Zen, or the lack thereof

So over at San Diego Momma, Deb does a writing prompt every Tuesday. This week the subject was: Zen. This was the prompt:

When is the last time you felt completely at peace? That all was right with the world?

I started thinking about this and the first thing I thought of was pregnancy. I tried quickly to come up with something else and pretend that that couldn't be the last time I felt completely at peace. Pretending is not my strong suit. Honesty is. I tell it like it is. I know that it seems like it consumes my life, and maybe it does sometimes, but really, that was the last time I felt completely at peace. January 9th 2010. My first pregnancy. The first day I knew for sure that I was really pregnant. It's funny because it was just over a year ago, and I can feel that feeling as if it was yesterday. I can feel the way I felt the exact moment I found out. It was like when the little stick said "yes+", my whole world had meaning. Finally, I had found my calling. There weren't any worries about miscarriage, or finances, or "is this right?". I just knew.

I had no idea of the heartbreak that laid before me. No idea that in a few short weeks my dreams would be shattered. I felt whole. I could feel that little soul in my being. I swore that I could feel that soul become part of me. Sometimes, even now, I get glimpses of that wholeness. I can feel the way I felt. I can go back to that zen place and not be afraid. Do you know what it feels like when you can feel in your toes that you are finally at a place in your life where things are just right? Where nothing else matters except that. one. moment. That was my place. My zen place.

I knew that if I wrote that that was my last zen moment, someone, somewhere, would roll their eyes. Is that all she thinks about? Maybe she should just relax. No one really understands the discontent of being in this in between phase ... between miscarriages and the next pregnancy. Unless of course they have been through it themselves. It's a limbo that I wouldn't wish upon anyone. I have experienced the first moments of pregnancy, experienced the yearning to hold my baby in my arms, and experienced the deficiency, the incomplete, the unfinishedness, (not a word, I know). I'm filling the void left behind. Filling it with God. Filling it with love for my husband. Filling it with things to fill my time. But nothing fits. quite. right. And nothing will until I hold my baby in my arms. That will be my next zen moment.

‎"The English language lacks the words 'to mourn an absence.'...But for an absence, for someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture that particular emptiness. For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent, ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel... of a tiny hand that is never held?"

~ Laura Bush