Every month is the same. For the first two weeks, I am almost a normal person again. I go about my day the way I always have. I keep up with the laundry and make time for dinner. I stay focused and productive at work. I even think about writing. When I place my hand over my stomach (leftover instinct), I don't think about how round it should be (third trimester next month), or the still-empty room at the end of the hall. I come to believe—truly believe—that things will be different this time. I won't start testing so early, so often. It will happen when it happens. When you least expect it, or so everyone keeps telling us—and so I refuse to expect anything at all. My expectations are in fact so low during these first two weeks I become convinced I am almost okay, almost satisfied with this life and its empty spaces. With the steady, pleasant quiet. With peace.
Then mid-month arrives in two bold lines, and the clock begins its upward count anew. Two days in, I'm already having dreams of tiny feet, kicking in my belly. Four days, and I'm revisiting the half-finished registry from the summer. Five days, and I'm recalculating dates so that I can start testing earlier, earlier, the earliest the data will allow. Eight days, and I'm already up to three times daily, huddled in my bathroom, shining a flashlight on each glistening strip, squinting for a smudge, a shadow, the smallest sign of life. Anything. Ten days. The familiar dread is starting to return. It was eleven days last time, when I first glimpsed that second line—but we all know how that turned out. Does that mean it was too late then? Is it too late now? How many more months of this before it becomes too late for us completely?
Fourteen days. One line. No shadow, no smudge. I don't feel anything when I'm crying anymore. It's purely physiological: the inconvenient throb of a wound that refuses to heal. I place my hand over my cramping stomach, put the tests back under the bathroom sink. Next month will be different, I promise myself. I'll start testing later, and less frequently. Keep my expectations low. It will happen when it happens. It will happen. It will.
For another month, at least, the room at the end of the hall will stay empty.
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