October 15th

There's something kinda funny about my birthday, and today I'm wondering if I've finally landed on what it is. I was born on October 15th.

I don't remember the exact year this started happening, but at some point in my younger life (pre-teen years maybe?) I started to feel sad as my birthday approached. I don't think I've told anyone about this. It was like I was getting depressed. And I remember always thinking to myself how silly it was that I would get so sad and sensitive about my birthday and try to snap out of it, but the feeling would always return. I could never pinpoint what exactly I was sad about. I certainly am not sad about getting older. Anyway, I don't remember it happening at every birthday, but definitely at some of them. And it's only in the more recent years that I've begun to notice it as being a pattern and thought that it was interesting for me to feel this way, and wish that I didn't.

And then I got pregnant with Lilah, and she was due in October. I started to get excited that I would finally have something that would distract me from my birthday, give me reason to crawl out of this weird hole that I creep into from time to time on my birthday. And then wouldn't you know, Lilah was BORN on MY BIRTHDAY! I remember very clearly, thinking that this was the best birthday present anyone could ever ask for, and that surly this would change the way I felt about my birthday. It no longer would be about me, but about my beautiful daughter and celebrating her birth instead, and I wouldn't have to focus on how I was feeling. And still, birthdays have come and gone, and although the feeling maybe isn't as strong because Lilah has proven to be a good distraction, it's still definitely there. I felt it again as we came up to my birthday this year. And then it hit me.

I might start to sound crazy here. Just a heads up.

Maybe all this time, my overwhelming feelings of grief and sadness from the future after losing Jude, were so strong that I could feel them from the past (I'm pretty sure Hollywood has covered this in a movie somewhere) and as it turns out, October 15th, the very day of my birth, the day of my daughter's birth, is also Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Right smack in the middle of October, which is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Month. Could this be? That all this time, I could feel the emotion of my future self leak into the years of my life as a child, not yet even dreaming of having children, and the thought of losing one of them so far beyond even non-existant? Wouldn't that be something. And so I'm writing about it as a sort of gift to myself. Hopeful that by writing, it will mean releasing.

In any case, in some unfortunate ways, October 15th has become an even more special day than it already was. On this day this year, I celebrated my 29th year, we celebrated Lilah's 3rd, and it's the first year that our eyes are open to pregnancy and infant loss. It's now a special day for our sweet little Jude, too.