Touching on Deep Feelings

So, this is going to stray from my typical "life in a nutshell" kind of post, and I am going to express some of my feelings. A little scary, yes, but they live inside me and are part of who I am as a woman and a Mom. These last couple days have been rough, and I am only glimpsing the sign that indicates there will be a light at the end of the tunnel, so I think I need a good emotional moment.

I explained in a few sentences previous entire post about my friend Natalie. Well, she has been blogging about some touchy subjects the last few days (which is why I haven't linked her blog right now, I feel like I need to respect her privacy this week). She briefly mentioned her Mom recently and it brought tears to my eyes because, again, those feelings are ones I understand all too well. This time, she mentioned the idea of kids, and although she did not directly say this, it reminded me of the all too present hole I often feel now in my heart. Okay, there's the intro, so here we go.

I remember right after my Mom died I was wallowing in self pity working through some of the many things I felt cheated from. One of these was, of course, my wedding. I thought of this recently when watching a show called "Say yes to the dress" and I remembered trying on my wedding dress. My Mom was there when I tried it on and she bought me this wedding dress. I have, and treasure, these memories along this picture my best friend took that day:



You can see my Mom in the mirror sitting on the sofa with one of her big, real smiles. This makes me cry because I know she was so happy for me, and so excited to see me get married. I know that she was there, watching from heaven, but I still missed her so much, and was so sad that I did not get to see her there, and see this same smile on her face that day.

The other major thing I remember being sad for was that she would not be there when I had kids. I think as girls that we connect becoming a Mom with the relationship we have with our own moms. I know this is a very natural occurence, and now as a childbirth educator I even understand this association on a deeper level. I knew that this was something I would miss out on, but I did not understand the full spectrum of these feelings until I was pregnant. These are some very sad feelings for me, but what has surprised me more are the moments of happiness and peace I feel as well. You see, I anticipated completely the sadness that came when I realized that I didn't get to see my Mom's face when I announced I was going to have her grandchild. I also anticipated the sadness of not getting to see her hold my newborn baby, or getting to see her spoil her grandbaby. These were all true, and still are sadness that I occasionally feel. Here are the sad things I did not anticipate that I would feel:

- I did not have my Mom there to ask questions about how she felt when she was pregnant. I never got to hear what it was like for her or talk about how it was the same or different for me.

- I never got to talk to my Mom about my own birth. The things I knew were that my Mom had wanted to deliver my sister naturally, but in 1960 this was rare to say the least, and she was knocked out for the delivery. I knew she was not happy about this fact (well, pissed would probably be a better term really, but if you knew my Mom you'd know I'd never mention her and "pissed" in the same sentence). Finally, I know that she had me naturally, but that's about it. I asked my Dad about it, but my Mom was a fairly private person, especially about matters with her body, and all he could tell me was he remembered she was just quiet and resting. So, approaching my birth and the things I was learning, I naturally had LOTS more questions come up. I wanted to know why it had become important to her to have a natural birth and where she had gotten these beliefs. I wanted to know what she expected, and what her experience was like. I don't have the answers to these questions, and I never will.

- I wanted to share with her the things about birth I learned from HypnoBirthing. I had this strong sense that she would very much agree with some of the things I was learning, but would probably also have a cautious opinion of some things as well, and maybe a little iffy about the whole "hypnosis" thing also. I don't know what her real opinion would have been, and I also don't know how this may have changed my experience.

- I wanted to share with her the triumph of my having the birth I wanted. I wanted to tell her "Thank you for being part of my inspiration"

- I wanted to share my journey into womanhood with her. The last time I felt like I truly "knew" my Mom was based on a relationship with her as a teenager. She was suffering the effects of her brain disease when I went to college, and after the first semester I really felt like I had lost the Mom I had always known. I was a typical teenager that pushed the boundaries and argued with her Mom. I did not understand her as a woman, and I never got to make that transistion. I have always been sad about this, and these feeling became more strong with becomming a Mom. I would never get to commiserate about, or appologize for, the trials of being a parent.

- Finally, selfishly, I couldn't ask my Mom for help as a new parent. I couldn't ask her to come make me my favorite dinner, or to hold my baby so I could take a nap. I couldn't ask her about what breastfeeding was like for her, and if she thought I was normal. I couldn't ask her what diaper rash looked like, or how to clip my baby's nails. I couldn't even just ask her for a hug when I was feeling overwhelmed. Yes, I had lots of other support, but it's just not the same as Mom, and I knew it.

Okay, now that I've shed a few healthy tears about some of the sad things, let me share the unexpected things that also came up for me about my Mother as I became a Mother.

