I've been dreading the date; yet passing it feels strangely empty. I don't think I'll be marking the subsequent anniversaries of these due dates. I'm sure I'll wistfully notice the dates as the years go by, but I can't imagine feeling the dread I feel leading up to them the first time. I don't often sit around and think to myself, oh I would have a 9-month-old right now. Or, oh I would have a 4-month-old right now. (In fact, to write those statements, I had to take the past due dates and count on my fingers to get the ages of my would-be children.)
On the other hand, I've always known exactly where I would have been with each pregnancy. I've been trying to place why it is that my mind focuses on the would-be pregnancy and not the would-be baby when the baby was the entire point. I really don't know. I was pregnant three times in one year, so I suppose it's because my pregnancies always "overlapped." I've been living virtual pregnancies for the last 16 months straight. Yet I never got close enough to birth with any of them to actually mark that date as anything more than the end of a virtual pregnancy. Hence the feeling of emptiness (and maybe a little relief) at finally passing the last pregnancy mile-marker. It's been a long gestation.