mother's day

For years Mother's Day was really tough for me. I was always happy to celebrate my mother, but I longed to be a mother myself, and it seemed to be taking forever....first for me to meet and marry someone I loved, and then for him to feel ready enough to be a father that we could have a baby.

Then Rachel came along and made me the happiest woman alive.

My first Mother's Day, 2006

But this Mother's Day is another tough one for me. For though I have my sweet Rachel, who gives me such joy and pleasure at being a mother, today I'm mourning the fact that I'll never be a mother to the little one who I'll never know.

I haven't been able to write about this yet, but after three weeks of trying to "fake" my way through this blog, I'm finding that I need to face how I'm really feeling about it. See, in March we found out that we were expecting another baby. I was elated. I'd been wanting a sibling for Rachel for quite some time. At Rachel's birthday party in April we surprised our family by giving Rachel a "Big Sister" t-shirt to share our news. Everyone was thrilled. I couldn't wait to announce it to the world, but was waiting until we saw the heartbeat on the ultrasound, just to make sure everything was okay.

But then almost three weeks ago at our first ultrasound, instead of bringing home a picture of our little miracle, as we had expected to do, we left with nothing but questions and tears. I was pregnant, alright, but the gestational sac was empty. No baby. No heartbeat. The doctor said it could just be too early, and we had gotten the dates mixed up, as far as how far along I was, though I was fairly certain of the dates. So I had some bloodwork done, which came back with positive results, and had to wait a few days to try again to see the baby. It was an excrutiating several days of not knowing whether to grieve or rejoice. At that second ultrasound we still saw nothing. It was a crushing blow. Over the next two weeks I had two more ultrasounds, hoping to find something, but each time the results were the same. It was not a viable pregnancy, and I would miscarry. It was a grueling two weeks of uncertainty, fear, and tears.

Meanwhile, my body still thought it was pregnant, so I couldn't fit in my clothes, still felt nauseous, still was repulsed by food, so that I couldn't find much of anything I wanted to eat, and I was still waking up multiple times a night to use the bathroom. There were constant reminders that I was pregnant, which, though, unpleasant, are usually made bearable by the joy of a coming baby, but which only brought pain to me and made it impossible to focus on much else.

Thankfully the distraction of Rachel helped me get through each day. She makes me laugh out loud multiple times a day, and no matter how sad I am, she helps to get me out of my pit of self pity.

Though I finally did have some signs of a miscarriage, I didn't miscarry on my own and I had to have surgery this past Friday. It's finally over now, and I can begin to move on from here. December 4th, my due date, will be hard. Christmas will be hard, since I was already dreaming of having a new baby this Christmas. But time heals all wounds, and I know that eventually we'll be okay.

I didn't really want to write about this here because I don't really want to talk about it with most people, and this just seems so public (even though I really don't know who in the world reads this, except for a few friends and family members, most of whom already know). I know there's nothing anybody can say to change anything or really make me feel better, even though I know people mean well with the things they say, so I didn't really want to make it public. But it's been rather therapeutic to get it all down in writing, and it's been hard to be "fake" and write about other, happier things, so maybe it's better that I do share here.

So today on Mother's Day I mourn.

I mourn the loss of a sweet baby I'll never know....I'll never know his or her name....never hear him or her call me Mommy...never get to kiss his or her sweet little head.

I mourn the fact that there will only be three stockings hanging from the mantle again this Christmas.

I mourn the fact that even if Rachel does have a sibling someday, which she hopefully will, they'll be far apart in age and likely won't be as close as she could've been with this sibling.

And even though it's not quite so important, I mourn the fact that I've already spent money on maternity clothes that I won't need, a pregnancy journal that I just want to pitch, and have spent significant part of the last three weeks in frustration over the waste of those purchases.


And yet I rejoice, too.

I rejoice that I have a daughter and do get to celebrate Mother's Day with her. She fills my heart with joy. I'm sad for those who I know who don't have that blessing, though they'd long to.

I rejoice that the doctor has given us every reason to believe that we can have more children without any problems.

I rejoice that my family and friends love me and have rallied around me in my sadness.

I rejoice that even though I'm sad, I don't understand, and I'll never know why this happened, God has given me peace to know that His plans for me and our family are good.

So I choose to say, "Happy Mother's Day," and enjoy my sweet daughter today, even though a piece of me wants to crawl into a hole for awhile and lick my wounds.

Happy Mother's Day....to my wonderful mom, to my dear friends who are mothers, and to me!


I may not get to be a Mommy again in December, but I'm still a Mommy to this baby.....

And I'm so thankful that she's mine.