Mommy guilt

On needs of living child vs. memory of dead child

So tonight is the annual candlelight vigil. It's Dec.6th every year, always cold, crowded, slightly chaotic- but they have a nice little ceremony. The first year I was really nervous about it, last year I was really excited for it, this year, I have been dreading it. Not so much the service but standing in the freezing cold for a couple hours, no parking, leaving Luke with someone for the first time, being in a crowd of like 1000 people with very little space...yeah. The ceremony is very nice though.

Luke was just not acting like his happy self yesterday. He was super irritable (even while I was feeding him- food ALWAYS makes him happy), and slept more than usual. Last night I left him with Joe while we started working on Christmas stuff to send out to all the new loss people at the hospital support group, he was actually mostly ok for Joe but he saw him pulling on his left ear a lot. He was out cold by the time I got home but woke up after an hour or two (which secretly made me happy), I changed him and let him play for an hour (Joe had given him tylenol) then he fell back to sleep for most of the night. Today he has been acting pretty normal again but he has pulled on his left ear a few times. My guess is that it is probably nothing or teething since he doesn't really have a fever, but I'd rather get it checked out to be sure, he's never been to the doctor for anything but well baby visits and shots (in 7.5 months), so even if it's nothing, I'm not too worried about being a crazy mom on this. We have an appointment at the end of today. (Coincidentally, we were at the dr last week for just a shot, I wonder if he picked up something from that, and that does make me more hesitant to bring him in now. Sick kids are on the "well" side all of the time since they aren't separated by anything- there are 2 different doors/sides but it opens to one big room with a supposed well side and sick side.)

Then I talked to my mom, my sister was going to baby-sit for us but she left work sick yesterday. So we've already decided, ear infection/illness or not, we aren't going this year, technically one of my brothers or my mom or dad could maybe watch them, but my sister has been sick for a few days and she's been around all of them, I'd rather not expose Luke to something extra even if he isn't sick . It's too cold to bring him to the memorial. We are planning on stopping by before and leaving a flower while Luke stays in the car with one of us while the other goes. That will have to do for this year.

But I feel guilty about it. I know we do/have done other stuff remembering Olivia and for other babyloss families throughout the year, and this is just one day, but blech. I never thought there'd be a year when we wouldn't go unless something really serious was going on, but here we are, not going.  I guess it's because I didn't really want to go anyway, and this excuse came up, so we're not. Oh well, I guess I'll have to get over it.