I've never been one to celebrate Halloween. As a kid, I'd dress up and parade around the neighborhood for that pillowcase full of goodies. That's all Halloween ever was to me and I was fine with it. I've never been one to seek out thrills or scares, so I don't watch horror movies or go to haunted houses. I even avoid the corn mazes each October because I don't like being lost in some random field with 100 other strangers and a man with a chainsaw jumping out at every corner. In my adult life so far, I've dressed up once and that happened to be last year. Evan and I both had to work and we were scheduled to work on the same wing, which was just an added benefit. I dressed up like a lady bug and Evan dressed up as a pirate.
At 35 weeks pregnant, I had a huge belly and complained ALL the time about how I just couldn't wait to not be pregnant anymore. (Hind-sight is 20/20, right?) After experiencing a loss, people tell you that the Holiday's will be hard. I assumed that meant Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. But now I know that it means ALL Holidays. I know what you're thinking; why would Halloween make the loss of your baby hard? I mean, there's no sense of family or home on Halloween that would make you miss your baby, right? Wrong. This time last year, I saw all the trick-or-treaters and wondered what I would dress Scotlin as next year. I carved pumpkins with friends and joked that they were as big as my belly. This year, people around me
complain about having to take their kids trick-or-treating, when I would take their place in an instant if it meant Scotlin was alive and here with me. I know this has become my little soap-box: the "appreciate what you have because you never know who would give anything to have it too" but I just feel a sense of longing today for my little boy and part of me thinks that if you knew how bad I missed him, you would never utter a word of complaint about your own children. No one except Evan sees me in the depth of the night when I sob and ache and lie awake because my full-term, 6 pound and perfectly healthy son died suddenly, unexpectedly and for no reason other than a stupid accident. He turned one-too-many times and the cord was too tight. I was in labor for 12 hours and had to leave the hospital with a blanket and flowers. Never underestimate the grief of a mother missing her child. And it's not just on Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or a birthday or an anniversary. It's Halloween too, and it EVERY day.
At 35 weeks pregnant, I had a huge belly and complained ALL the time about how I just couldn't wait to not be pregnant anymore. (Hind-sight is 20/20, right?) After experiencing a loss, people tell you that the Holiday's will be hard. I assumed that meant Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. But now I know that it means ALL Holidays. I know what you're thinking; why would Halloween make the loss of your baby hard? I mean, there's no sense of family or home on Halloween that would make you miss your baby, right? Wrong. This time last year, I saw all the trick-or-treaters and wondered what I would dress Scotlin as next year. I carved pumpkins with friends and joked that they were as big as my belly. This year, people around me complain about having to take their kids trick-or-treating, when I would take their place in an instant if it meant Scotlin was alive and here with me. I know this has become my little soap-box: the "appreciate what you have because you never know who would give anything to have it too" but I just feel a sense of longing today for my little boy and part of me thinks that if you knew how bad I missed him, you would never utter a word of complaint about your own children. No one except Evan sees me in the depth of the night when I sob and ache and lie awake because my full-term, 6 pound and perfectly healthy son died suddenly, unexpectedly and for no reason other than a stupid accident. He turned one-too-many times and the cord was too tight. I was in labor for 12 hours and had to leave the hospital with a blanket and flowers. Never underestimate the grief of a mother missing her child. And it's not just on Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or a birthday or an anniversary. It's Halloween too, and it EVERY day.
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