Trying to be "normal"

    The next week was the first week for Alex and I to be alone, and we did things to try to be "normal". We went and looked at a new tree for the backyard (which that decision still hasn't been made), we went to see a movie, we went grocery shopping... Just trying to restore the daily routine back in little chunks.

     If you've ever gone and shopped for a tree, you'll know that they have all different varieties and stages of growth plopped out in the middle of nowhere (usually) in buckets for your to pick out what radius of trunk you want. It was during this trip that we got the inevitable first question of "Do you have kids?" Here I was, sitting in the front of a 4-wheeler with Alex behind me in the seat and my c-section scar giving me pains because we had been bumping along the dirt paths to look at trees, and I was shocked how easily the "Not yet" response rolled off my tongue. I was use to giving that response a year ago when I was working and we hadn't gotten pregnant yet, but now? After everything we had been through? I was a little disgusted with my answer. But at the same time, I didn't really want to go into our story with Lloyd the tree guy who was only asking to help us figure out if we needed a good climbing tree or not. I felt like I had betrayed Kaitlyn by brushing her off so easily.
     When we got in the car to leave, I confessed to Alex how much I really didn't like my answer. He just held my hand and told me that it was okay to answer like that with people we didn't want to talk to about it. I thought that afternoon about what my response should be from here on out, and I kind of like "Just one in Heaven," but Alex said that would pretty much damper the mood in any room because it lends to the follow up question "What happened?" and off we go into the story telling. I don't know how to respond to the question. I spend 9 months of my life caring for a child that would never take her first breath. I know what it means to put a child's life above your own, but at the same time I hesitate to call myself a "mother." I never scolded my child for getting into the kitchen pantry or even changed a diaper. But I felt that sweet girl kick and squirm and rub her incredibly stubborn noggin on my rib cage. I sang to her in the car, I talked to her about getting her danged head out of my lung, and I knew in my heart that she would come out with a full head of hair (which she did). So how do you take all those experiences and wrap them in a short answer to the question, "Do you have kids?" I don't know. I just don't know.