Mother's day, round 3

I never really had a Mother's day the time Olivia was here. I found out I was pregnant with her right after Mother's day, on May 15th 2009, and by October of that year, she was here and gone.  The first mother's day without her sucked, I am sure of it, but I remember very little of it. Probably, I stayed in bed and cried most of the day and then went to the cemetery. Not only were we desperately missing Olivia but we were also trying to get pregnant again and I think unless it happens very quickly, that's always pretty rough after losing a baby. You resent that you even have to try again when you should still be pregnant, or should have a little baby here.

Last year, we had only been home from the hospital with Luke for a few days. I think I was still in my crazy "I can't fall asleep or this baby will probably die while I'm sleeping" mode, so that's pretty much a blur too.

And here we are, year three. Finally *not* a blur. We made the trek to the cemetery. It is often busy on holidays but yesterday was one of the busiest days I'd seen it. There usually aren't people around us when we go, but yesterday, there was an older man by himself at a grave near Olivia's. He was leaving as we arrived, I hope we didn't chase him off. I also noticed for the first time that there is a baby buried a few rows from Olivia. Sept.x 1960-Oct.x 1960. (Since she is buried in a national cemetery, there are a lot of veterans and their spouses buried there. There is a 19 year old also buried near her, but for the most part, there are older people.) Ugh, I think to lose a baby in the 1960's must have been a lot more difficult. It wasn't talked about. There were no blogs or internet support websites. We have come a long way in grief support for parents. Anyway, while we were there, the resentment crossed my mind that we were A) Definitely some of the youngest people in the cemetery B) Most likely only one of the very few visiting a daughter instead of mother or grandmother, not that anyone wants to visit their mother or grandmother in a cemetery either, but it sucks. We spent some time with family and the rest of the day was nice if not a little bittersweet, always bittersweet.

One of the highlights of the weekend was hanging out with some good friends and family at the walk on Saturday. (The walk itself is another blog post for another day. Or maybe not.) And then, when we got home from the walk our "Olivia" mollybear was there with a purple tutu and ribbon hair barrette and a purple butterfly on her chest. Mollybears is a nonprofit organization that makes free teddy bears for bereaved families and they put weights in it the weight of your child. I was surprised how heavy 10.5 ounces actually is, I expected it to be not much different weight than an actual teddy bear. (The only bummer is that since they are on a tight budget, it takes awhile. We ordered our bear in September/October.) I will take a picture soon. Sign or coincidence, it was pretty cool that our bear arrived the day of the Preeclampsia walk.