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I can only imagine what you must have been thinking when we walked through the door.

My six year old had his hand stuffed into a bag of Cheetos, an orange soda tucked under his other arm. He was wearing two different socks, because he likes to dress himself and I didn’t have the energy to argue over why the bright blue Transformers didn’t match red Elmo.

I can only imagine what you thought, as my daughter walked in with her hair already out of its hastily crafted pigtails, her ballet skirt drooping a bit in the front, and I struggled with the door and she held my wallet and my keys and my book.

Did you mean to? You asked, after noting the size of my belly and my obvious lack of a shower.

Did I mean to?

Did I mean to lie down on my back, in the little full-sized bed I share with my husband, toss my legs over his shoulders and proceed to act like a teenager with reckless, lustful abandon for a few hours?

Did I mean to sit up night after night talking to this man who had just recently become my husband, who four years ago stepped in to father children that weren’t his, and wanted one of his own?

Did I mean to sit in some hospital storage room, because they were out of actual patient rooms and, “Oh, she just needs some morphine, so put her back there” while my husband held me up in the chair and I hemorrhaged through all my clothing and the wheelchair and onto the floor and the nurse said, there’s no heartbeat and we wrapped up our hopes in toilet paper while I watched my husband break?

Did I mean to stare at a calendar every month and watch my every little move and breath and thought and wish, just to sit there on the toilet once a month sobbing because it hadn’t worked again and again and again?

Did I mean to finally give up, only to see my womb finally open and accept a baby that I’ve treated like a porcelain doll for the past six months, frightened every moment that something will happen, and that the doctor will say there’s no heartbeat?

Did I mean to bring another child into this screwed up world, where my TV is on a constant record of scare tactics and buy this now crap, where I’m not sure what tomorrow will bring, or even where my country is headed anymore, and hell, are we in another war again?

Did I mean to?

Yeah.

Yeah, I meant to.

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