my third mothers day

Mother's day can be a difficult day for any number of people. Children who have lost a mother they miss, children of mothers who aren't a mother at all. Childless women who want a macaroni necklace and some burnt toast in bed. Mother's who lost children. It's all hard.

For me is especially hard. 2 years ago tonight I was being induced to deliver a baby I already knew was dead.

We didn't know that his name was Oliver.

If you had asked me the day before he died what his name was, I could have told you that we were about 80% sure he would be named Benjamin. I had started to picture him with that name. Thought about nicknames. Imagined if it would be stern enough to say with a disapproving tone when he flushed something important. So when he was born, and that future was gone, his name was too. We started over, going back through rejected names, family names, panicking because it was the only thing we could give him.

In middle school in my French class we learned about saint days, and how in some places a saint day was like a birthday. So we googled. Some website had the saint listed for July 12 as Oliver. As soon as I said it I knew it was his name. Sometimes it feels odd, as an atheist to use saint days to name my son. Sometimes I wonder what if we had named him Benjamin. But it feels now like he was always Oliver.  From the first kick to the last.

We chose his name on mother's day. Sitting in the private room at the hospital, that is reserved for a different kind of delivery.

When you don't need to protect the baby, labor is very different. They give you medication that they can't give to moms of living babies. There is no urgency. Less physical pain. Oliver was coaxed slowly out, breech.

I spent my first day as a mother holding my sweet baby boy. The only day I would get to hold him at all. Memorizing his face and tiny hands and perfect ears and tiny toes.

I spent my first mother's day deciding if we would do an autopsy, and choosing a funeral home. When mothers share birth stories they get uncomfortable when you mention that part. That before you started pushing you signed the papers to donate his organs to research. I never knew what happened to a stillborn baby before I had one. People never ask. So you don't tell anyone. And sometimes parts of it start to fade. It makes me afraid, that if I can't remember which nurse brought in the tiny donated hat, how will I remember him. I only had 24 hours to hold his body, how could I let one second of that day slip away. It was my first mother's day. How could I not replay it all. Second by second.

But I remember all the seconds of him.

We gave him the only thing we could give him, his name. He never even heard me say it. Mother's day for me will always be a difficult day, followed by his birthday however many days later it happens to be. For me it's the anniversary of the only day we ever spent with our firstborn son. The anniversary of the most profound day of my life.

Oliver, I miss you every day. Not just mother's day. Not just your birthday, or Christmas, or when there is an Oliver keychain for sale at the zoo. I miss you when I think of you, which is every day. You made me a mother. You changed me forever.

I love you Oliver.

Mother's day

Mother's day last year was the hardest day of my life.

In most cases, giving birth on mother's day to your first baby would be cool. You could celebrate becoming a mother. We celebrate mother's day to honor that day, and every day that a mom spends parenting her baby.

But it didn't work like that for me. Mother's day will forever be the day that I met my baby, who never met me. The day I didn't hear him cry. The day I didn't get to feed him. That was the day I spent looking at his perfect, still face and wishing my life could be different.

And now the whole world celebrates. Kids make pictures of flowers out of handprints. Breakfast in bed. Brunch. Everyone takes this day to celebrate. TV. The internet. Stores. It's mother's day everywhere. Elliot will grow up to make me cards. Do projects at school. He won't understand that the picture he drew for me, and the breakfast he helped make and the flowers are all for a day that marks the hardest day of my life.

I also have something to celebrate now. Having Elliot here, literally in my arms as I write this brings me joy. And I'm glad to have a day to celebrate him. Two years ago on mother's day I was just someone child. Last year I was a grieving mother. This year it's more complicated. I never knew joy and grief could coexist so seamlessly, or that I could feel both with the intensity that I do.

So I will focus on the joy. I'm going to celebrate the one day I had to hold Oliver. The 31 weeks that he existed. The fact that I got to feel him kick. The way that he changed my life. Made me a mother. This mother's day I'm going to celebrate having both of my sons. This mother's day I'm going to celebrate the two beautiful boys I gave birth to, even though only one of them is alive. I plan to celebrate the tiny hands pulling my hair and the tiny hands that never got to feel my touch. The tiny eyes that look up at my face and the tiny eyes I never got to look at. Because I am a mother to both of them.