The hardest question

The hardest question that I've been asked now that I'm in my 9th month: "Is this your first baby?" The first few months that I was pregnant, Neal and I talked about this question a lot. Mostly because of the awkwardness. We used to say "No" at first. But then people ask a lot of follow up questions like, "Boy or Girl?", "How old is he?" and "Do you have pictures?" Which then leads us to explain what happened. We hate the aftermath of explaining to people we hardly know that our first baby dies, why he died and most of all, I hate their reactions. Neal and I shared experiences and we kind of weighed the consequences of our answers. We decided that saying "yes" to the first question would just stop all the rest and everyone will be happy. It was not as if we were denying Nathan's existence. We just didn't want to get hurt anymore. So now, I just lie whenever I get asked that question. I just hope Nathan understands.