I’m nearly at the 17 week mark of this pregnancy, and I’m leaving for BlogHer in New York on Thursday.

When I bought the pass to BlogHer much earlier this year, I did it with the intent of alleviating what I thought would be a stressful August. August is a bit of a loaded month for me–a year ago today, I was naively pregnant. I found a couple weeks later that the pregnancy was not viable. I had never heard of a blighted ovum, but that’s what I had. It was hard, but I made it through. Then, after getting pregnant in November, I suddenly had an August due date. You all know how that one ends too. I thought BlogHer would be a perfect distraction, and since it was only a hop away from Cambridge, I jumped on the ticket. My life has changed just a little, no?

And now, here I am, in August, pregnant again.

Most of the time I’m elated thinking about this baby who seems to be doing so well, but sometimes, just sometimes, I spin my ring around and wonder who those babies would be like. What would it be like to have a 5 month old right now or to be expecting a baby any second? Who would they have been? That’s difficult to think about, but sometimes my mind just drifts to that point. I started feeling guilty about being sad at all when I have so much to cherish right now, but that’s not the sort of thing I’m ever likely to completely let go of, and I don’t think I’d want to even if I could. I fell in love with them hard in those few weeks, and to pretend I didn’t would be impossible.

The Geek and I have processed this in such different ways. He is, and ought to be, focused on this pregnancy, this joy. For him the grieving ended more or less when the initial pain faded away. When he thinks of August he doesn’t think of loss–he thinks of a successful halfway mark to this pregnancy. For a while this hurt me. I felt like I was carrying the memory alone. After talking about it with him I know I’m not. He remembers just as well as I do those nights on the bathroom floor just willing it to end. His worry for me is what he remembers more than anything, I think, while I remember the lost dreams more than anything. Both responses are valid, but I didn’t know how to reconcile them. He did admit to feeling a bit sad when I talked about what I was going through, my thought processes. Knowing that he could still feel sad about it helped me a bit, as ridiculous as it may sound.

When I found out I was pregnant again in May, I immediately counted ahead to see how far along I would be for BlogHer, but then chided myself for thinking I would ever make it that far. Well, I’ve made it, and I anticipate making it all the way at this point. It’s been a hard year in many ways, but I’ve had so many moments where I’ve felt nearly unbearably lucky. I’m grateful for those moments, and so incredibly grateful that I was wrong for thinking that things couldn’t go well. I’m trying to see August as a month to cherish. I still haven’t been able to see the positive in the miscarriages–I’m not someone who believes that everything happens for a reason, but I do know that once I set eyes on this child, it will be incomprehensible that I would have had any other child, and for that, I am grateful again.

I’ve allowed myself to hold on to a small part of the grief of the last year, but that’s it. A small part. I’m focusing on remembering all that is joyful and good in my life, recognizing that there is no shortage of that, and that none of this would hurt if I didn’t love so fully and so quickly.