For the past several years I’d tossed around the thought that I should take some more suppliments, like Fish Oil, but the thought of adding yet more pills to my daily regimen held me back. Did I really need those extra pills? I always felt like I ought to try to take as little as possible.

Well I’m at the point now where I say “screw that!” If I need it, if it could possibly in some way help, I’ll take it. Today I bought some more vitamins in that “should probably take” category, like extra B-6 (which I had been taking, a million years ago, for morning sickness with Devin), Fish Oil, and a high dose of Vitamin C (because studies are showing that it might help with allergies). I had already started taking Calcium suppliments last month, to make up for the fact that I had to cut milk out of my diet because of the allergies. Plus my iron pills, because I’m anemic. And of course my prenatal with the very required Folic Acid. (And don’t worry, I did thorough research beforehand, figuring out what I need, what is too much, and what the prenatal already has in it.)

My nightstand is its own little pharmacy.

::

Today we cleaned out the future-baby’s-room. Since Devin died we had just used it as a storage room, and at some point it reached critical mass. This past week I was trying to find something, knew it was probably in that room somewhere, but I could barely make it through the deep pile of stuff to look. I got so frustrated I decided that was it, time to clean the room. So we did. It looks… empty.

I have no deep emotional feelings to that room, since we had only begun clearing it out for Devin and hadn’t gotten anywhere close to making it “his room” – there is still dark panelling on the walls instead of paint, there is no baby furniture set up, nothing. Just a futon and some book shelves. It still sits empty. That’s what gets to me. It’s a room with no purpose… an entire room in our house that sits vacant, door closed at all times. We don’t set it up to be a library, because we know one day – hopefully soon – it will be for someone. Like our lives, like my body, the room waits.

In the cleaning up I finally let Devin’s box be put away in that spare bedroom, safe on top of the bookshelves. It’s been 14 months now, and I am just now okay with it being in a back room rather than out in the living room – last time we did a major clean I insisted it stay out in the open. It’s just a blue box with all his things in it, and some white envelopes with all the important papers in them. They’re not pretty, they’re not decorative, but I just needed to have them there, where I could touch them as I walked by, where I could see them. I guess now I’m finally at a point in my grief, in my life, where I’m okay with them being out of sight.

We also found some stickers that I had bought for Devin: numbered jumping sheep, 1 – 10. I had intended to put them up in his room above his crib. After he died I didn’t want to throw them away, so I just stashed it in the back bedroom. Today we pulled it out and stared at it. I thought for a moment, then scurried off with them while Den looked puzzled. They are now stuck on the wall above our bed, around the quilt my friends made for Devin. This is going to be the spot the co-sleeper is going to go, where our next baby will sleep. It seems like a fitting place for them.

::

I am focussing a lot on the dates of the pregnancy that would occur from this coming transfer – more than I usually do during a cycle. I realized today why I’m doing it: to try to push out of my mind the dates of the pregnancy-turned-ectopic. I have enough loss dates to think about with regards to my pregnancy with Devin, and I really just want to not think about what could have been last time. I do not want to forget what happened – I will be making a small memory box for my little trinkets from that pregnancy – but I just can’t spend my time thinking about what never was. Instead I choose to focus on what still could be. Hopefully.