December 15th

Tomorrow is December 15th. For most people, its just going to be a Monday in the middle of December. A start to a new work week and the last full week before Christmas, but for me it has a different meaning. Everyone has "anniversaries" on their calenders that aren't reasons to celebrate, usually the day a loved one was lost. I have been very fortunate to not yet have lost anyone really close to me. I have never lost a parent, sibling, a grandparent or close friends, but I do have two sad days to remember each year, May 14th and December 15th. May 14th is the day I found out at a routine OB appointment that I lost my first baby. December 15th is the day that baby was due.

This time of year was really tough for me last year. I was about 20 weeks pregnant with Joseph and thrilled to have a strong, healthy baby boy growing inside of me but I was still sad and anxious. I felt like a lot of people assumed that because I was pregnant again and everything was going well (I was safely in the 2nd trimester and quickly approaching the 3rd), that all the hurt and pain of a miscarriage should be behind me. Certainly being pregnant again helped ease the pain some, but if I have 16 children, there will always be some sadness about my first pregnancy.

When I found out I was pregnant and calculated a mid-December due date, I spent weeks imagining what my next Christmas would be like. I imagined holding a newborn baby while I watched everyone open gifts. I imagined buying tiny little "Baby's First Christmas" outfits to cuddle my little one in (all that Baby's First Christmas paraphernalia really got to me last year). So when Christmas rolled around and I was still waiting to become a Mommy and my arms were still empty, my heart was heavy. I loved the son I was carrying...but I wanted him now.

It didn't particularly help that I knew 4 people (family, friends, co-workers) who were expecting babies the same week I had been due. I always found it a little ironic that the miscarriage rate is around 20% and I was the 1 of 5 I knew due in mid-December that had a miscarriage. It's not that I was wishing it on any of the other 4, it was just one of those bitter thoughts that runs through your head a lot after something like this happens. It's hard to watch people close to you experience different aspects of pregnancy at the exact time you should have been as well. I spent a lot of the summer and fall sticking my head in the sand and pretending it wasn't happening, but by December 9th, when the first of the little munchkins arrived, denial was no longer an option. I remember walking into work on the Monday of the week I was due and seeing the pictures of the first of the newborns plastered all over someone's office door (yeah, the office right in front of the entrance - I couldn't even avoid it) and almost losing it. Luckily it was a quiet week and I could close the door and let the tears stream down my face for the first hour or so of work. There were a lot of tears that week (you become really familiar with the "happy for them, sad for me" emotion after a miscarriage). I just sat and imagined all the excitement going on in those people's lives and wanted it to be me. Somewhere towards the end of the mid-December baby boom, it just became too much and one night I just laid my head in Richard's lap and cried for over an hour. He just sat there running his fingers through my hair, letting me cry and telling me everything was ok now.

By "everything is ok now", Richard meant that Joseph was on his way and of course, rationally, in my head, I knew that. I knew that the reason for my miscarriage, the hurt, the pain was so that the child I was pregnant with would be welcomed into this world. But my heart still hurt for the baby I loved and lost. I was anxious too. Anxious that something horrible could still happen, anxious that after getting so close, I would again be robbed of the joy of bringing a baby into this world. I felt guilty for crying for the baby I lost when I was pregnant with a child I loved, who never would have been otherwise. It was all these irrational and conflicting emotions that left me as emotionally drained as I had been in the weeks immediately following my miscarriage. That's where I was a year ago.

This year the day still brings a touch of sadness. I would be lying if I didn't admit that in some quiet moments (which are far and few between with a 7 month old), I have let myself think about the fact that I should be having a birthday party this weekend for a one-year old. I love Joseph more than anything in this world and I wouldn't trade him for any of the hurt or pain, but again the irrationality of my emotions, still makes me think sometimes "I want both my babies". I obviously know this is not possible.

I will be busy tomorrow. Monday is always a busy day for us - grocery shopping, laundry and a significant amount of housework gets done on Monday so I can relax a little later in the week and enjoy just rolling around on the floor with Joseph. Throw in a lunch date tomorrow and we have a hectic day. Without a doubt, I'll probably shed a few tears along the way...I definitely will tomorrow night when we hang the ornament on the tree that we bought last year to remember our sweet angel. But then I'll look at Joseph and he'll give me his big ear to ear grin or do something to make me laugh and I'll remember that everything truly does happen for a reason.