“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?
Expecting the Unexpected 
Sending you love, these types of questions and comments are never easy and I think you handled it well. I don’t think it matters at all that you struggle to remember the exact age Mabel would be, you love her fiercely and her age isn’t going to change that. Also, in many ways I think it’s a good thing for your mental health that you re not counting the days since you lost her. it’s a find balancing act, but in my humble opinion I think you are doing an amazing job.
I hate answering questions like that! I actually started a post about it a while ago and just couldn’t finish it. It doesn’t seem to get easier either.
I have found that I can’t count. I think I would have answered, “he died last year at 26 days old.” When I count, I find myself dwelling too much in the should-have-beens and the comparisons, so I actively avoid it – at least, that’s my strategy! So, honestly, when I read your blog I asked myself, “how old WOULD Ander be? because I honestly don’t know. I would have estimated a year and a half, and I would have been about right – he would be 17 months.
Mine would be 11 months had we made it through. That seems crazy because it feels like yesterday that I lost him. I can cry fresh tears like it was yesterday. These questions are so hard and they catch you completely off guard.
I went for an appointment at hospital and a doctor asked me how old my first was even though my file was in his hands pointing out that I’d lost the baby. X
This all must be so difficult, and so wonderful, and so heartbreaking, and so heart-full. Everyone expects pregnant women to be an open book, and yours has a chapter that can’t be seen but that you want to share. Thinking of you as you approach your due month and remembering Mabel, as always.
I’m due in about a week and when health professionals ask me when I had my first I stumble over the date, the month, even though it was only last year and it should be etched in my mind. When this happened on Tuesday (was that really only yesterday?) I found myself wondering how it could have been just over a year that he died.
I feel awful not knowing his birth and death day automatically, but I think it’s partly the stress of being near his anniversary and partly the stress of being so close to having my rainbow. Logic doesn’t help the guilt though.