Mother's Day

The day before Mother's Day, I found myself unexpectedly crying while driving home from the grocery store. There were no emotional triggers that I could recall setting off this particular episode, even though crying is (annoyingly) my new MO these days. I didn't have a lot of time to analyze this random jag--it's a pretty short drive from the store to the house and I knew Sophia would be up from her nap. Besides, there were groceries to put away, the house to clean, food to make. And then it dawned on me: this was the day last year that I found out I was pregnant with Ava and Julia. Of course I didn't know what the future held on that day, but I remember making the decision to take a pregnancy test the day before Mother's Day because if that pregnancy didn't turn out, I didn't want Mother's Day to end up like so many other angelversaries I had with the other miscarriages. The subconscious is sure powerful.

Mother's Day has become emotionally charged for me, and significantly so now that I feel the added loss of Julia providing the undercurrent. I am so grateful for Sophia, who has the honor of making me a mother, and for Ava who I celebrate my first Mother's Day now as a mother of two beautiful little girls. Being a mother means all the world to me. It symbolizes my struggle to actually get to this point to be able to celebrate motherhood. It's a big deal to me, and personal in a way that I will probably never explain to Rick or anyone else (unless you are reading this, of course). This day brings all my successes and failures as a mother into reflection. It may be only a period of time that I feel this way, because motherhood has been all consuming these last few years, and as the children grow up and may not need so much hands on attention, Mother's Day will probably morph into different feelings. However, at this point in my life, I'll embrace all the feelings of this day and look forward to what the years may bring.