Note to self

When dh is away, don’t watch the Primetime special about the babies born after Sept. 11th to fathers who died in the attacks.

Bad idea. Awful idea. Horrible tears streaming down the face trying not to make that really annoying cry squeak idea.

Those little faces that often look strikingly like the fathers they will never know just tear you apart. To hear these tiny voices speak about death and destruction is just awful. Sweet cheerful little voices sing, "A plane hit the building where my daddy worked and he died." At 4 years old, they know far too much about death, but at the same time, there's so very much they can't grasp. As parents, we try to protect our children from evil. These children will never know a world without evil because that's precisely what tore their families, their very identities apart.


Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the last time I peed on a stick and was disappointed before I got pregnant with the twins. We had been trying for a little while with no luck. Every month my cycle was a few days later. On September 8, my husband was in another state, I was alone, I was late, and I was so hopeful. I wound up horribly disappointed and bleeding (just an hour or so after a test had the nerve to only show me only one line).

I was still bleeding when the towers fell. Suddenly I was thrilled that I wasn't pregnant with all the uncertainty in the world. Only a few days later, though, I would find myself absolutely desperate to be pregnant. I didn't know where they would send my husband. I didn't know how long he'd be gone if he went. I didn't know if he'd come home. I didn't know if we'd have another chance.

I didn't know we'd get pregnant just about 3 weeks later. There was so much I didn't know. There was so much the entire world didn't know. And that scared the hell out of me.