Not your typical Father’s Day….

*SENSITIVE*

I thought I knew what I was going to post here last sunday.  Father’s day- an important day in our house.  Chris did such a good job with Mother’s Day, that I wanted to make sure his Father’s day would be just as good.  He woke up to several presents.  Muppet gave him a card and a treat stick so that her favorite dad could keep giving her treats (she’s such a puppy!).

The pea (our nickname for the little one on the inside) gave him Jimmy Fallon’s book “Your first word will be dada.”

And Mabel and I gave him a massage gift certificate, as a reward for his 100 mi Best Buddies bike ride and half iron man done recently.

We then went on to run a local road race.  We ran it last year, and in many of the years previously.  It’s a fun run, 5miles, passing along the water in Connecticut, with lots of onlookers and cheerleaders, ending in a festival.  And running a race this far pregnant was awesome- so much enthusiasm and cheering from the crowd.

At one point a woman cheered us on from her balcony and I looked up and smiled.  A moment later she said “Hi Mabel!”  I did a double take- confused, wondering if I knew this woman.  Then I realized she was talking to the people across the street with their dog.  I stopped and asked the people if their dog was named Mabel.

“Yes! How do you know Mabel?” they asked me.

“I don’t.  Mabel was my daughter’s name,” I replied as I pat their dog and then moved on.

Chris finished in about 45 minutes and I chugged a long in a jog/walk pace, finishing in about 75 minutes.  I’ll have you know, at 36weeks and 6days, I was not the last one to finish!  I finished 1439 out of 1460 :).

Of note, I had discussed this race with my midwives beforehand and got clearance to do it if I stayed hydrated- note the water bottle in hand.

 

Chris and I post-race selfie

I was a little inspired by the woman who ran a marathon at 39 weeks a few years ago and then went into labor- half joking that maybe it’ll do it for me (half joking because I was far from ready for labor and a baby- lots more logistical and emotional work to do beforehand).

We spent the rest of the day doing errands and house things.  I was somewhat limited because of the extreme soreness I had doing all that jogging (still with the pubic bone pain this time around).  I was having some mild pressure contractions- not painful- like I had had a week before, though I thought nothing of it because I figured I was still a little dehydrated from the race and they weren’t painful.  After a dinner of Chicago pizza (literally from Chicago- a gift from Chris I had been saving.  Deep dish Giordano’s pizza shipped frozen for my birthday) and an hour or two of tv we went to bed and I fell asleep.

Then this happened:

http://www.myrecordjournal.com/news/latestnews/7424113-129/cheshire-mother-delivers-baby-unexpectedly-at-home.html

At some point I’ll take a minute to write down the whole birth story in my own words.  It was so fast, I’m still processing it all.  I am extremely grateful that all turned out well.

So I’d like to take a moment to introduce:

Felix Odom Constantino
Born 6/22/25 at 2am
At home, on the toilet, into the hands of his mother! (By accident after a VERY fast labor)

7lbs 3oz, 20inches

 

 

 

Mothers of Louise

http://www.buzzfeed.com/krishrach/a-mom-shared-the-annoying-things-said-about-her-daughter-wit

I am a “mother of Louise.” A silent one, perhaps, because I only experienced such comments while pregnant (and yes, I really did), knowingly carrying a child with Down Syndrome.  The comments are real and I’m sure would have kept flowing.  I understand people often have good intentions at heart (as they do when they try to comfort babyloss moms- it’s surprising how much crossover there is there), but words are powerful.  These corrections are not meant to shame anyone who has said an unwittingly hurtful comment, they are meant to educate.  I’m sure I have and still do say hurtful things unknowingly and as hard as it may be to hear that I’ve done so, I will try to appreciate anyone who tries to educate me.

This mom makes me proud.

How old is YOUR baby?

“How old is your first?”  another question that keeps coming up.  This time (at the dog park again- I take my furbaby there almost daily) it was from an older woman making very nice small talk.  I know her only as Luna’s mom.  Luna is an older, somewhat toothless dog that has an affinity for puppies.  Luna and her mom are regulars, as Muppet and I have become.  It’s funny because our talk usually centers around our dogs or the weather, but on that day it ventured into family life.

“She would have been fourte…fifteen months,” I stumbled.  She was so appropriately sympathetic- not ignoring the odd tense I used, responding how hard this pregnancy must be.  I think the responses from the slightly older generation have often been most gentle- I’m unsure if it’s a maturity thing or a generational thing.

