A Long Overdue Mother's Day Take 2...

One thing that has been blowing my mind lately is how fast time is passing. Remember in your teens and twenties...the concept of life passing you by was unimaginable. You just couldn't even picture yourself in your 40s (probably pretty much declaring you'd be dead by then! And never be THAT old!)...and then one day you wake up and BAM you are 40! And within what feels like a few months BAM you are in your mid 40s...and then...yikes!! I still have a few years but the way things are going...BAM!!

I can't not believe how fast time is flying...

I can't believe I haven't posted in 2 months! 2 months!! I am sorry!

And I can't believe how big my little girl is getting!

My little Ladybug has been home for over a year, she is turning 2 and I celebrated my 2nd Mother's Day with her!

It's really this 2nd Mother's Day that I want to post about (which I started writing 2 months ago!) and hopefully I will be posting more to catch you all up on Ladybug turning 2!!

But back to Mother's Day 2015...

It was a Mother's Day of days gone past. The one where we all showed up for brunch and enjoyed the food and a few mimosas as our children ran around and played. There were moms and grandmas, nieces and daughters...A day that in essence celebrates the women in my family and a day where I was (unbelievable!) one of the moms with my child running around and playing. The way I had always imagined before it faded away and became darkness.

Last year it was my first Mother's Day and I think that I was afraid to relax...to acknowledge...if I relaxed...if I let myself breathe it would all go POOF! Like breathing out, finally exhaling, would blow away all that was real and leave nothing but dust in its place...(I have a little confession to make...I still feel this way...that somehow, one day I will wake up and BAM...it all just vanishes.)

But aside from that fear...this year...this Mother's Day...now...

It's normal and simple.

It is as it should be...

ALMOST...

But just not quite....

Because as I sip my mimosa and adorn my daughter with loving looks there are other feelings, other emotions never far from the surface. A combination of love and pain...the love I feel for my daughter and the pain of all that transpired to get to this day...

There is another mom, one who I think about every day, who I am sure was not feeling the joys of this simple day but instead an ache that will never go away...

I do think of her every day. Her and Ladybug's birth grandma. They are never far from my thoughts...

We keep in contact. I send them updates every three months and they have also written to me.

At Easter Ladybug's birth grandma wrote me a letter...a beautiful letter declaring me the answer to their prayers...

I cried and replied:

”I have to tell you how moved I was by your last card. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of you both and when you wrote that I was your prayer come true...well...I know in my soul it is the other way around. Somehow God found a way to bring us together."

And I do know in my soul, in the center of my being, that it IS the other way around.

I was at my mom's this weekend and she made a comment about miracles. About how she never really believed in them or thought they were just someone overcoming an illness or something. She said: "I never knew that a miracle could come in this form. This is a miracle! She is a miracle!"

Yes, she is...but the beauty of this miracle comes with heartache and so when I write to Ladybug's birth mom and birth grandma I make sure that I include them...it's hard to explain but they are and always will be a part of Ladybug's life whether they are present or not.  As an adoptive parent you are filled with insecurity and fear...I found by embracing that...embracing my fears...by embracing them and including them in our life...the fears have subsided and I can focus on doing what's right for my little girl...our little girl...

Ladybug is our girl...and I always refer to Ladybug as "our girl" in the letters I send.

So in my last letter I wanted them to know:

" ...on Mother's Day my thoughts, prayers, and gratitude were with you both!  You are never far from my thoughts and my heart. I want you to know that our girl will be honoring you both as well on Mother's Day. Please know we are thinking of you and as "Ladybug" gets older I will have her participate in the letter writing and picking out of the pictures...Our girl is truly a blessing! And I am so blessed to be her forever mommy!"

Mother's Day for me right now may be starting to feel normal...simple...or well as close to that as it can get...because there will always be another mom present on that day...one who needs to know that our girl will be honoring her too.

Just another ordinary day...sort of...Part II

Mother's Day 2011

It should have been "just" another ordinary day...just another Mother's Day.

At the time Mother's Day was a day where I honored my mother by going to brunch and drinking mimosas!

My mom and I have always been close, so all I ever took Mother's Day for was..."just an another day"..."another day" to be with my mom.

My sisters both had children young so I can't even remember a big "ta do"  for their first Mother's Day. There absolutely could have been a big "ta do" but I was finishing high school and heading off to college...being a mother...celebrating Mother's Day...in my book NOT a big "ta do"...just another ordinary day!  So I wouldn't have even noticed...

I always pictured one day I would be the mom at Mother's Day brunch.  But having a longing for it...nay...I took it for granted. I guess I just always assumed that someday it would be me.

 My first miscarriage was so devastating that I spent that whole year determined to get pregnant again. I don't even recall that Mother's Day after my first miscarriage. I miscarried in March and it was now May. I was down but not out.  I still had hope...hope that someday I would be the mom at Mother's Day.  So it was just another day...don't get me wrong, I still mourned the loss of my baby and Mother's Day was a deafening reminder but I was sure the following year I would be celebrating Mother's Day as a mom... It still didn't sink in.

I never realized how much I wanted it or that there was an actual possibility...I mean a REAL possibility...that it might not ever happen for me until that following year...until Mother's Day 2011.

It was one year after my first miscarriage. If I didn't miscarry...this would have been my first Mother's Day. And a few months earlier I failed on my last IVF cycle with my own eggs.

