Once a day
If you think you are
too small to make a
difference, spend a
night in a room with
a mosquito!
African Proverb
Sweet Autumn Clematis’
Writing a memoir is a little like writing a Haiku, a process of subtraction.
The pregnancy that shouldn’t have been possible was about to reach its final hours. After two successful IVF babies were born, now ages 3 and 4, I chuckled when my doctor asked what I was using for birth control. “Fatigue”. Being no slave to a menstrual cycle, I impulsively thought to take a pregnancy test, when it occurred to me that I didn’t recall getting a period. No symptoms, no expectations and my greatest pleasure came from an opportunity to snuggle up to a pillow.
Failed efforts were a sorely common theme of our infertility days; dumbfounded with awe when the infill of the ‘+’ became stronger. I slept on the secret until I penned the news in a card to my husband, Rob. The pregnancy progressed as did the the other two– well, three, if you counted a horrific first trimester of nausea and migraines followed by a D&C. There was something different though, I wasn’t as disabled by nausea. Hmmm, is that significant?
Despite being sworn to secrecy, I knew the baby’s gender. Rob was on record as loving his ‘girls’ and had never expressed any interest in having a boy. A harem would have been fine. Upon returning from the hospital –with the yet unnamed baby boy– I noticed a veil of white covering part of the window. The hastily planted Sweet Autumn clematis, true to its name, was a glorious tangle of vanilla scented blooms. The randomness of the vine’s proliferation, then reveal, paralleled the introduction of our treasured –yet nameless–new life.
Gold filings 