Happy Birthday!

Well here we are. The eve of Andrew's first birthday.

Normally I'm excited for the first birthday. I remember the hours that lead up to our first time of meeting that one. Bake a cake. Have a few presents to wrap. I usually marvel that it's their first birthday.

And only after having Ryan, did I get to experience the joy of having a whole year and then the hormones return to normal. The others I had their pregnancies too close together. Andrew will be my second pregnancy where I get to experience the wonderful feeling of my body going back to normal. I felt a huge difference after Ryan's post-partum 1 year anniversary. So when Andrew was born I was looking forward to reaching that milestone. Obviously that was when he was alive.

But now that he's gone, I have been concerned about this day. This anniversary. A few weeks ago I began to feel so heavy, sad, tired, fatigued and struggle with doing almost anything. The first week of the month I was only able to function about half of the week. But it was purely pushing myself through it all. The next week went better. Once I got up, showered and dressed, I felt good. If that didn't do it, I'd force myself to wait until I got to work and then see if that got my mind onto other things.

Then we celebrated Christmas with my family coming to our new house. I loved it! We had a wonderful time together and a few days ago was my mommies' grief support group. We always introduce ourselves and tell about our babies. We all sniffle and cry together and then share thoughts on the topic of the evening that our group leader brings for us.

When I shared that Andrew's birthday was on Sunday, there was a unanimous groan of understanding in the group. I gladly shared that we are going to celebrate his birthday by gathering items to give to the NICU babies that are celebrating their first birthday at the same hospital he spent his first Christmas. Mark and I are still excited about this way to honor him and let those babies and families know that they are not alone. That we understand. We've been there and we are praying for them to go home soon.

We won't let them know that Andrew died. That would scare them. It gave me hope last Christmas to read about babies getting to go home and that they were a certain age.

Funny how Christmas itself is not of huge concern. I'm sure I'll be sad again this year that he's not with us but we've done this before. Our Little Special wasn't with us when we celebrated Christmas with the boys. I grieved that last Christmas and looked forward to going to the hospital to see him. So this isn't the first Christmas without him totally. This is just the first Christmas that he would have been home with us but isn't.

But his birthday. Well, on his birthday I got the joy of meeting him and then worked hard to get to see him again in the NICU 12 hours after his birth at 5 am. Pain and tired and all. And it was so worth it.

Happy birthday Little Special!