I wrote a post about mother’s day (it is available at the bottom of this one). It was short and conscience. It was written about a week earlier and I even had it scheduled to go up bright and early on May 11. But, I got to thinking. Although the original post still holds true in respect to one particular feeling, it doesn’t capture how I’m really feeling. If you read between the lines, it actually does a great job of capturing my desire to hide from mother’s day. So, I’ve decided to share the original post (see the end of this one), but, I am also re-writing my mother’s day post now, at 2:30 on Saturday. I will still schedule it to be posted tomorrow morning because I still plan to wake up bright and early and weather permitting head to the mountains for the day and do not want to get distracted with attempting to re-write this again. So, I am going to give you a bit more of the real thoughts going on in my head, the feelings that I’ve been hiding from all week. So, here goes:
I am a mother. No-one will recognize this, but I am a mother. I don’t expect phone calls, emails or texts from my parents, family or friends tomorrow acknowledging this. I would probably find it awkward if anyone did call, but more than the awkwardness I would really appreciate that they thought about us today. I am a mother even if this is never acknowledged publicly, and that’s okay. And if this is forever our future, I will be okay with that. I refuse to live a life of self-pity because I do not get to be celebrated on this hallmark day.
I am a mother. I have four babies that never took a breath. Oddly enough, I have more dead babies then I ever even wanted living (I always ideally wanted 2 and at most 3 kids).
I am a mother, yet I was never one of those little girls who dreamed of having babies – I instead focused on getting the next A+ and doing that next thing perfectly. Whatever it was – high school, soccer, university, work, volunteering – it didn’t matter, I was going to execute the task at hand with near perfection and put my full focus and effort into ensuring I did it successfully. Truthfully, I don’t even like most kids – I find them somewhat annoying and needy. But, I always knew I wanted a couple of my own one day and that I’d make a decent mom. I wouldn’t be perfect, I’d probably be too demanding with too high of expectations. But I always knew I would be a decent mom, and that I could do it because my husband is amazing and would make up for all my deficiencies.
So today, I sit here thinking, I am a mother. I absolutely am a mom. No matter what our future brings, today and forever, I am a mother. I have not had years of practice, I have not changed diapers, I have not been to kindergarten graduation celebrations, nor have I watched our baby take their first steps. But I am a mother. I have experienced the unwavering love and hope that goes along with being a mother. I have dreamed about my child’s future as all mother’s do. I have made life and death parenting decisions that I never wish upon any other parent. Through miscarriages, I have experienced and learned the key parenting lesson that you cannot always help your children, no matter how much you want to or how hard you try. I have experienced saying goodbye to all my children. I continue to experience unwavering love and affection for my babies. I am a mother.
And I will cherish this day and all days for what it means to me, to be the mommy to my babies who never made it.
………………..
Original Mother’s Day Post entitled My Mother’s Day:
My mom is dead.
My 4 babies are dead.
Mother’s day, probably not the best day of the year for me at this point in my life.
But, I’m really not one to sit around and feel sorry for myself and to dwell on the negative. So, asides from a quick text to my step-mom, I plan to boycott.
I think I shall spend the day in the mountains. I will invite my husband and our doggie. We will have a great day enjoying fresh air and maybe some sunshine – hopefully it will be as nice as the day we took this photo (a few years ago).
A lot of people have commented on my courage this week as I’ve posted some very honest posts and pushed the limits on a few controversial topics this week.
But, all of this has gotten me thinking. Am I really all that courageous? Yes, I am speaking the unfiltered truth – the good, the bad and the ugly. Yes, I am sharing my emotions with the entire world. Yes, these things may be admirable, but are they really courageous?
I quick google of the term courage results in a lot of common themes all about overcoming or confronting fears, pain, danger, uncertainty, etc. So, I can see how people are using the word courage given my posts of this week, and I am actually rather complimented by the description, but I’m not convinced that I fall into that definition for a number of reasons:
- I am not stating my feelings and our experience to be courageous. I am actually stating them for two very different reasons which have nothing to do with courage. First, I love to write, and for the first time in my life I’m doing something I love without financial reward, and it just so happens that these topics are currently very close to my heart and always bouncing around in my brain. Second, I want to help people and I know that by sharing our story and our experiences, I may help someone else going through a hard time or even just having a bad day. Whether it be on the tough topics like miscarriage and adoption, or on the easier subjects like dogs, travel and my usually ridiculous attempts at cooking. If by telling my story, I can help someone, then it’s totally worth it.
- I am not overcoming or confronting anything. I am discussing things, but I don’t feel that I am overcoming anything.
- It is very easy to write this when I haven’t revealed my identity! No-one out in the WordPress world or the internet world knows my real name or where I live. Yes, based on some blog posts, if someone wanted to figure it out they could likely piece things together, but even then, it’s unlikely anyone I personally know is going to find my blog and then figure who I am. One day I might tell people, but not today. So, can I really be considered courageous, when I’m willing to open up to the world anonymously? When, I’m only prepared to share our harsh truths with people I don’t know, as we haven’t even told many of our family members about our journey, is it really courageous? And, even our friends and family who know what we are going through have no idea about the depth of the emotions to the extent that I’m discussing here. By being anonymous, I have made this incredibly easy to discuss. To me, acting courageously would be to share this blog with the people in our lives who are or should be supporting us.
So, if do not see myself as courageous, then what word would I use to describe me?
Honest. I have always been brutally honest, to the point where it has gotten me in trouble in the past, and I’m sure it will again in the future. But, when I started blogging, I promised myself that I would be completely honest about everything – the good, the bad and the ugly. For the time being, I have sacrificed my true identity to help ensure that I can be honest – to help prevent me from filtering myself for fear of hurting someone else. This honesty has been very important to me, so much so that at times my husband has been shocked at what I’ve written and put out to the world. He gets why I’m doing it, and he is supportive, but that doesn’t mean he always agrees with me sharing each and every detail about our personal lives.
I know eventually I’ll be very courageous when we tell the rest of our friends and family about our situation. Heck, if we ever do adopt we’ll have to say something one day as it will be slightly odd for us to bring home a child without ever being pregnant. Those who still don’t know about our situation – some family members, friends and neighbours, might really wonder without some sort of explanation.
So for now, I choose honesty over courage. I will continue to hide behind my computer screen until I am ready to come out and be both honest and courageous.
My Perfect Breakdown 