As most of you know, I’m a bit of a theater nerd. That, and I can also get a wee bit obsessive with my theater research…. long story short, SpongeBob SquarePants the Musical brought me to this song (Ethan Slater, the guy who played SpongeBob, co-wrote Edge of the World (A Concept Album)). So… thanks SpongeBob! (And for those that are interested, you can buy SpongeBob SquarePants the Musical on Amazon Prime for about $10, and it’s not the worst purchase you’ll ever make).

Edge of the World tells the story of a father (Henry) who moves to Alaska with his son (Ben) after accepting a job as a geologist. Henry hopes that this move will help both Ben and himself move forward after the loss of Ben’s mother, Olivia. It’s beautifully written and I highly recommend it.

This song gets stuck in my head every time I take a pregnancy test. Even though Henry is singing about his research, it bears a striking resemblance to what goes through my head at the end of the “two-week wait” (the two weeks between peak fertility and a period). As this song is also about grief, I’ll let some of the obvious lines sit without comment. For the less obvious lines, read below to see why I sing this song to myself around the same time every month.

You can listen to “Rocks and Things” here (Henry is played by Norbert Leo Butz- he was the original Fiyero from Wicked, so his voice may sound familiar to some of you!)

“I sit, wait for the colors inside this little tube to change,
Hoping that they’ll show me something I already know.
Oh boy, what could it be?
A sample of the sediment that’s reticent to change its properties.
(taking a pregnancy test, assuming (and being correct in that) it will again be negative)

Since we last did a check,
And my predecessor wrote it down for me, (me tracking my cycles/LH and HCG levels)
Yes, as I suspected, everything is as it seems.
Mmmm-mm (yep, it’s negative.)

It’s funny how we spend our lives searching and researching,
For something our parents already knew. (what it’s like to have a child)
Yеt, we search for something timеless, (search = trying to conceive)
Something ageless and refined, (timeless, ageless, and refined = the experience of raising a child)
Because even in the ancient truths, we might mine something new. (a live birth after recurrent pregnancy loss)
Mmmm-mm

So we’ll learn for a couple years, (try to conceive)
‘Til we know what the sediment knows. (until we become parents)
Sure, we’ll burn through a couple of tears,
But no more than the fear of living alone. (living without children)
Better here, better now, (I prefer knowing over wondering, so in my mind it’s better to be here/now knowing that we have an issue than it was after two miscarriages, not knowing what would happen next)
In the crowd I just heard it all too loud.
Mm

No one stares here, ha, there’s no one to stare,
No one dares to ask how I’ve been holding up.
No one cringes, as the windows break,
No one calls to see if they can bring a casserole.
No, we study rocks and things, (find distractions, such a watching Youtube paint night videos or starting a blog, as some may do)
Inanimate and old as time,
To take our minds away, to keep our son from asking why. (I always change “son” to “selves” when I sing this part in the shower)
And it’s funny, something as old as loss,
Is young in comparison to rocks. (Poignant, but true. This also serves as a reminder that we aren’t alone in our grief)

So we learn for a couple of years,
Maybe hundreds of years, (it may take us a long time, certainly longer than most other couples)
‘Til we know what the sediment knows.
Sure, we’ll burn more than a couple tears, (starting to accept that this journey will not be an easy one…)
But no more than the fear of living alone.
Better here, better now.

He’s the one thing I’m proud of, (he = my brief pregnancies)
But can I give him all the love he needs? (if we have children, will we be able to provide for them?)
If it were grace I was looking for,
That’s where I’d find it, I’d find it in him,
More than any God above,
You’re the one I love. (Henry is singing to Ben, for me, it’s to Sam)

So we learn for hundreds and hundreds of years,
‘Til we know, ’til we know what they know. (they = mothers and fathers)
Yes, we’ll stay, we’re not done, (we’re not giving up, yet)
Our family has just begun. (this is really just the beginning of our journey)

Mmm-mm
Oh boy, what could it be?
A sample of the sediment that reticent to change.”