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.

Elliot and Oliver

Dear Oliver,
You have a brother now. I want to say little brother, but it doesn't quite fit in my mind that way, because he will grow up and you won't. You will always be my baby and Elliot will age.

He is aging already. the bottom drawer of the dresser is full of newborn clothes that he has grown out of. They are mostly clothes I bought for you. But I bought them for him too. We know we want a big family, so they were always going to be hand me downs, we just didn't know they would be new.

He doesn't look like you. You had your daddy's nose and my chin, and he has it backwards. He was skinny at birth, not as skinny as you but skinny. He is getting fatter now though. And you were both born tall. He was 21 inches, to your 18.

Oliver

Elliot

The biggest difference between you both was not the birth, or even the recovery days, but leaving the hospital. When you walk out of the hospital clinging to a memory box, it is the exact opposite of leaving the hospital with a tiny baby strapped into a car seat. When we left the hospital with you, it was the end. I knew I would never get to hold you or sing to you or touch your perfect little nose, ever again. We said goodbye to you and I walked out of there empty, with nothing in front of me except missing you, and days of pain.

When we left the hospital with Elliot, it was the beginning. It was his first time being in a world that he will get to know and explore. But he won't do it alone. As he grows up, I promise you he will learn about his brother. You will always be there with us. Playing in the snow, going on a walk, snuggling and reading stories.

Elliot isn't you. Lots of people want him to be. They want it to be over. Want things to be happy again. That is what I wanted too. The reason I got pregnant so fast was that I was desperate for a baby, to cry and feed and care for. I wanted him to be you, and to take your place. But it doesn't work like that. I could have 10 babies and  would still miss you the same amount. Probably more, because each baby would remind me exactly of what I am missing.

I miss you every day and I love you always.

Love mama

I love you forever

When Oliver died we didn’t just lose a baby. We lost his first day of kindergarten. His first tooth. We lost his high school, college (and maybe more) graduations. We lost the family he might have someday had and the adult he would become. And for a few months, sitting in the dark in my bedroom, I mourned all of it. Not just the diapers I wouldn’t change and the milk that piled up in the freezer, but his entire future.

 

This morning I read a blogpost about the book “I Love You Forever” by Robert Munch. The article described how the book was written for his stillborn children and it suddenly made sense.

 

 

 

In the past, reading it, I always thought it was creepy that the mother broke into her adult son’s home. I’m fairly certain that is restraining order territory for most adults. I always thought it was written for children, just like his other books, which take things to an area of hyperbole that doesn’t make sense for adults.

 

Now I read that book as a loss parent, and I see it in a whole new way. The mother rocking a baby who she can’t hold. Who won’t ever try to flush a watch, or be a teenager, or have a family. Her rocking him like a baby makes perfect sense, because that is all he will ever be.

 

I love that for most families, that isn’t the message of the book at all. Most parents I think just respond to the poem.

 

“I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
as long as I’m living
my baby you’ll be.”

 

It isn’t exclusive to babies who are lost. Any parent can identify with this love, and this feeling. I’m grateful today for this book, because it articulates something so hard to explain.

 

Dear Oliver:

“I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
as long as I’m living
my baby you’ll be.”

Love Mama

Dear Oliver

Dear Oliver,

It has been 288 days since we lost you. It isn't a particularly significant chunk of time. In fact, I had to look it up to find out the exact number. Somehow the number doesn't seem very important anymore. the difference between yesterday and 50 years doesn't seem to matter. What does matter is what we have missed together, but there is no point in adding it up. I don't need the subtotal of what I have missed so far, because I know the sum at the end. A lifetime. All. Everything.

Somedays it feels like it was stolen from me. Like you were stolen from me. I find myself wondering about the what ifs. Would you be 9 and a half months old today? That is how long it has been since I delivered you. Or would you have stayed put until your due date. Would you be 7 and a half months old today? How big would you be? Would you have hair yet? What songs would you like? I can't even miss those things because I will never know, so it feels like I lost them all. Every baby you could look like. Every life you could have had.

The only thing I know for certain is how much I love you, because fat or skinny, bald or hairy, no matter what I would love you. Alive or dead. It doesn't change, not after 288 days, not after all the days.

All my love,
Mama

You don't have to tell me.

BabyCenter, you don't have to tell me.
I don't need to look at your description of what a baby looks like at 31 weeks. I know he has a perfect beautiful face. I know he is so big compared to that little speck, or poppy seed we saw on the first ultrasound, but still so small. I know he is long, and not very fat. That he has perfect little fingernails. Perfect tiny hands. Perfect tiny feet.

