It is June 2001, and you are at witch camp in the Ozarks when she tells you she's studying to be a midwife. She says she will catch babies and work in hospice, because welcoming life into this world and ushering life out to the next world is very similar work. You think she is brave and wise and accurate. 

Many years later when you have a baby of your own, a package arrives with a board-book suitable for teething infants and a note welcoming your son. In the note she tells you that she’s a midwife now and someday soon she wants to have a baby.  She writes that she’s sorry to hear that Oskar’s birth was such a close call, she says she knows you were afraid since your last miscarriage and she hopes that your fears are calming.   

You both join Facebook and you track each other there. You see photos of her pregnant body, the happy well attended baby showers, and you check her page frequently, waiting for news of the birth. Weeks pass and there is no news. No announcements. No pictures.  When she finally posts, she says the baby died before he was born. She gave birth to him, named him, buried him and began mourning him. 

She made the decision to grieve in public, to mourn on social media. She chronicled every missed milestone- today Oren would've been “six months old” or “had he lived he would probably be crawling soon,” or  “today is his first birthday had he lived he would probably be…”  followed by lists of I wonders.   

I wonder if he would be talking right now. I wonder what he would say. I wonder what his voice would sound like. I wonder what his skin would feel like. I wonder if he would be a happy baby or colicky baby. I wonder if he would be scared of the dark. I wonder if he would like dinosaurs and trucks, or princesses and dresses. I wonder, I wonder, I wonder.  Had he lived, I wonder. 

You read everything she writes because you love her and because you’re scared of death. You cry easily with fear, and with gratitude at the preciousness of life. You remember the relief and terror of holding your own baby after two days of labor and everything that went wrong. 

You mourn for Oren too, adding his name to your ancestor altar, saying prayers for your friend. Years later you mourn for the baby your cousin lost—the twin of her daughter that survived. Then you mourn for your new friend and her daughter who did not bring home her baby brother. 

Last October, you scan the names on your altar and you say the name Oren out loud.  You pick up your guitar, tears falling, and sing to the baby that you lost, you sing through the fear of more loss and in just moments a full song,  “Baby Mine” arrives.  

This series of "Notes to Self" chronicle the origins of the songs on Nikole's Album "You Want to Know About Me". 


Baby Mine 

©Nikole Potulsky 

Baby Mine, baby mine 

I had a dream about you last night, 

Baby mine, I dream of you, all the time 

Verse 2 

I held you once, I kissed your skin 

Hello — goodbye, until the nurse came in 

Baby mine, I dream of you all the time 

Verse 3 

Your sisters here, she’s eight years old 

There are no words for why you didn’t come home 

Baby mine, I dream of you all of the time 

Bridge 

In my dreams, you’re climbing trees 

You hold my hand and you come home with me 

Verse 4 

Baby Mine, baby mine 

I had a dream about you last night, 

My baby mine, I dream of you, all the time