I wish I didn't know what I know.

I wish I could skip along in this big wonderful world and not pause.

I pause at things that most people bounce over in life.

I never had a "now we will start a family" and it happen as it should.

I never had a positive pregnancy test that came with an anticipated happy end.

I am taken aback at normal conversations.

If I hear someone announce "we are going to start a family now", I pause.

When I hear someone announce "it's time for our little Johnny to have a sibling", I stop.

I backstep when I hear someone blissfully announce when their baby will be born and how the nursery will look.

My sister had my nephew 3 months premature. He weighed 1 pound and 9 ounces. He looked like a little bird in a nest. Saying "it changes your life" is an understatement. The world stops turning and nothing else matters. My brother-in-law had to get back to work so I moved to be with my sister to take her to and from the hospital every day for 4 months until he was finally able to come home. I sat in that little labor waiting room, surrounded by blissful families who had normal deliveries and births. It was very difficult to witness so many people skipping. Day in and day out, my sister sat and massaged and talked to her son. Only parents and grandparents were allowed in the NICU, so I could only occasionally see his isolete through the glass if he was close enough. One time the doctor allowed me to scrub up and go in and it was the first time in my life that I felt my soul extend, trying to comfort this little fragile being with all my might. Words mean nothing. I had the sense that it is possible to surround someone with love in an unexplainable manner. My nephew is miraculously fine, with the exception of scars near his nipples where the chest tubes were and teeny, tiny scars all over his wrists and ankles, he is an amazingly normal 16 year old.

I was with my sister when the blissfully pregnant Julia Roberts was interviewed on the Oprah Winfrey show. Julia had no pause, no stop, no backstep. I discussed this with my sister who said, "let her have that", "let her have that naive bliss", "how wonderful it would be to not be ruined forever by simple, normal everyday things".

It made me think a bit about how I am ruined.

I am ruined of ignorant bliss.