- From the moment I knew I was pregnant, I started to have this feeling. It is still impossible for me to fully describe, or to not sound a little weird, but here it goes. I have always had this idea that God knows all the little babies long before they are born. It is like they all exist like little stars in His eye and he pulls one of those stars, made especially for each Mommy and Daddy, out of the sky and gives them this wonderful gift of life to meet and begin to understand the deep love that exists between Him and His children. Well, I started to have this feeling that my Mom was up there with God and at the moment we were given our baby that she was part of the choosing of this star just for us. Like she had poured some of the love she had as my Mom into the creation of this child for me.

- This carried into our birth in a couple of ways:
~ Tim and I had decided to be surprised about finding out whether we were having a boy or a girl. When Laura was born, I got the strongest sensation that Mom had wanted me to have a little girl because she wanted me to know some of the love she felt towards me as a daughter. I also felt like I had the opportunity to develop a mother-daughter relationship not exactly to replace the one I had been "cheated" out of by my Mother's death, but in some way to help me heal this feeling and to help fill in the edges of that hole.
~ During my pregnancy, a friend and I had been discussing different traits of our husbands and ourselves that we'd like to see, or not see, in our kids. I remember saying, "I guess I don't really care what different traits this baby has...well, I guess that if this is a girl then I hope she gets Tim's eyelashes because they are beautiful and long and dark, and mine are light, short, and straight". Well, wouldn't you know it that out comes this little baby girl with the longest and darkest eyelashes I have ever seen on a baby and especially a girl. No kidding, everywhere we'd go people would look at her and say "Look at those EYELASHES". I think it was a little joke from God and my Mom...haha, I guess it is what I asked for.

- I get to see my Mom again, not physically, but through my daughter. Sometimes she has these looks and these faces, and she reminds me so much of Mom. I know this is because she favors me in how she looks and I favor my Mom. I am sure that if I had a mirror or camera on myself everyday I would see this in myself as well, but it has made me smile a few times now that my daughter reminds me of my Mom.
**Side note- This isn't to say that Charlotte isn't just as amazing to me and a reminder of the love of daughters, as I will point out in just a few more sentences, but if you've seen Charlotte, you know she looks just like her Dad. I love this also, but that is a topic for one of my typical "all about my kid" posts.

- God has a way of knowing just exactly what we need. I feel like I have two girls because I am meant to have two girls, but again I also feel like this gives me a glimpse into what it was like for my Mom, like it is a way of getting to know her in another way. Granted, my Mom's experience was VERY different considering her daughter's weren't 20 months apart, but more than 20 YEARS apart. But still, I have two girls, and like her get to see how they will grow into women. I also believe that God gave me my sister for a very important reason. He knew what life was destined to be like, and my sister was just the kind of sister I needed. She has been the woman and mother figure for me to ask questions of and get support from. It isn't the same as Mom, but it is amazing and wonderful none-the-less. I am so excited that my girls get to be sisters because I know how wonderful it is to have a sister.

- I sometimes feel like my memory of her has faded so much, and then something pops up and brings it right back. For instance just a couple weeks ago, opening a drawer and finding her sweaters at my Dad's house. Not in her dresser drawer, so how did I know they were hers? Because of the smell, it was Mom. I sat there on the floor with the drawer opened and buried my face in one of these sweaters and let a couple of tears fall. Then, I also find that her memory is safe and sound in my subconcious because I dream of her. She looks like I remember her at her healthiest and I hear her voice, and it is all just right. Well, in the most recent dream (I was pregnant with Charlotte at the time, I laugh now and say I should have known it was a girl because of this dream) my Mom was there with my two kids, two girls. We were arguing about something lightly (pretty appropriate kind of interaction for us) when Laura came up to her and said something and my Mom scooped her up into her arms in such a natural and warm expression of her love toward my daughter. I woke up with a smile on my face because I felt like I'd been able to glimpse an experience I'd wished I'd had and missed, and it was perfect. Again, it was like a little message to show me what my Mom really felt as my girls' Grandma and this was just a little something to fill in the edges of one of the holes in my heart.

Ahhh, that feels good. A good feeling fest for me and a putting in words of the things I have been feeling for years and never wrote down. I know my Mom has been with me ever since she died, but I have been pleasantly surprised that this presence has been stronger in a good way since I became a Mom. This is just another gift my children have given me.

*Just as I was finishing this post Laura was sitting right next to me. Laura and I often go through pictures and I ask "Who is this?" and she either answers or I fill it in when she doesn't know. I do not have many pictures of my Mom around, I just do not physically have many, so I haven't ever told her "That is your Grandma". Well, I just showed her the picture from above and pointed to me and asked "Who is this?" and she said "Mama", then I pointed to Michelle and asked and she said, "Ashell" (which is how she says Michelle), then I pointed to my Mom and asked, fully expecting to fill it in with "That is your Grandma in heaven", but instead Laura answered "This Gramma". Do you ever get goosebumps? Cause I did. I first wondered, does she think it's Tim's Mom, but no, she knows Julie as "Grammy" not "Gramma". I don't know how she knew exactly who that was, but it made me cry, and this is what I mean by thinking my Mom already knew her, long before she was born.