What's Supposed to Be

I don't get to be a Mom. Not the kind of Mom I wanted to be. Even though my actual due date hasn't arrived, I probably would have had my girls by now. They should be here with me. In my arms. Crying. Smiling. Flailing. Grasping. Loving. 

I shouldn't be sleeping in late this summer. I'm supposed to be exhausted because I am up all night feeding two little baby girls. I'm supposed to be changing a million diapers. I'm supposed to be happy. I am supposed to be over-the-moon happy. I'm supposed to be going crazy figuring out all their different cries. I'm supposed to be taking pictures of the girls and Daddy sleeping together. I'm supposed to be putting on cute little outfits only to have to change them due to spit up or other fun surprises. I'm supposed to be calling my Mom over every little worry. I'm supposed to be annoying people on Facebook with how many pictures I am posting of my girls. I'm supposed to have a messy house. I'm supposed to have visitors ooohing and ahhhing over my girls. I'm supposed to be begging my girls to sleep at the same time for at least a few hours. I'm supposed to hug... cuddle... snuggle and love on my girls morning, noon and night. 

I don't get to be THAT kind of Mom.

Pretty in Pink

A while ago I ordered the beautiful photograph above from CarlyMarie, a photographer in Australia. She sufferred the loss of her son Christian in 2007 and in the ensuing years has felt called to help others who have lost their children. She has a website called CarlyMarie Project Heal. She is a talented photographer and writer and I am grateful to artists like her and D. Antonia Truesdale that share their gifts with the world and bring baby loss mothers comfort and hope for tomorrow.

I bring pink roses to my girls at the cemetery (just like the roses in the butterflies!) and I recently bought little pink butterflies to put in the ground at their site. My husband and I have begun talking about what kind of headstone we want for our girls. We are hopefully meeting with someone soon to discuss options and cost... I don't have a clue about anything in this area. Ideally I would love a pink granite headstone in the shape of a heart. I mostly think of my girls as my little lambs so hopefully I will be able to find lambs for the headstone to put next to their names somehow.

With school out for summer I am still managing to stay very busy. My husband is away for work so I am traveling with him and I also traveled home for a short visit with my family. My husband booked us a trip to California this summer so I am also just beginning to plan that. I am looking forward to this trip but also worried because my due date for the girls falls while we are away. Maybe it will be better to be away and busy on that day...

Hiding

I have had a lot of distractions lately. The biggest one being that it is the end of the school year and I am swamped with the seemingly never ending to do list before the last day of school arrives. 

I adore my class this year. Don't get me wrong, I love my students every year. But this class is different in that they are an extremely cohesive group of Kindergarteners. They are (for the most part) kind to each other, hard workers, good listeners and just plain cute and sweet. I work hard every year to build a solid classroom community in the first few months of school but this year it seemed to happen immediately. The students just click and work together very well. I have never been less stressed with a class in my whole eleven years of teaching!! When I got pregnant early in the school year I thought maybe I had been blessed with such an easygoing class because of my pregnancy. Now I know why I was really blessed with this class. My students and their parents supported me while I was in the hospital and out of school for a month and helped me daily when I returned. 

My End of the Year Celebration with my students is a big deal. We invite their parents and do a lot to prepare for the celebration. I make a slide show with the kids pictures from throughout the year and I record each students' voice sharing about their favorite part of Kindergarten. We also collect pictures of the parents and the students glue those pictures to a sun that is glued on a popsicle stick. The students sing "You are My Sunshine" to their parents while holding the suns. They are just too cute when they do this and it is my favorite part every year!! I then invite the parents to share something about their child that they are proud of from the past year. At the very end I always thank the parents for all they have done to support their child throughout the year. This year I had prepared a tiny speech to thank the parents for not only how they supported their children but for how they reached out to me during the most difficult period of my life. I really wanted them to know how they touched my heart and how much it meant to me that they showed how much they cared. When I started to thank them I immediately started to cry... and not just any cry, the ugly cry! I could not get out the words because every time I tried my face just contorted and I couldn't get anything out. I know they understood what I was trying to say and I was so grateful when all my students came running to hug me as I was crying. Being rushed by 25 kiddos gave me a "graceful" out to stop trying to talk when I obviously just couldn't verbalize what I wanted. It didn't help my emotions that my End of the Year Celebration was on the third month anniversary of the day I gave birth to my beautiful girls.

I am really sad to see this school year come to an end. I would have thought I'd be even more ready than usual to see the last day of school arrive. It seems like just one more loss to get through as I say goodbye to such an amazing and beautiful group of boys and girls. I always call my class a family and I've never meant it more than this year.

All this end of the year craziness has allowed me to hide from my daily pain with my girls. Not that I haven't been in pain - but I have been pushing it down and just trying to get through without addressing it... giving in to it... acknowledging it. 

I wonder how long I can keep hiding.

From the Grieving Mother's facebook page