AUTHOR: Sara TITLE: Eternity DATE: 3/29/2005 07:55:00 PM ----- BODY:

I woke up out of a dead sleep this morning with tears streaming down my face and older tears dried and caked all over my jaw and neck. I have never in my life awoke crying and it was very jarring. I remembered my dream as I sat there in the dark, trying to regain my composure. I dreamed there were ants all over our house. They were coming through the vents, they were on the ceiling fan, and they were stinging my legs and the tips of my fingers. I don't know if the dream is what was making me cry, although I think the dream had some relevance (somehow) to my current fears. My symptoms have lessened. My temperature has gone down somewhat. And while I can tell myself that I am going to be okay with whatever happens here, it is almost impossible to get through the day and simply not . . know. It seems that these last few days have brought up some old emotions and some new ones with them. Tonight we walked our dog through the neighborhood and into the park in our community. I was counting the steps until we were in the park area where the lights were dim because I knew I needed to cry. And when the tears came, again, I turned away from Mike, "uh-huh"-ing him, but I took careful notice of the people inside their houses whose backyards faced the park. I could hear a child scream for his father as the car pulled up, a grandmother telling her grandchildren it was time for their homework, and I watched two little girls strain to open up their window upstairs to let the cool air in. I ache so much for children. I know that many of you understand this feeling. Today in class, my students and I read the story called by Demi called "One Grain of Rice". It is an old folktale about a raja that stores his people's rice in his royal storehouses during a time of famine. A young girl named Rani finds some rice grains and returns them to the raja. As a reward, he asks her what she wants. She simply replies that she wants one grain of rice. Just one, and he agrees to double her grain everyday as a addition to her request. Thus, the second day she gets two grains, the third day, four grains, and so on. Basically, she outsmarts the raja and is able to feed all of the starving people. Is it so pathetic and sad that I had to dab my eyes as we read because it made me wonder if I will ever get to the point where my hcg doubles, like Rani's rice? Am I the only person who would see this stupid correlation? Basically, I am just so sad today and I don't exactly know why. Women's intuition? Or maybe the thought that if I am pregnant, it might be a chemical pregnancy again. It is so easy to say you aren't going to think about everything, but then something as meaningless as a children's story can seem to draw you back. I said I was going to test tomorrow. I haven't decided if I will. I am scared. Not so much of being pregnant again and worrying about the possibility of losing the baby, but I am scared that it will be negative. And then I will have lost my hope all over again.

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