The Retreat to Solitude

So, now that the Big News is out, I can start publishing the back story. I kept them in installments.

Here's the first:

August 15, 2011

There was a certain sense of anonymity when I was enduring a second failed pregnancy and this blog was a private blog. It was a safety net, a room where I could put my thoughts and they could stay private. And now, at this time when serious budget talks weave and intertwine themselves with conversations about growing our family, I miss the obscurity and privacy.

So, thought I to myself one Sunday, after a weekend drenched in deep discussions over timing and plans steeped in conjecture and speculation, why not write my thoughts privately in draft form and publish them when the time is right?

It all started on a Saturday morning. After holding my one-year old with one hand and feverishly wiping the plastic car strapped to the front of a Fry’s shopping cart with the other, I wheeled the contraption to the produce aisle and breathed a sigh of relief. My kid was settled into the car, “driving” it like a maniac and eating his snack, and all was right with the grocery shopping world. Then, I saw a prego belly and for the first time since I got pregnant with C, I was hit in the gut with an overripe sense of longing. “Where has that been hiding?” I wondered, reeling a little from the shock of such a surprise attack.

Later, as I laid down to nap, thoughts swirled and whirled like some great mental gyre. As I finally drifted into solid sleep, a whisper of a thought settled on my brain: get pregnant as soon as possible.

~Nichole