The Return

I'm heading back to work on Monday. Being that I have summers off, the last time I saw any of my co-workers I was happily, but cautiously pregnant, just hours away from the ultrasound that would confirm what I knew somewhere deep within me to be true: my baby had, at some point in time, quietly died.

After receiving an email a few days ago from a coworker asking how my pregnancy was going, I knew I had to contact the few people I had confessed my beautiful little secret to, thus reliving everything all over again (as if my brain doesn't already have enough neural reminders). I wanted to explain to save myself the look of confusion on their face when I show up without a baby bump. The sympathetic (or awkward) smiles will be enough to deal with. I wonder that as I sit down at my desk, the place at which I first received news of my first positive beta, will it all come rushing back? As I open my laptop, will I begin to visualize the month and a half spent studying my baby's development at babycenter.com? I wonder, is it still bookmarked? I had already banished any sign that I once was pregnant from my house-the 'what to expect' book and the pregnancy journal shoved in a corner of the garage, the crib website bookmarks gone, but now as I return to work, a place that I did not have time to clean out, will it be as if it were just yesterday?

Some people dread returning to work because it's work, but I dread it because it is yet another reminder of loss. I certainly haven't been running from reminders, persay, but there is a point at which I must return to life. Thankfully, after two weeks, I will transition to a new job, a clean slate, where no one is the wiser. Unless they can read minds, they will never know where I have been and what I have lost.