Begin Again

I remember the day Trombone was conceived. I remember the circumstances surrounding the day, how I felt, how badly I wanted that baby to come into being. I was not sure that there was a pregnancy to accompany my conviction until two weeks later but I would have been very surprised had that stick come up with a single line. It felt like I summoned him.

I do not remember the day Fresco was conceived. But I remember the day I found out he was there, here inside me, microscopic, unintentional. It was one year ago tomorrow.

One year ago today, I worked my last day before a much anticipated 6-day vacation. I tied up loose ends and was exhausted and kept going on momentum and excitement and picked up Trombone from daycare and said, mama’s gonna be home for a whole week! and he was appropriately happy about it.

That night I drank a few glasses of wine and read the Internet and probably stayed up until 10 because hey, I was on vacation. I was blissfully unaware that my world, our world, had already changed.

And so, Fresco, your anniversary day, your conception day, is the day I found out about you. A marvelous surprise, a complete mystery, I have no idea when or how you came to be, but you did.

Tonight I rocked you to sleep, something I do not usually do. You had been awake for a couple of hours and really should have gone to sleep an hour earlier but what can I do, I have your older brother to contend with and he is a bit squirrely between the hours of 4 and 6 pm. It took some doing but you finally stopped thrashing about and just nestled in my arm, murmuring your sleep song. You kept one fist tightly wrapped around my thumb. Your little hairs spiked up at the back of your head from your bath.

I was thinking, as I looked your slightly biggish ears: On this evening one year ago I didn’t know you existed. And that’s weird, in a way that it wasn’t with your brother. Both of you were not there one minute and there the next. But with you there was a whole 4 weeks after that minute where you existed and I had no idea. Like someone who finds a family of raccoons in her garage or that her lover is cheating, I kept asking anyone who would listen,but how long? How long has this been going on? How could I not know?

I was walking in the rain on Sunday and listening to music as I walked and this whole year came spinning back, my initial shock when I saw those two lines, the dreamlike state of the first few weeks I knew about you, the sudden rush of joy I felt the first time I heard your heart, the day I cried because what had I done and then I lay still on my bed and I felt you move for the first time. How your dad and I sat, wrinkled brows, re-jigging our family priorities, re-balancing our budget to accommodate you, to accommodate the way we want to take care of you and your brother.

And then you arrived that morning in April; one minute you were inside and the next you were outside. Four months since that day, one year since the other; I can still hardly believe you are here. I guess it is because I am someone who plans things but I did not plan you. I see now how planning might be overrated. How wonderful surprises can be.