The Baby

I had a miscarriage at twelve weeks. It was a Wednesday. I was at work when the cramping started. By evening, it was over.\n\n"It happens often," the doctor said kindly. "It's not your fault."\n\nBut it felt like my fault. I had been so careful. I had taken vitamins. I had read books. I had already chosen a name.\n\nMy body had failed me. Or I had failed it. I couldn't tell the difference.\n\nI didn't tell anyone at work. I didn't know how. "I was pregnant. Now I'm not." The words felt too heavy.\n\nI told my husband. He held me while I cried. "We'll try again," he said. "When you're ready."\n\nWe tried again. And again. And again. Three miscarriages in two years.\n\nI was ready to give up. My body felt like a battlefield. My heart felt like a ghost town.\n\nThen, on the fourth try, it stuck. I held my breath for nine months. And when my daughter was born, screaming and perfect, I didn't believe it until I held her in my arms.\n\n"She's here," I whispered. "She's really here."\n\nShe's five now. She doesn't know about the babies who came before her. But I think about them sometimes. The could-have-beens. The almost-children.\n\nI hold my daughter a little tighter because of them. And I'm grateful — deeply, achingly grateful — that she made it.