Everything appears in order. Presently at my desk, computer is in good working order, reading glasses, coffee, water, lunch for later, phone set to vibrate, iPod, plenty of pens, sticky's, paper clips, project to work on ... the only thing absent is my brain.

Ok, the dead baby thing really sucks - REALLY REALLY REALLY SUCKS, but then there's the scores of other things you lose along with the baby. I miss being able to focus on tasks; sometimes it happens but this morning I'm on a baby train of thought. The baby train has so many random stops capturing my attention: it seems like my friends who are pregnant don't call me anymore, is that true or just me being oversensitive? ... my husband is so different now, sad, distant, often drunk ... my contract at work has been renewed for another year, I intended to plan another pregnancy if this happened, funny I'm not excited about that ... sometimes I wish I had made different decisions regarding Toren's remains (but I stop these thoughts right away since it's too late now) ... Baby, how could you look so good at 12 weeks and 5 days, with a visible heartbeat, brain, and all four limbs and then be termed "incompatible with life" 6 weeks later?

Yesterday, the bereavement crazies took me from feeling bliss in the morning to being frantic and absolutely certain it was time to make a career change by the afternoon. Incredibly, it only took about 30 minutes to make a plan for fulfilling prerequisites, applying for a program, getting scholarships, and beginning a new career in 5 years. So I can concentrate, too bad I presently can't apply this sort of mental organization to something useful like, oh, my current job.

At least yesterday's mental excursions involved obsessing about the future, rather than cycling back through the could-have-beens. Today I just want to sit with memories of holding his tiny body, viewing him wiggling on the ultrasound screen, hearing his heartbeat. These are some of my most precious memories, and they are destined to remain very personal memories. It's not like you can join in the conversations with expectant parents regarding prenatal visits in any positive way. They proudly talk about the size of their baby at so many weeks, how active the baby is, how reassuring and magical the rapid swishes of the heartbeat sound. Joining in, recounting the beauty of my baby's fetal heartbeat heard through sonogram, just doesn't seem like it would be well received since everyone knows my baby's heartbeat has since stopped.

It's like I have less in common with pregnant women than if I had never been pregnant.

I miss feeling pure joy and excitement for my friends expecting babies. Instead, there's all this baggage I associate with pregnancy: extreme worry, extreme sense of isolation, bottomless grief. Someone keeps saying she misses me and I suspect she's referring to something deeper than physically not being around me much. I always want to reply "I miss me too".

Now, in an effort to avoid getting canned and missing my job, I'll at least try to look like I'm working.