The way it should be...

This weekend I should be nervous.

Nervous because on Tuesday, I'd be alone with my twin babies-just a few months old-and my husband would be going back to work to start the new year.

I'd be exhausted, stressed out, crabby, and crazy. I'd have learned how to breastfeed both babies-maybe at once, but probably one at a time. I'd totally have diaper changing downpat-could probably do it one handed.

I'd have figured out how to take both babies to Target with me-juggling their carriers with opening the van door.

I'd have come back to school, just to get my stuff ready for my long-term sub and to let everyone hold the babies. The house might still be full of balloons and gifts and casseroles.

Sophie might be quieter and Aiden a little squirmy. They'd both have fuzzy hair. I would not dress them the same-well, maybe once in a while. We'd be working on trying to take them for a road trip to visit my mom.

There's no way I'd be sleeping in on a Saturday-I'd be up all night, but loving it. I wouldn't be trying out new hobbies, or trying to find something to do to occupy my time.

I'd be so busy. So buys and stressed, but completely and totally in love.

Instead, I sleep until 11 on Saturday. I come home to an empty house. I come home to a for sale sign in my yard. I come home and feel my flabby, soft belly. I come home to my husband, who is sad and hurting for me. There are no babies here. No cribs. No diapers. No balloons or casseroles. Leftover plants in "memory" of them. Sympathy cards.

Just me. And my dreams of what should have been. Nervous for a first day of school and if I even have it in me to smile in front of 30 7th graders. Nervous because even more people at my school are pregnant. The mom club. The club I am not a part of. Everyone laughs because one girl is 2 days from her due date. They laugh and smile, sharing stories of their kids' birth. "My contractions..." "Oh, and then my husband...."

I think of birth and I start to shake. I feel sick. I remember the horror I felt. The panic that I knew I couldn't stop this but it was too early for my babies to survive. The blood. The infection. The pain. The tears. The nurses looking at me with pity. The phone calls I had to make. The look on my mom's face. The look on my husband's face.

There is no happiness with birth for me. How can I even think of trying to have another baby when the very same thing could happen again?