Mother's day and 6 months

This one is going to be rough.  At 6 months out, I'd like to tell you that Mother's day was awesome and the 6 month anniversary of giving Jaxon back is a little easier because of the amount of practice we've had.  But it wasn't.  It was far from that.

Sunday, May 11th, was Mother's Day.  I had been gearing up for it, I guess you could say.  I had read an article that gave some survival pointers to moms who have lost children and it made me feel like I could handle the day pretty well- whatever that means.  Something in that article leapt off the page at me.  It said "Take comfort in the origins of Mother's Day."  Apparently, Mother's Day was begun by a woman, Anna Jarvis, who didn't have any children of her own.  She wanted to honor her mother- who happened to be a bereaved mother.  Her mother lost 8 of her 12 children.  Mother's day was started in honor of a bereaved mother.  That is awesome.  Because I can't think of anyone better to honor than a mother like that.  There is so. much. pain. in the heart of a mother who can't hold her child in her arms.

So Mother's day came.  I had gotten a pedicure the day before, courtesy of my lovely boss, for mother's day.  I picked a bright pink/purple- perfect for spring I thought.  I was ready for a day spent just with my hubby.  I wanted to skip church because Mother's day is such a big deal there.  I was guarding my heart from the unnecessary pain of receiving a flower, but not having a baby to hold.  I didn't want to be reminded of all of the women around me that got to bring their children home from the hospital, while I had to leave mine.

I have to say, I was completely disappointed with Mother's day.  I don't know if I was putting unfair expectations on my husband, but I wanted to feel special, in spite of how cruddy I was feeling about the day.  After I voiced how cruddy the day was going, my hubby went out and got flowers, and I hate to sound like an ungrateful brat, but it just put salt in the wound.  To be honest, I don't think anything would have made that day any better.  It was literally just a day I wish never existed.

Then fast forward a couple days to the 13th.  6 months.  It was just a disaster.  I was a mess.  Nothing was going right.  John-Michael couldn't do anything right.  I think I had put an even greater expectation on this day because it was after a sucky Mother's Day and I just feel like 6 months is a milestone.  Half a year has already passed by.  Half a year!!  It was a big deal.  John-Michael and I got into a huge fight.  I was upset that he didn't put much thought into Mother's Day, and it was looking like our 6 month milestone was going to turn out the same.

Looking back on it, I think I definitely put some expectations on him to somehow make up for a crappy Mother's Day.  This figuring out my feelings and communicating them is hard stuff.  How do you tell your spouse what you want when you don't even know what you want?  Part of me wanted to celebrate Mother's day and 6 months while the other part of me wanted to treat them like any other day.  We did end up getting another candle.  We burn candles a lot in the evening, like it's our "Jaxon light" that symbolizes the little boy that we wish could be in the room with us.