Mummy's Day

It was Mother's Day yesterday here in the UK and to say I was dreading it was an understatement.  At one time I had been so excited about this day - after all, this year was supposed to be the year I would be receiving my own Mother's Day card and not just giving one.

After losing William, the day can now only serve as a reminder of what I have lost.  In the weeks preceding, everywhere I turned were references to Mother's Day - signs out side card shops, bouquets filling the entrance to the supermarket, hell, even the M&S advert was promoting a £15 Mother's Day meal you can buy and cook your Mum.  It feels as though the the entire country got together and took it upon themselves to have a special day to remind me (as if I could possibly have forgotten)

YOU DON'T HAVE YOUR BABY.

YOU WON'T BE GETTING A CARD. 

YOU AREN'T A MUM.

And perhaps its not just the entire country who is saying that to me. Perhaps, if I'm honest, it's the way I really feel about myself.  It's definitely the way I think my friends, even my very close ones, feel about me. If they were asked which of their friends were mothers, I don't think I would be included in the list.

My counsellor is always saying  "You ARE a Mum" to me. On the one hand I love hearing that but on the other I find it very hard.  It brings tears to my eyes every time.  You see, I don't really feel like a Mummy.  Deep down I know I am William's Mummy but I never had a chance to mother him. So now I have this title of "Mummy" but its a role I can't fulfil as William isn't here. It leaves me feeling stranded. I have all of this motherly love to give and no one to give it to.  It is a difficult position to be in and one which I don't think will ever change until we are lucky enough to have another child.

I am incredibly lucky to have an amazing husband who completely understands how I feel about being/not being a Mummy (I guess because he feels the same way about being a Daddy too). He knew I was dreading yesterday and he was very aware that the day was certainly not going to be anything like I'd imagined when I found out I was pregnant just under a year ago.

He knew I didn't feel like I deserved a card but he gave me one anyway and inside he told me that I was the best Mummy in the world for protecting William and going through all of this pain so that he didn't have to. He also gave me this beautiful Sweet William candle which we lit last night before bed and thought about our little boy.

As you can imagine, it made me cry, but as I was reading the words he had written in the card, I felt, for  perhaps the first time since I had held William in the hospital, that I was a Mummy. My husband was right.  Isn't the role of a parent to love and protect their child? To do what's best for them? To put the child's needs before their own? Isn't that what we had done for William when we sent him to Baby Heaven? We loved him. We wanted to protect him. We wanted what was best for him. And, even though its broken our hearts we chose to take that pain than for him to suffer for even a second. We made that decision as his parents. We made that decision as his Mummy and Daddy.  Nothing can ever change that.