Mother’s Day

It’s Mother’s Day and I want so much to simply celebrate the girl who made me a momma.

I want to be able to say I’ve been pregnant once and have one beautiful girl. I want to go back to the time when pregnancy meant a baby in 40 weeks, for my family to grow, for my girl to be a big sister.

But here I am, three pregnancies and one sweet girl and the knowledge that babies don’t always stay. Knowing you can watch your belly grow only to have it fall slack. It’s days like these when I long for the baby that should have been in my arms for months now, or to run my hands over a big pregnant belly, just three weeks from Clementine’s due date. It’s days like these I ache with loss, when it seems my entire facebook feed is full of babies and bellies, and I’m here with my girl but also a sense of emptiness.

These kinds of days are few and far between for me now, but the idea that I should be celebrating my motherhood and womanhood just doesn’t ring true this year. It feels empty and like I’ve failed in some way.

Since sharing Clementine’s loss, I’ve heard from many of you, and for that I am grateful. It seems there is a large, silent sorority of sorts – women who carry a secret pain the world cannot handle hearing about, or maybe we cannot bear to talk about. There is no secret handshake or sign to know we’ve crossed paths with one of our sisters. Maybe just a sad smile when they hear you stumble over saying you have one child but hope so much for one more. Or the shared cringe when someone offers some well-meaning, but ultimately hurtful, advice.

We plan to spend the day arranging our flower pots and prepping the vegetable garden. I want to sink my hands in the earth, that cool and calming home for things that grow. I want only to plant and water and nurture. To watch my girl explore and dig and hear her shriek with delight at the sight of colorful blooms.

And that’s what we’ll do, just the three of us.