13 weeks

In 2003, I found myself unmarried, supporting my father by working two jobs and lusting after a boy I thought I would never have. The same boy that I had been chasing after since 1994. The same boy that grew up to be the Hubs.

And pregnant.

I knew that I couldn't have this baby. I knew that his parents and mine would be angry. I cried often from the hormones, the idea that we weren't even a couple (not really), the worry and dread that this secret baby would be found out. My father's remarks about how bi-racial children never quite fit in with anyone raced through my mind on repeat. I was scared, I was lost and I was definitely not ready to be a mother.

I didn't even have the strength to tell my father - how would I be strong enough to be a mother?

At 13 weeks, I learned that I was miscarrying. 13 weeks. Past the point of threat to the pregnancy - or so I had been told - until it happened.

There was pain, there was blood - but none of that was as hard on me as the guilt, the emotional toll that it took on my body.

I could not grieve in public - no one except the Hubs and a few choice individuals knew.

I could not grieve at home - lest I be found out.

I learned to squash it. The pain, the anger, the guilt. Masked by a smile for all to see.

And for the few people that did know, the few people that were aware of what was happening - I hid out. Not wanting to be weak, not wanting to cry, not willing to mourn a child that I had never known.

Four months later, I found out that the Scare Bear was pregnant with Blade.

Five months later, I found out that JoDene was having A.

And while I was excited for the news for my dear friends, my entire being was ravaged by grief, pain, guilt that felt like it would never end, never go away.

Eventually, the pain subsided, the grief fell by the wayside. There would be days that passed that I hadn't cried at all, hadn't even thought of the baby that should have been growing inside of me.

And while I cried on the days that they were born, it was not for my loss, but for the joy that these boys would forever be a part of my family.

I looked at Blade's hands yesterday, expecting to see soft, pudgy baby fingers and was surprised when I found big boy hands, callused from playing hard, dirty from being a boy.

That's when I realized that that baby - wouldn't be a baby anymore.

Next month, she (I have always thought that it was a girl, even though it was too early to know) would have been 7.

Sometimes God gives you strength when you think you have none. Then you think that you are SO strong, he reminds you of where you have been.