The chic at Ikea

I went to Ikea on Friday to pick up the cabinets for the laundry room. The chic who helped me order everything was very pregnant. With a boy. Due two weeks after my Logan was supposed to have been due. Crap.

Oddly enough though, I didn't hate her. I was only mildly jealous, and I really did hope the best for her. Even when she was complaining about being so pregnant. I felt sad. I should have been that pregnant too. I should have been able to stand there and relate with her and share our boo hoo's over being that pregnant. But I couldn't. I only told her to savor each moment, because they are gone so fast. I didn't cry. I didn't even think I was going to. I guess that's progress.

But this weekend it really bothered me. Deep down in the part we hide from everyone else. The place where we put things when we say nothings wrong, because it's just too big to talk about out loud. This weekend I couldn't help but think about how it should have been. How I should be walking around with my daughter, and an enormous stomach that would make bending over to pick up the eggs next to impossible. How I should be laying in bed the night before Easter with eight hundred pillows on the bed, up every few hours to pee, complaining about how tired I am. I wouldn't have been at Ikea, not alone anyhow. I wouldn't have been helping the kid load a laundry room worth of cabinets into my truck. I wouldn't have been painting my laundry room what should have been a sunset orange, but honestly looks more like Hoe Depot orange (I did that on purpose. Men love Home Depot!). I would have been sitting down with my legs up. I would have been eating my weight in fruit or drinking ice cold water (the only thing I've ever "craved" while pregnant!) I would have been complaining that I didn't have anything pretty to wear for Easter because I was as big as a house. Not complaining that the shirt I picked out to wear made me look pregnant and could pass for a maternity shirt.

The Ikea chic made it more real. I saw where I was supposed to be. I saw what I was supposed to look like (only honestly she looked about the size I was when I was 6 months along and Logan died). This weekend I couldn't shake the "should have been's" and it made me sad, when I wanted to be full of joy since it was Easter and Muffin was starting to "get" what she was supposed to be doing.

I wore my tiny tag for Logan yesterday for the first time. I wanted him to be with us on this holiday. It wasn't a very good substitute, but it sure was pretty. I also got out his Afghan to take a picture with to send it over to the folks at the T21 Traveling Afghan Blog. Sadly, it was the first time I've looked half way decent enough to take a photo of. I wanted to take the Afghan with us. No. I wanted to take Logan with us.

I think I'm numb. OR I'm back in shock. I'm not sure which. I haven't felt a whole lot of anything lately. I guess that's good. I'm sad; deep, deep, deep down in that place we don't talk about out loud. I'm sad there. I'll call it Logan's spot. I was so happy this weekend, going about doing all of the Easter like things I waited a year to do with my daughter...and she was catching on, and I loved it, and it was exciting. And all along Logan's spot ached. And all along I kept trying to push the thought that "it isn't supposed to be like this!" out of my blasted head. All along I tried really hard not to feel my big stomach, not to feel my baby rolling and kicking, not to feel the excitement of an imminent birth...just weeks away. I tried not to feel it, I swear I did. But feel it I did. And dang it, I'm tired of feeling a ghost. My soul is tired. My heart is tired. My brain is tired. And I'm not even 3 months in yet. That scares me.

Today I would have been 35 weeks along.

Sigh