I just got off a 9 hour shift at my job. Of course it’s Mother’s Day and I got the usual “Happy Mother’s Day, if you’re a mother.. oh then happy Mother’s Day to your mother” comments, and I appreciate their kindness, but one specific customer really got to me. They asked me if I was a mother and I said no and then they said “Guess you’re one of the lucky ones that don’t have that financial burden yet.” I work customer service so I’m really good at holding my tongue but this time I wasn’t.. I just said “I feel the opposite of lucky, I want them, but I guess it’s not in my God’s plans for me right now. If you’re a parent and all you see your child as is a financial burden, than you don’t know how lucky you are.” And he said “oh I’m joking, it’s okay to laugh.” And I let it go but didn’t laugh.

How could I laugh it off with him if on Mother’s Day last year, I announced my 14 week pregnancy to my family. I still remember everyone’s faces when my mom opened a box with various baby items and a picture frame that said something about my parents getting promoted to grandparents. I was in the “safe zone”. Officially out of the first trimester, and my family was so happy for me, I felt like I was on top of the damn world.

Two weeks later my world came crashing down when the bleeding and agonizing cramping started, and I knew there was something very wrong.. I found out that my little baby, the light of my life, had passed away.

I announced a pregnancy for a baby that I never even got to hold in my arms last Mother’s Day, and this Mother’s Day all I have left is a memory of ignorant, unguarded happiness, and a baby that I can’t have.