We went to a relative’s for dinner tonight. There was a 18 month old girl and a 16 month old boy there. I lavished attention on the dogs. “Always been such a dog lover,” mom said. Yes, I have been, but that’s not the reason mom. You should know that.

I pretty much ignored them the whole evening. Not rudely so – but I remained politely distant. No one commented one way or the other. That’s fine.

It was hard not to look at the little babies running around, thinking that there should be three. Devin should be with me on this trip. I don’t think that very often – I try not to. But sitting there tonight, I did.

After dinner, for whatever reason, the other adults decided grandma-to-baby should pull out all the baby clothes she recently got a good bargain on. Since everyone knew I’m feeling a little under the weather, and I had already asked mom if she was ready to go, it didn’t seem to abrupt for me to get up from the table and walk away.

Yes, they were girl items. No, I wasn’t having a meltdown. Yet. But I really wanted to avoid having one in public.

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Yesterday I went out with a bunch of old friends I haven’t seen in years. I knew from facebook that one of them had just had a baby, and that she wouldn’t be coming (at which point I stopped reading, just for my own emotional stability). Not that she wouldn’t be coming because of the baby, but because she had a prior engagement.

Imagine my surprize when I get to the restaurant and am told that new mama will be stopping by briefly with the baby. My heart sank. Could I be fine? Sure. Could I be not fine? Sure. Problem is, I never know ahead of time which way I’m going to go.

She arrived later in the evening, pulled the newborn out of his carseat and sat him on the table. I stared. He was tiny. I mean, he was newborn size. But holy shit, I forgot how tiny they were at first.

They passed him around for a little bit, and I was fine. I kept glancing at him, his sweet little newborn wiggles. Finally I spoke up and asked to hold him. He of course decided he was hungry and squawked, for for a few minutes I kissed his little head and held his little body. Sometimes when I let my guard down, when I let go of all that came before and all that could come later, when I just hold them, everything is right with the world. Just like it was with my niece. Time slows, and there is light.

But then I have to give him back, for someone else to feed, someone else to take home. And that’s when the anger and jealousy and hurt comes in. The mothers. The mothers who have what I lost – the mothers who do not know the deep chasms that exist in my heart. The mothers who think nothing of taking their baby home, because that is how it always happens. Except it doesn’t. Not for all of us.

Seeing the girls was so wonderful in its own way, but at the same time I’m left feeling like everyones life has moved forward but me.

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For me it’s the newborns that incite the biggest longing, the most jealousy, not the toddlers at the age Devin should be. I see them feeding yogurt and dealing with tantrums and I don’t really have any concept of it. I obviously have some measure of conciousness as to what age Devin would be, but I’m so far removed from that now.

Birth is where my play ended; where I want to pick back up. A newborn is what I spent countless hours imagining and preparing for. It is that moment in time that I long for with all my heart.