But I was horrified.  I can tell you exactly how old my puppy is, but I stumbled over the age of my daughter.  I was brought back to a month after Mabel was born and the seamstress asked how old the baby was, after spying my post-baby pooch and first asking incorrectly if I was pregnant.  I stumbled then too and was horrified that I could say off the tip of my tongue how many weeks old my baby would have been.  On this day at the dog park, I was thrown right back there, making me feel like a bad mom.  I know I am not- and it was just a passing feeling, one that was totally self imposed, but do you ever feel that way?  How old would your baby have been?

The same question over and over.

We stood in the middle of the dog park watching our dogs romp and run.  She commented on how cute Muppet was- not an unusual thing.  Muppet is surprisingly well loved among the regulars at the dog park.  I guess not too surprising- she’s a lover of people and dogs alike.  Playful, soft to the touch, recognizable.  Even a quasi-celebrity after she survived a near attack by another dog, which was photo documented on the park’s facebook page.  Muppet was doing her typical zoomies around the park, trying to get other dogs to engage in a game of chase.

“Is this your first?” she asked me, nodding at my big belly.

“My second,” I smiled politely.

“Oh good!” she said, relieved, as she watched my puppy and her boundlesss energy.

I didn’t think much of the comment until  not a few minutes later, in a different spot, I had basically the same conversation with another woman.

“Oh, good,” she commented when learning this was not my first baby.

Perhaps I’m over-analyzing but, do they feel better about my crazy energetic puppy because she is supposedly used to having another kid in the home?  What if I told them there was no other child in the home?  I wasn’t angry, just perplexed about their responses.   I know, I’m extremely sensitive in general to that seemingly harmless question.  But what do you think they meant by their responses?

Earlier that day I was at bootcamp and was paired up with a woman I had seen before but don’t think I’d even spoken with.  After introducing ourselves, she asked it this was my first. I shook my head with a small smile.

“What else do you have at home- boys, girls?”  she asked pleasantly.

I relied on my standard response. “I had a daughter,” I said simply.  Usually that’s the end of the conversation- I often think people either don’t pick up on the past tense or do, but don’t know how to respond.  Or perhaps because I don’t elaborate, they think I’m unfriendly.  But this woman surprised me.

“So you have this one and your angel in heaven?”  My face lit up with a mixture of surprise and happiness.  She not only got the reference but actually acknowledged it!  It doesn’t matter that I don’t envision Mabel that way; it just matters that she understood the meaning behind those four words.  She understood that I was trying to tell her that I had a baby and she died -in a gentle way- to give her an out, killing the conversation.  But she made my day by really hearing what I said and not being afraid to respond.

I looked at her and gave her a real smile, nodding and saying “yes.” This time I was the one who didn’t know how to respond.  I tried to convey in my eyes and grin, how grateful I was for her simple comment.

By the end of the class she offered to give me a baby carrier she was trying to give to a good home.  It was almost like having a mommy friend.  So that’s what it feels like!

It certainly beats the “make sure they go to bed at the same time!” piece of advice I was given by a fellow bootcamper, after she asked it it was my first.  People so very much want to relate to you when you’re pregnant.  I didn’t have the heart to tell this other woman that my daughter was eternally sleeping, so I I just nodded and tried to seem receptive to her advice.  Really I was just speechless- I often look back at these moments and wonder how I would have felt if I responded differently.  I am proud that I can reflect on these interactions thinking about how I  would have felt and not necessarily pondering how I would have made the other person feel by announcing my daughter’s death.   Clearly I still have concerns, or it would simply roll off my tongue- “my first child died.”  But instead I’m subtler, hinting, without being ether obvious or lying.  In the moment I might still be protecting others from the horror that is child death, but now I can analyze the interaction later really just wondering if I had the best response for me. 

How have your responses to these type of questions changed over time?  Are you able to think of yourself as the most important person in the conversation? Do you still struggle worrying about how others feel when mentioning your loss?

z

Mother’s Day, take two

A long overdue post, but one still on my mind.

This Mother’s Day was different- gentler perhaps. I won’t deny that the growing life inside me has helped ease it, but truthfully, this Mother’s Day was still all about Mabel in my mind. She is the only child I have born, the one that has concretely, if not silently, made me a mother. Time too has eased the pain. Last year, Mother’s Day was still so fresh, less than three months after Mabel’s death, I wanted the freedom to sit and sulk all day. I was so afraid it would hurt. And last year it did hurt, but there was also a lot of beauty in it. I received a lot of love from so many people that the build up to the day was worse than the actual day itself.

