I went to visit my midwives today. It was time to face the appointment I’d slyly pushed back week after week. I don’t feel sad most days, I really don’t. But I knew these walls would stir it all up and what I want to hide would seep out in a mess I couldn’t clean up fast enough.

This office is where I sat rubbing a 35 week belly explaining that we’d be in Texas for the next eight months. We’d seen a few other places but none of them had felt just right. The floor boards creaked in that old house. Voices were hushed and kind, they were bright and complimentary and had a bin of toys on the floor for Oshiolema to explore. They won.

That red door is the ones I waddled through at 3am when contractions were too much to bear and I knew we only had a couple hours til’ it was all over. They filled the tub, I swayed back and forth. We worshipped and I sang through contractions. “It’s a girl!”

I rushed into this kitchen exactly one year later, armed with a giant tub of pasta, ready to watch my first birth. My sister would labor in the same room where I met Keogena for the first time and become a mother herself.

It’s this office I called asking for an ultrasound because something didn’t feel right. I laid on the table, talking about moving trucks and joking about my hands being full. They stopped smiling and sent me to the hospital “just to be safe.”

And here we are again.

I was prepared to be clamped open and checked for scar tissue. I was ready to go over blood work and logistics. I was ready to talk numbers and probabilities, but we didn’t do that.

I didn’t change into a gown, I didn’t fumble with the stirrups, she just asked me to sit. And asked me to talk.

I wasn’t prepared to talk.

 To finally accept the Kleenex. To reveal that I’m still sad sometimes. To be stuck without blinking cursors or backspaces to describe exactly what I’m feeling. To offer the most pathetic smile I’ve mustered in my life.

I wasn’t ready to pass that any-day-now mama and her husband either, fumbling for my sunglasses and clenching my teeth.

I wasn’t ready for this sweet, magical place with the porch swing and the black and white baby photos to become a bad memory. I pray when I pull up to this yellow Victorian that I don’t think of me sitting under that oak tree, hot tears down my chin. Unable to identify any root of this feeling. Shame that these tears are still just around the corner? Confusion over what went wrong? Fear that this could happen again? Discomfort with the realization that my will isn’t always God’s will?

I know one day soon I’ll be sitting on that front porch swing with two babies by my side and one in my arms. Until then, I think I’ll steer clear of Main Street.

(written last week, under the oak tree.)