It was hitting home and as I sat at my sister's house having brunch and drinking mimosas, it became painfully clear that this might not happen for me.

I had decided to put my adoption plans on hold and pursue donor eggs.

I remember sitting with my mom looking a photos of egg donors, noting how this one had my eye color or that one had my hair...another deafening reminder.

That Mother's Day 2011 was embarrassing and comical to say the least but what no one knew was that I spent my whole drive home crying...suffering in a pain of realization.

There was nothing ordinary anymore...nothing familiar was left.

But I followed through.

I pursued and 4 months later...I was pregnant...I was going to be a mom on Mother's Day!

Mother's Day was no longer going to be this deafening reminder...no longer this pain of realization...it was going to be "just another ordinary day"...just as it should be...

It was going to be my day...or so I thought...by the time Mother's Day rolled around again. I had suffered two miscarriages and have gone through well over 10 cycles.

It wasn't just another ordinary day anymore...it was my own private hell...one where there wasn't enough mimosas...

I think it was then that I stopped picturing myself as a mom on Mother's Day...well, I guess it wasn't that I stopped picturing it...it was that I couldn't picture it...it all faded away...

Mother's Day 20whatever...Whatever the year..I was determined to make it just another ordinary day!

I tried not to think of my lost babies. I tried not to acknowledge the deafening reminders...the pain of realization...

Mother's Day 2014

I celebrated my first Mother's Day as a mom.

Is it the way I "assumed" it would be?  The way I pictured it?

Is it just another ordinary day?

No...

Nothing is the way I pictured it...

Nothing is the way this ordinary day should be...

It is extraordinary!

I think that is what makes it so special and so unbelievably magical...

And that will forever make it anything but "just another ordinary day"...

Loose Lips...

This Mother’s Day, like so many Mother’s Days of yore, was full of good food, fine wine, lots of laughs, too much talk, embarrassment and hidden tears.

My oldest sister, Sissy M, held Mother’s Day brunch this year.

Brunch was starting at 11:30 and I arrived a little before noon.

As always everything was set up beautifully. Sissy M really has a gift for this stuff. Her home should be showcased in Better Homes and Garden.

Out of the 3 girls; me, Sissy M and Sissy L - Sissy M got all of the domestic genes, Sissy L got some and I got none.

Sissy L is very mechanical. She helped me put together my entertainment center when all I could manage to do was pull all the parts out of the box and have them remain scattered on my living room floor until Sissy L came to the rescue.

But Sissy M…Sissy M is truly domestically talented. She is gifted. She could make a decorative something or other out of a toilet paper roll and it would be beautiful!

Me on the other hand, I got neither gene! I’m not mechanical and I am not domestic. My sisters used to make fun me. I would tell them that I am an intricate part of society; without people like me willing to pay to have things done instead of doing it myself, people would be out of a job. I’d rather pay someone to paint then paint myself…I am what keeps society afloat.

Both Sissy M and Sissy L would laugh and tell me that things will change once I have kids. That I will be doing everything myself in order to save money not spend money. I often wonder if my lack of domestic tendencies it what has, in some way, brought me to where I am today! It is either that or the fact that both of my sisters had their children so young that I vowed never to be 19 and pregnant. Its funny how things can backfire on you isn’t it?

Either way I was spending another childless Mother’s Day and thinking to myself: “If I didn’t miscarry, today would be my 1st Mother’s Day”

As I was checking out the spread and sampling some of the goodies on the beautifully decorated buffet table, I noticed champagne glasses and I say “Hey! I already missed the champagne toast?” and that was when my mom sauntered over with this little smirk on her face and said:

“YUP!! I’ve already had one glass of champagne and 2 (and you can stretch out the word two) glasses of wine.” And then she put on a giant smile like the Cheshire Cat!!

Oh my god, my mom’s drunk! Well at least buzzed and on her way to drunk.

Now one thing I do have to mention, in my whole life I might have seen my mother drunk 3 times and that’s counting this Mother’s Day!

So it was quite amusing that she was “getting her drink on”!

Yes, quite amusing until she decided to start asking about my next cycle (which I might add she likes to call a Series; It’s a cycle Mom!) while we were all eating brunch.

Quite amusing until she started saying words like: “Insemination” and “Uterus” louder than any other words.

Quite amusing until my brother in-law had to say: “Icksnay on the uterusay!!” and whispered to me through his laughter: “I am mortified for you!”

My response: “Thanks!” Just “Thanks!” - To be quite honest, none of this probably wouldn’t have bothered me at all if it wasn’t for the added guests. I come from a family full of women. We discuss impropriate things while eating all the time.

And it became even more amusing when after I told her that I didn’t really want to tell anyone about my plans because I was so tired of all the questions, and that even well meaning question are just too hurtful sometimes, she went on to ask me a ton of questions (some well meaning but hurtful).

And then after the embarrassment and 20 questions, she declared she needed to lie down!!

And as embarrassing as all it was. And as hurtful as some of those well meaning questions can be I do know that it is all because she loves me and wants what’s best for me. My mom is truly awesome even when she’s sleeping on the couch during Mother’s Day brunch.

And the day, well, it was all very funny and I am laughing about it. One of the funniest Mother’s Day moments to date!

But I did end up crying all the way home.