We had forgotten that risk.

Dizzy with how easy it was to bring Hannah into the world, how free of misery, how reassuring the doctor had been, and how beautifully perfect everything had been…

We got confident. And surprised, all over again, when everything went wrong.

We hadn’t told Hannah yet about the sibling she would have, and it was a blessing — we didn’t have to tell her they would never come.

She did pick up on our emotional cues. Children tend to do that. She was more easily angry and generally harder to take care of. As if she wanted to regain some of our attention. But there was only so much we could do. We were temporarily joined by a nanny Hannah unfortunately disliked, to try and help us with the immense load.

For the first time in years, I went back to my diary, and stained it with rivers of tears.

Hugo now spent most of his days hiding in the bed.

We barely ever talked.