This year, perhaps because of such a surprisingly good day last year, there was less build up. I panicked a bit thinking that no one would quite remember, but also knew it wouldn’t be as bad as if they hadn’t remembered the first year. My standing as a mother was no longer debatable in my mind. I think I was worried that Chris would forget.

Hah! I woke to him calling my name. At first I was a little annoyed- why was he waking me up on a day to sleep in? “What?” I croaked groggily, not hiding my grumpiness. I rolled over to see that he placed a tray next to me- breakfast in bed!

 

And later he surprised me with an even better gift- he hired our wedding photographer to come take photos during our shower the next week, with a quick sneak away maternity photo shoot.

The gift might seem all about the baby I’m currently carrying, but it was all about Mabel, really. When we learned she had Down Syndrome, I was stricken by the fear that I would lose her through miscarriage or stillbirth, a 12-20% chance. I was terrified that photos of me pregnant would cause me pain later on. The fear deepened when we learned of her likely life limiting birth defects. I rarely let myself in front of a camera. It wasn’t until I had her and then lost her, that I realized how much I valued the few photos that showed my belly pregnant with Mabel. Those photos were part of the proof that she existed. That she was here. So a maternity photo shoot- something I might have thought was too cheesy for my liking otherwise- was actually the most thoughtful gift and tribute to Mabel. That man, my husband. ❤

I spent the day a bit like any other- happy to have a free day to clean, run errands and get my life together. An important part of the day was visiting Mabel- that little sweet thing that gave the day meaning. When we arrived at her tombstone, I was surprised to see that someone had planted some flowers for her.

Mabel’s flowers

Oddly, I think it was a random act of kindness. There were some freshly planted flowers of the same variety and color along a grave one row up.

The grave with the same flowers

Unless someone I know takes claim for such a lovely deed, I envision the caregiver of that other adorned grave, looking over at Mabel’s stone, reading her name, her solitary date and seeing the engraving of her tiny footprints and deciding that she too needed a little special gift on that day. Maybe they even thought of the mother of that baby and how hard Mother’s Day must be for any woman who has had to bury her child.

How was this Mother’s Day for you?

A white lie

I lied….sort of.

Chris did the Best Buddies ride up in Cape Cod- a 100 mile bike ride to fundraise for the organization that helps people with intellectual and developmental disabilities- people like Mabel or who Mabel would have been. And so Chris rode in memory of Mabel. Turns out it’s good training for him, as he’s doing a half iron man next weekend (who is this guy??).

Our plans were a bit interrupted. We originally planned to spend the night before at my parents house, which is 20 minutes from the race start, but Muppet decided to eat one of Chris’s inhalers the day before and had to spend a night at the vet for monitoring. So Chris got up at the crack of dawn (before dawn actually- at 330am) to make it up to Boston to check in and ride at 7am. I stayed behind to retrieve the silly, but stable puppy and drove to meet him at the finish line on Cape Cod. We spent that night at my parents’ house instead of the one before. As we walked the puppy outside that evening, we ran into a neighborhood couple. My parents live in a community of town houses along the water, with a nice walking path right outside their doorstep. Neighborhood people often walk along there and this couple was very friendly. The man introduced himself and was quite chatty, in a way that made me wish my dad was with us because I’m sure they would have gotten along quite well (my parents were in Florida at a family funeral- one I would have attended had I not been grounded by my midwives due to my late gestation and history of preterm birth).

After the appropriate petting and cooing at the puppy, he amiably commented on my protruding belly. “Congratulations, I see!”

“Thank you,” I smiled softly (can one smile softly? I think so). I’m still working on accepting congratulations gracefully.

“Is it your first?”

“No, my second.”

“Oh boy, you’ll have some sibling rivalry, then, huh?”

“Mmm hmm.” I lied.

“We have two daughters five years apart. They warned us the older one might regress. I thought, no way- not at five. But they were right!”

I smiled politely at his story trying not to betray my reeling mind and pounding heart. I was still thinking about the subtle accession I had made with my simple “Mmm hmm.” He thought my first child was alive and I didn’t correct him. It wasn’t an outright lie- but it felt like one. I couldn’t do it though, not with this man, who I would likely never see again. I don’t think I’ll ever deny Mabel’s existence, but for the first time I denied her death. This protruding belly is an announcement to the world, something that people happily comment freely on, a public billboard inviting strangers to ask usually harmless, friendly questions.

I know this is a common conundrum among us. I’ve read so many of your posts in how you respond and yet I’m still caught off guard at my own response this time.

So tell me again, how do you respond to strangers?