Ambien, take me away

A woman I met in my pre-natal yoga class called me today to invite me to her home for a get together of new moms in the neighborhood. We were due around the same time, but I haven't seen her since November. When we met, I knew we were having a boy, but she and her husband decided not to find out about the sex of their baby. As it turned out, she had a little boy, too. Fortunately, she was kind enough to still want to see me, and didn't make me feel like our only connection was that we were supposed to be swapping newborn diapers.

Shortly after that, I ran into a student in the public restroom at work, and she asked about the baby. I hadn't realized how public my pregnancy had been. I told her that the baby had died, and she replied with, "Congratulations!" She was clearly not expecting to hear bad news, and had blocked it out in some way. I had to repeat what I had told her. She was speechless, and felt as horrible as everyone else who has asked an innocent question and gotten back my not-so-innocent answer. It just hangs in the air like a fog.

I don't know how much of this I can handle. I really don't.

I can't wait to be pregnant again. Robert came and picked me up from work today, and we went out to dinner. I had a few emotional moments and at one point I had a very physical, "gut" reaction. I feel like I am suppressing a howl over my pain of losing Julian. I feel the loss so physically, so acutely, at this particular moment, in a way that I haven't since the first few days after he died, when my body was still healing from labor. It may be that we are approaching the 20th of the month. He would be 3 months old.