"I have chemo tomorrow. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you."

Seriously, I got an email from a friend with those exact words. And she meant it.

After three weeks of bed rest and much jubilation that I had finally stopped bleeding, I found out on Tuesday that my baby (12 weeks) no longer had a heart beat.

The pregnancy was tenuous, so it hadn't made facebook yet, but my heart had already shifted from "MOE" (mother of eight) to "MON" (mother of nine). And the kids' had done the same.

I have my few baby girl clothes in the baby slot in my closet. (Just what's left from a box that got lost and never used. Everything else I gave away.) I need to put those somewhere. And put the Pack n Play deep in the fruit room. And, the double stroller. . .

I need to adjust my plans. No baby November 30th. (David could have registered to teach at AutoDesk University that week.) No redo of the family nativity picture with a new baby. A thousand very small, almost imperceptible adjustments--together they make a wave that rolls over me and back again, an invisible tide.

As a counterwave, I have my life: too many children (read: interruptions) to keep up grief for more than a minute or two.  I also have my gift for procrastination that even reaches into grieving: just like laundry, I can actually put off my grief until I'm "in the mood" to be sad. I've been doing that fabulously while I've waited for the miscarriage to start.

I decided to lay my anxiety to rest and finally had a D&C this morning. I'm relieved. And sad. It's over. She's really gone.

On my way to bed, I ruminate on how much sadness I'll allow myself to feel when I lie down. And, then my last look at email . . . and there's that line: "I have chemo tomorrow. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you." Oh, the blessed irony of it! It's part of a very sweet note of consolation from someone who really has reasons to complain. And, because I know the life she leads, I know she means it. She threw in the chemo comment just to explain that she'd be tied up in the morning. And, suddenly, I'm laughing and crying. . . and thinking . . .

 . . . maybe I can blog about this after all.

Thank you, Deanne, and all my D6 friends and ResponsibleWomen, and family for the many comforting words,  dinners and banana breads, watching my kids during the bed rest even though it came to nothing. You're all part of my counterwave, the sine for the cosine of my grief.

Friendship is a rich and priceless gift . . . a kind of baby. I feel wealthy!

Thank you!

(Davie, please notice: I used a math metaphor there. I'd like credit for that. Thanks.)