Ask the Blog Team: In What Ways Have You Celebrated Your Hope Babies on Important Dates?

Welcome to our Q+A series, Ask the Blog Team. In this series, the Hope Mommies blog team joins together to answer questions that are commonly asked in grief. If there is a question or topic that you have wrestled with in your grief that you would like the opportunity to see how other Hope Moms have processed or answered, we would love to hear from you. You can submit your questions here.

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We like to eat at “Anna’s Pizza” in town on her birthday and invite others if it is a weekend. My husband and I remember her due date together and have gone to Disney a few times to celebrate. I simply requested her birthday off work this year so I could be present in whatever way I needed to be. I’ll probably pick Anna’s Pizza up and bring it to eat lunch with my husband.

I love to host a Hope Box Gathering every year in honor of Baby P. It is such a blessing to see his short little life continue to have an impact on others for years to come.

On Ginny’s first birthday, my husband and I bought a cake and balloon and sang “Happy Birthday” to our girl. We also walked around a peaceful garden. It happened to be Ash Wednesday, so we went to church and got ashes which was such a beautiful experience on that day. Family members and friends donated to organizations that mean a lot to us, including Hope Mommies!

My son was due on Christmas Eve, so every year on his birth, I buy a Snowbaby that looks like a little boy. Throughout the years, it is a sweet reminder of the years we have been missing him. Until my son turned 21 in heaven, I wrote him a letter in a journal on his birthday. I had planned to continue to write him, but the next year the pen didn’t move and the words didn’t come, and I decided it was time to stop. My husband and I still remember him in some way every year.

I have placed the days we lost our babies on my Outlook calendar because I always go through an emotional dip on those days, so it’s nice to have the warning. On those days I have quiet moments of reflection—thinking about the pregnancy, the circumstances of the loss, and imagining that child, by the name we gave him or her, in heaven with Jesus and my other loved ones. On Mother’s Day, our family recognizes all of our children with a cake and candles. We have lost four and have one living daughter. It is a gentle way to explain to her that she has brothers and sisters in heaven. She gets to blow the candles out.

Most years on our babies’ heaven days, I either make an ice cream cake or we go out for ice cream. While we’re eating, we each share some way that our babies have impacted our lives or how God has been at work in our hearts through our grief. It’s a special reminder that our best days with Simeon and Odelle are yet to come and that our earthly separation from these dearly loved babes is but momentary. I cherish these quiet moments all together, sitting in the raw and honest place of knowing that someone is missing from our table.

But there are some years when our schedules don’t allow for moments of reflective celebration on our Hope Babies’ actual heaven day. The first time it happened, I was devastated. How could I have let the whole day pass by without making sure we had carved out enough time to meaningfully celebrate our baby in heaven?

I had to learn to be flexible and gentle with my expectations on how we were celebrating. Rather than trying to force a celebration into an already rushed day, we waited until our schedule was a bit more clear—for a day when there was space to be intentional and purposeful in our remembering. And that was the right choice for us. Every year doesn’t look the same as the last, but our love for our babies never changes.

This is a particularly challenging question as our Hope baby shares his birthday with his little brother—our oldest living child (Lachlan was born on big brother Max’s first birthday and glory day). But one of my favorite traditions started with our dear friends. When they came to meet Lachlan in the hospital, they brought a “new baby” balloon to celebrate Lachlan and a “1st birthday” balloon to celebrate Max. I instantly started bawling that they so intentionally made space for Max on that day. So now, we always have two different age balloons at Lachlan’s birthday party—this year was a 3 and 4.

On Chance’s birthday/heaven day we just block the day to have intentional family time. This looks slightly different each year, but basically just an entire day together doing fun family things. We always make cupcakes with blue icing and eat them together at the cemetery.

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