try at having a baby and I'd all but given up. I thought I was too old. In my previous forty-odd years, I'd never imagined being my age and becoming a new mother.

I say, "fourth try"; what this means is, I'd been pregnant three previous times. All three times, I miscarried sometime before the tenth week.

Sometime I'll try to write about the miscarriages. Perhaps. Maybe it's not something to write about.

I was thinking today about the "almost"--I was with an older gay man this afternoon; the baby was playing on the floor in front of us. The man said, "Wow, your baby's really active for a five-month-old...of course, I don't really know..." he didn't finish the sentence; a hint of sadness played across his face. I don't know much about this man, but looking at his expression, I remembered for a moment how devastated I was after each miscarriage, and how unfair it felt to know that the pleasure enjoyed by millions of people, without any thought given to it--the pleasure of being a parent-was something I might never experience.

Now that I'm experiencing it--part of me still can't believe it. Part of me stands back in amazement, every day, wondering if it's really true. Part of me is still scared to death.

I know enough about what I went through with the miscarriages to know that I cannot imagine what this man is feeling when he looks at my child. Do we ever know what another person's loneliness really feels like?