Mother's Day

I never imagined I would spend my first Mother's Day grieving over the loss of my son. I had anticipated having a newborn son to care for and hold. Instead, my arms are empty. To be honest, I wasn't expecting anybody to acknowledge me at all this Mother's Day. I almost feel as though I don't deserve it. It's a weird feeling having carried a child in me but never being able to meet him alive outside of me. My only ties to him as a living human being were feeling him kick and move around inside me. I find myself, even now, putting my hand on my belly expecting to feel him again. My belly feels strangely empty now. I wonder if new mother's with living newborns have this feeling too or if it's just my loss that is making my belly so incredibly hollow. Perhaps one day I may answer this question myself. Oh what I wouldn't give to feel him moving inside me again.

It's odd because the whole time I was pregnant I worried about how much he moved. I was so concerned he would get his cord wrapped around him and I wouldn't be able to help him. I wonder if that was my intuition warning me that something indeed was going to happen to him. It wasn't a cord accident, but it might as well have been. In some ways a cord accident would have been more understandable. He was an active little guy and I would have been able to understand why his cord got tangled. But to have a seemingly healthy pregnancy all the way up until 5 days before I went to the hospital with decreased fetal movement is just hard to come to terms with.

So for me today is a bittersweet day. While I am grateful for the 8 1/2 months I was able to be Nolan's mother, I am saddened at the loss of him so quickly. I am sad to be spending my first Mother's Day childless. It was sweet all the Facebook notes and messages I received wishing me a joyful Mother's Day or sending their love and thoughts to me on this day. It was nice to see that other people thought about how hard this day must be for me and wanted to reach out and tell me. My own mother gave me a bouquet of white roses as she said most children give their moms flowers for mother's day so Nolan had asked her to give me some.

I thought about that later when I went outside and saw that our gardenia bush that had just the day before blossomed one lone flower, now had a whole bouquet of flowers on it. I wonder if Nolan asked God to help that bush blossom today as a way of sending me some flowers for Mother's Day. I like to think he did.







I hope with all my heart that I was a good mother to Nolan for the short time I was allowed to be his mother. I certainly tried to be. I did everything I could to be healthy for him and to keep him healthy. Sometimes I feel as though I failed. I feel as though it was my job to keep him healthy and I should have known when he was in distress. I should have sensed it and gone to the hospital immediately. Maybe then they would have been able to take him out and he would still be here with us today. Maybe. Just maybe. A lot of maybes don't amount to much. I know that even if I could have known, by the time I got to the hospital it would have still been too late.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about what could have been.

We considered a lot of different things as we searched for something for not only our mothers to remember Nolan by but for ourselves. Our initial idea was to have Nolan's footprint imprinted in a piece of jewelry like the necklace that I wanted to have made. I had hoped to have it done so that I would have it by Mother's Day (I guess I thought it could be like a little Mother's Day present to myself) but I took too long picking out which one I wanted to get and knew it wouldn't be done in time. I actually have still yet to order it. Marshall did find dog tags that he wanted which we had engraved with Nolan's name on them and a verse of the Irish Blessing. I had hoped to give something of that nature to Marshall for Father's Day but I knew when he found them he wanted them then and wouldn't wait for me to get them for him. So our next idea was to get our mothers lockets so we could engrave them with Nolan's name and birthdate and our mothers could choose to either put his picture in it or his footprints or nothing. Lockets apparently aren't as popular as they once were for we had a hard time finding any. When we finally found some at one place we then came across a necklace we liked even better. It was just an engraveable pendant but it had an angel charm and an angel wing charm attached to it. We thought it was a perfect representation of Nolan and a great way to remember him by. We had the front of the pendant engraved with Nolan's name and the back engraved with his date of birth. We were able to give my mother hers yesterday so that she was able to wear it to Nolan's memorial service. Unfortunately, Marshall's parents could not attend the memorial service so we will have to give his mother hers later this week when we see her in Charleston.


I wonder how many more Mother's Days I will have to spend as a childless Mother. I don't think my husband thought that the day bothered me very much. Perhaps I didn't let on that it did or maybe he doesn't think of me as a mother or himself as a father. I could understand it if he did. To him it is harder. His interaction with Nolan was watching him on an ultrasound machine and feeling him kick through the skin on my belly. I think it is different for women. I wouldn't say the day I conceived him I felt different, but certainly when I started to feel him move inside me and felt as he got bigger and stronger, I was attached to him. I knew him and I loved him. He was my little boy and I was his mother. I will always be a mother even if I never have another child. I will just be a childless Mother. For now, at least.