I haven't brushed my teeth...

... and it is 6:00 p.m. I finally managed to shower at about 3:00 p.m. I am not just gross - I have a cold. My teeth feel fuzzy. I am going to have to deal with that soon.

My husband had to attend a work function last night and today. Which has left me with little to do but spew phlegm and feel sorry for myself. Despite my carrying on about books and reading, I have spent most of the last 24 hours in front of the TV. Good Lord, there is nothing on TV (which begs the question, how could I have wasted the better part of 2 days hoping for that fact to change while flicking through our 40 channels?).

To drag myself away from the TV, I came on the computer last night to read my favourite blogs. None had been updated. Rats. What to do? Well, I decided to go back to the chat room at babycenter.com.

When my son died, I spent the first two months thinking that I was the only woman in the world that was a failure enough to have carried a baby to term only to lose him in the last moments of her pregnancy. Then, to stop the cute little updates coming in my email, I went to BabyCenter to unsubscribe...to remove my son from my profile under "children". And it automatically forwarded me to the Grief and Loss chat.

I haven't been there in months. Probably June was the last time I was there. But I think back to one year ago and what that chat room did for me. It did what precious else was able to do - it connected me with others who had lost babies and it allowed me to tell my story over and over. To claim my son as a person over and over.

It wasn't the same last night. I guess that a year of mourning changes you. I felt more like a mentor - I was asking the others questions instead of hoping someone would ask me. So I chatted a bit, then switched to the Preconception Room, where I had a very informative conversation about charting, and then turned off the computer.

I guess I just don't need that crutch anymore.

But what it did allow me to do is to reconnect to some of those feelings that I had one year ago. I think that the feeling out of those emotions is healthy for me - each time I revisit them, the emotions smooth out around the edges a little more.

I am spending more time thinking about what my son looked like, and felt, and smelled like. His hands and feet were so big for such a little boy! The perfect little curve of his ear, the peach fuzz on his cheek as I kissed it. He was so beautiful. I remember what it was like to hold him - he was just the right size for a baby. What it was like to show him off, proudly, to our family. He was so perfect.

I doubt I will ever fully reconcile to the fact that I could not protect him. He was so perfect and I was not. The decisions that I made in the last 24 hours of his life will always haunt me. The what ifs will always be there...however, the cacophony that they made in those first months has simmered to a low murmur. I will always regret that I didn't somehow know what the future would bring to miraculously be able to save him.

What I do know is true, despite my emotional need to lay blame at my door, is that we did nothing wrong. We were cautious, we followed all medical advice, and we were as well educated as any two people could be about the process of childbirth. My old arrogance is gone - that is no longer enough. If we ever have the joy of another pregnancy, caution will no longer satisfy us. We did everything right and our son still died, so I assure you, you will never meet anyone more attuned to pregnancy and the state of her unborn's existence as I will be in a future pregnancy.

I just want another chance.

Now, wasn't that a mood swing?