This week I don't need a description.
 I know what it feels like to hold a baby that size. I know that his skin is soft, and delicate. That there is just enough fat in his cheeks to make them perfect. That his little bum is so tiny. That his chin, and nose, and legs, and ears have already decided which side to take after.

You don't have to tell me about the kicks. That there will be more, and that I should be feeling them all the time. I'm aware of every second that the baby isnt kicking. The poor thing probably just wants to sleep, and here is me, drinking cold water and poking my belly, just so I can be sure.

From here out it is all new. I won't know next week, what to expect at 32 weeks. But anything is better than numb. And empty.

All the back pain and round ligament pain, and heartburn. The possible insulin shots, and stretch marks, and running (waddling) for the bathroom, all of it is so much infinitly better than chosing a funeral home. Choosing an urn. Saying goodbye.

Next week you can tell me. About how fat he is getting. and how he will continue to change. But this week, I don't need to read it. This week I know.

Nearing 31 Weeks

Dear Oliver,

Your brother will be 31 weeks along on Sunday. That is the oldest you got to be. From here on out he will get to do things you didn’t get to do. He will keep growing and be born alive. He will get to cry in our arms. He will get to open his eyes and learn to see. He will get to hear our voices with no fluid in the way. He will eat all the milk instead of giving it away.

 

I have been afraid of this moment since I got pregnant again. I was afraid he wouldn’t make it, that I would have to say goodbye again. I was afraid people would think that it was a setback, but that things were “ok” again. Things will never be ok again. Not wholly. Not for our family. But they will be good, and I am afraid of that too. I’m afraid that this new baby boy will show me exactly and in excruciating detail what I missed out on with you.

 

In fact this is what I am afraid of most of all. I know what it felt like to deliver you. To hold you. To touch your face and to know I couldn’t keep you. But I didn’t know what it felt like to feed you, and nurture you and watch you grow. And now I will know. I will know what I missed with you.

 

I’m sorry that you couldn’t do those things with me. I think I tell you I am sorry in every letter that I write. I will never stop being sorry for whatever it was that caused you to die. I am sorry that we will never know, and that I couldn’t save you. That I couldn’t protect you. I am sorry that at this time last time I didn’t know what would happen. I’m sorry to your brother that this time I know. That his birth will be bittersweet, because I will think of you. And miss you.

 

All my love,

Mama

I took this the day before Oliver died, to show how huge I felt in relation to this comically small watermellon.

I stopped posting.

I stopped posting on this blog. The reason I stopped at first was that I found out I was pregnant again. I wasn't ready to tell people, so I decided to take a break from blogging until I new what to say, and somehow I just stopped.

baby Speck

This pregnancy is terrifying.

There is no way to write about Oliver without writing about the baby who is 27 weeks along, who I fear dying daily. Every twinge, every pain, makes me afraid something is going to be wrong, and that before I know it I will be grieving another son I will never get to know.

And when he kicks, and lets me know he is still alive in there, I feel guilty. I feel guilty for loving him as much as I love Oliver. I feel guilty knowing that this particular baby would not exist if his brother had survived. I feel guilty that we plan to give him all of his brother's unused things. All those gifts that were made with love.. for another baby. If Oliver had lived, his younger siblings would have used those things. I watched my sister learn to ride my first bike. I watched her sell my old stuffed animals at garage sales, and get to keep the money because they were "hers" now. I know the people who gave us beautiful gifts, did so picturing a baby using them. Being snuggled. Being loved. The blanket that was knit with love was meant to be wrapped around a baby, and it will be. But I can't help but feel guilty, that the baby wont be Oliver.

And I feel guilty for the new baby. The day I found out I was pregnant with Oliver was the best day. Every moment of being pregnant- even the ones that sucked- was amazing. I made special announcements to tell the world he was coming. We told our parents with special Christmas gifts, so that Christmas mornign we got to see them unwrap the news that they were going to be grandparents for the first time.

And now it's bittersweet. I told my mom I was pregnant again with a phone call. A terrified phone call. I don't lay awake at night picturing taking the baby on walks by the river, I lay awake wondering if I could survive losing him. If I could plan another funeral for another child. His whole life he will have the shadow of not being Oliver.

I am terrified that he will be overshadowed by his dead brother. And terrified that he won't. Im afraid that the living breathing son reaching milestones will become more real, and his brother who would have been, will fade away. And when he does, part of me will too.

And more than anything, I want baby Speck to live. I want him to be born, and cry, and poop on all our stuff, and keep us awake for endless hours and get gum on the cat, and take my car and get married and be happy. And the hardest part is knowing that there is no guarantee.