That is such a difficult one - i am not sure how i would handle it, or what state i would be in...but the only thing i know is that i am not going to "hide" it. I want to celebrate colleen's life as short as it was. I want people to remember her and acknowledge she was real. I was thinking of actually having an angelversary party for her, with little wings on the wall for each of her angel friends and maybe even an angel cake. Then i was thinking of asking everyne who came to donate a present of something to go to underpriviledge babies. I am not sure if i will have the guts for that closer to the time, but this is what i feel would be nice now - a way to make it a slightly more positive day.

Victoria's 1st birthday was last month. You may or may not be the wreck that you are expecting. The weeks leading up to her birthday seemed more emotional for me. The anticipation was just a killer.

I found that turning what could have been a very sad time for me into doing something good for someone else made me feel wonderful. I put a couple of baby care packages together and dropped them off at a local pregnancy help center the day before her birthday. Maybe you could see if there's something special you could do for a baby or another pregnant woman as well. I also sent out some thank you notes to people who have really been there for me over the past year. The card had a couple of pictures of Victoria in it. I put the same card in the care packages and just wrote a note to the mother who would receive it.

My advice is to not allow yourself to be around people who don't understand how you might be feeling because their lack of care and understanding will probably just make you feel worse. Also, don't feel like you have to come up with some super extravagant celebration just because some people do. I only figured out what I wanted to do about 2 weeks before her birthday. Whatever you decide to do in rememberance of Caroline is just fine.

I agree with bjejvj that you need to be with people who "get it."

We asked people who would have bought our angel birthday presents to donate something in his name. They gave to the children's hospital, library, battered women's shelter, homeless shelter...and somewhere else. They either gave money or a few items a contact person told them were in need. We donated some stuff to somewhere as well. It felt GREAT.

We also made a special dinner (some RealSimple recipe) and birthday cake. I put a big fat "1" candle on top. We sang happy birthday, which was sad, but important to us. We took the day off work to just be together (and ended up doing errand the whole time, but oh well!) and it was a quiet, nice day for remembering. His due date was much harder for me than his first birthday, which maybe makes sense because of the passage of time, but taking the time to really remember him and honor him with the day made me feel better about it too.

Good luck and hugs to you.