Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms reading this. You have the hardest job on the plant and are amazing.

I've struggled this week, knowing today should have been my first official mother's day as a mom. I have two wonderful godchildren so I've celebrated before, but today should have been my day to celebrate with my own little one. A day when my  husband would spoil me and honor my new role as a mommy. Unfortunately, as you know by now, we don't have our angel with us. Does that mean I'm not a mom? I asked myself this question all day every day all week. Thanks to the wonderful women in my support groups for giving me my answer.....yes, I'm a mom.

A woman in our group posted a beautiful poem (the first one posted on the site) that answered my question. In it, one stanza screamed out to me. It reads: "Yes you can, he replied with confidence in his voice I give many women babies, when they leave is not their choice. Some I send for a lifetime; and others for a day And some I send to feel your womb, but there’s no need to stay. I just don’t understand this God, I want my baby here He took a breath and cleared his throat; and then I saw a tear. I wish I could show you, what your child is doing today If you could see your child smile with other kids and say “We go to earth to learn our lessons of Love and Life and Fear, My Mommy Loved me oh so much, I got to come straight here." It hit home.

When we made the decision to terminate our pregnancy it was the most difficult choice with which we've ever been faced, both as individuals and as a couple. Our baby would not have survived the pregnancy and there was potential for danger to me should we allow the pregnancy to progress. With heavy hearts and tear filled eyes, we terminated at 13 weeks 5 days knowing we were consciously ending our journey to parenthood, at least for the time being. At the time, and for many months following, we were too pained to even consider trying to become parents again. No way. No how. Not gonna do it.

So if I made the decision to end my pregnancy, how can I consider myself a mom? Two of the greatest lessons I've learned from my mom are those of unconditional love and selflessness. That's what moms do. They love their kids no matter what. Maybe your kid isn't the poster of perfection but you love them anyway, right? Moms are selfless, always putting the feelings and needs of their children far ahead of their own. They take on their children's pain so as to protect their kids from having to hurt. When your baby is sick, you do everything you can to take away the pain and make the hurt go away. It is this maternal drive of unconditional love and selflessness that led us to our decision. I didn't make this decision because I didn't love our baby. She (I have this strange feeling it was a girl) wasn't perfect, and that was okay. We loved that little lemon (that's how big we were told the baby was likely to be at 13 weeks 5 days). We made this decision to take away our baby's pain and put it on ourselves.  We ended our baby's suffering and swallowed the fear, sadness, anger, hopelessness and hate ourselves. It was the hardest act of parenthood that we hope to ever face. It was however, the best decision we could make, as parents, for our family.

Though my angel is not physically with me today, she is in my heart and my thoughts always. I am a mom. And today I'm going to celebrate that. I'm going to celebrate with my mom, the best woman on the planet. This blog would be way too long if I told you what makes her so great. She just....is. I hope that someday I am half the mom she is. 

Mom, you are, and always will be, my hero. 

Happy Mother's Day, Mommy.