Nine years of fun and failure. I've watched a lot of instructional videos and I get a lot of practice, so I am pretty sure we are mechanically doing it right. It just never worked. Then finally in December 2013 my wife got pregnant for the first time. We had that kids whole life planned at 8 weeks, but on December 30th she had a miscarriage. Oddly enough, my bro died on December 31st of 08', so I already hated that weekend. Now I get to hate it for two days in a row. Great. But it was a mess, and it was scary, and as a generally resourceful self-proclaimed knowitall, I was powerless to fix it. For my wife it was all that, plus painful. That tests your metal, watching someone you spent years loving writhe in pain, knowing you are witnessing the future you both had planned, dying, and you have no options except to watch. It sucked, and nothing could have been worse.

So as soon as possible, Mrs. Oblix wants to try again. I have a degree in death, and whether or not the immature fetus counted as life to anyone else, to us it was our baby. I have studied what this does to the mind, and having that knowledge didn't help me. She was ready, I thought we should wait. But hey, considering how it all happens, I was down for the mechanics, and it wasn't hard to get me to give it a shot. So Mrs. Oblix tells me in the spring of 14' that she's pregnant again. Oh great oh shit. I was so freaked out that when my wife told me she was pregnant that second time, asshole that I am, I said "Hey, good for you!" Boy, was she pissed.

But as the weeks went on, the fear of a repeat tragedy went away. We passed the 13 week mark where they tell you everything is going to be alright and thought we were in the clear. We went to our 20 week ultrasound, where they tell you the sex these days and whether or not there are any major defects, wondering wtf was going to be for lunch after and "hey, can you give us the good news and let us go because its really nice out today, doc". I had some great boy names picked out, although Darth Berzerkus was never going to get approved. And as soon as they started to do the ultrasound, these people started trippin. My wife felt fine, but apparently she was dilating. At 20ish weeks, that isn't good. Babies don't really have lungs to resuscitate at that age. Neo-natal Intensive Care Units (the ones we contacted) don't take premature infants under 24 weeks. Baby comes out now, its a death sentence. It was a girl, and since it looked like such a precarious scenario, we named her immediately. We didn't want her to die without a name.

I rushed her from the ultrasound to two weeks in our local hospital. The first week was boring, we waited for days to see if they could perform a cerclage. Its a procedure where they put a stitch in to close off the cervix, buying enough time to have a chance. And hooray! They did it. We went home and thought again that everything was going to be okay. We were there for about ten hours when she started having contractions. By midnight, we were back, and things were much worse for week two. My wife was in labor for almost 70 hours when the Doctors finally agreed that there was no hope. They took out the stitch before it tore its own way out and at 7:28 on September 9th our little girl was born. I held her in my arms for the 32 minutes she lived, and I watched her die.

I have a degree in death, and this time the license. I was my own Funeral Director. It went well, as funerals go. I organized it all and gave my own announcements. There was no viewing. There is never a good result, professionally speaking, with newborns, premature ones much less so. There just isn't the tissue or structure, its like trying to preserve a puff of smoke. Still, there was a large crowd, considering only my wife and I had ever met her. Some people question the idea of having a service in this case, but I'm glad we did. We got a stopping point of one scene, the tragedy, and the starting point of another. Hopefully a better one. But we will always wonder what could have been. Doubly so now.

It has made dealing with other people easier. Its not as bad on my side of the table, once you've been on the other. But, I have studied what this does to the mind, and having that knowledge didn't help me. But it helps me to help other people. And while that's a good thing, still, I'd rather be ignorant of it all and have some little human call me "Dad".