I am not

Strong.

I've been called that a lot lately.  And really, I am not.  Not more so than anyone else.

I cried on the ultrasound table.  I cried in the midwife's office.  I cried in the hospital chapel, on the bus, in my living room, in my husband's arms, again and again. 

And I will keep doing so.

Yes, I am going on.  Doing my best to treat this pregnancy the same as any other.

Really, what other choice is there? 

Lie down on the floor and scream and cry? Please.  I've got kids.  I don't have time for that shit.  I do cry in front of them, so they know they can cry in front of me.  I do hold them when they cry, when they shake.

All moms do this.

I am, in actuality, terrified.  I have always been terrified of death, of touching dead things.  I barely got through the whole dissecting a frog thing in junior high.  I don't go to any more funerals than I have to, and I consider open casket funerals ghoulish.  I don't want to be anywhere near these things.

But now, I know I am going to hold my dead baby.  And the thought is terrifying, one of those things that your mind approaches elliptically and then screams away from in gibbering terror.  I'm not somehow OK with this.  I'm scared.  I'm crushed.  I am weak, human.  Uncomprehending of just what's going to go on from here.  Afraid of what it will do to my family.

Again, though, what other choice is there?  This is here.  It is happening.  It cannot be fixed, cannot be controverted.  There is no waiting miracle, no chance that this child will somehow come out whole. 

So we will deal with it.  Because we have to.