Ollie is awesome!

One week down - where did that go.  

Here are a few pics of my cute little Ollie.  He really is awesome.  Can't believe how much hair he was born with - so fuzy and cute!

His is sister has been in my thoughts so much and while he is his own little man, he really shares so many features with his sister.  Oh, who would she have been?  

Welcome to the world...

A quick update let you know Oliver Fletcher Clark was born at 2am (gmt+12) 11/11/12.

He is 7lbs/3.195kg of perfect, screaming, healthy baby boy and I am so in love.  He is his own little person but shares so many features of his sister.

I'm doing well after a long but good labour with an awesome outcome!

Can't figure out how to post a pic from phone but will share his cuteness when I get home from birth unit.

So happy!

See you on the flip side..

… where I’ll be holding my kicking, screaming, crying baby boy (hopefully).

Thanks so much to you all for your support through this pregnancy, we got there and are looking forward to welcoming our baby tomorrow!  I CANNOT wait.

Waiting for a baby

How has this become my life?  How come I know such sadness of child birth before I know such joy?  Why did my first baby die?  Why can’t someone explain why they think this second pregnancy is different from my first and that the outcome will be different this time?  Why didn’t they pick up on the fact something was wrong last time if they can say that this pregnancy is so much different – it doesn’t feel different to me other than the bump being a little bigger which is common with a second pregnancy anyway.

I sit here waiting for my second baby to be born and I am so excited, I can’t wait to meet him.  But I hate that he comes in the wake of such sadness, that he already has so much expectation and waiting and yearning put upon him.  He already carries the burden of his parents need for him. 

I’m part of a coffee group (formed after I attended antenatal classes again as blogged about previously) so I have support when I have a newborn in my arms to care for as I have no family in the city where I live.  None of them know my history and now as their babies start to arrive I am so envious, I just really want my baby to arrive – soon!

I’m also not helping myself by watching a TV series called “One Born Every Minute” showing labour and birth at the Leeds Hospital in England.  Every episode I watch, I cry.  I can’t wait till it is my turn to be in that position, to be in labour pains with the imminent arrival of my son not too far away.  I am not afraid of that pain, I welcome it, I look forward to it because it means he will be here shortly.

But we are getting there.  I never thought I would get to full term but here I am.  Finally.   Maybe next week it will be my turn to have a warm, squirming baby placed on my chest, screaming and gawping at the world, ready to live and be loved.

Baby Boy in T minus…

So much has happened in the last month, but the biggest thing is that I am one month closer to having my baby boy.

How surreal that feels.  I look back on this pregnancy and while it feels like it has taken forever, it also feels like it has disappeared so quickly too!  It is technically 5 weeks till our due date, but hopefully less till we meet our baby.  And now they are dragging!

I’m ready, but I’m not ready.  I’ve been so focused on the pregnancy and getting to the end of it, I haven’t spent much time thinking about once the baby arrives, actually caring for and looking after a newborn.  Last time, with Amelia, I felt prepared and ready (as much as possible), this time I don’t feel ready at all.  I can’t comprehend it, a baby in my arms that is breathing.  I’m scared, what if I’m not ready for this at all, what if I’m no good at being a mum, what if I lack the natural ability and patience and care that is needed? 

I try to image the moment I am handed my baby and how great that will feel, but I just can’t believe it as a reality.  I try to image labour and birth when there is a baby’s heartbeat to focus on and worry about and how different it may be from my last labour and birth, the one where I already knew my daughter had died.  Will it be similar in any aspect, or will it be completely contrasted? 

I am starting to get more nervous about my babies movements too.  We’ve ramped up the monitoring from this week.  We don’t seem to do NST’s here in New Zealand (not sure what these involve but have seen a few BLM’s mention them) but we are going in for regular CTG (cardiotocography) monitoring that watches heart beat rates, movements and uterus contractions over a 20 minute period.  This has meant going back into the ward at the hospital where we found out Amelia had died and were then induced.  While its been more than a little hard at times I am glad that I have done this now rather than the first time going back being when we are induced in a few weeks with baby number 2.

Today I lied for the first time too.  A shopkeeper asked if this was our first baby.  A moment of hesitation and then “yes”, it was just easier at that moment rather than to have to explain when the next questions inevitably come.  But I’m still looking for an outfit that proudly declares “little brother” – something this new baby will always be!

ONE

How quickly a year disappears.  One year, gone, just like that.  One year living without my daughter.  One year of her never being far from my mind.  One year of a life forever changed.

We went away for the weekend, I didn’t want to sit around home so we caught a ferry to beautiful Waiheke Island off the coast of our home city Auckland, New Zealand.  We spent four days keeping busy but every time I stopped I remembered.  The days of this last week have marked too many milestones.

I miss her.  I want her.  I wish that things were different. 

I worry that I have become a mother consumed by the death of her daughter and that this has defined who I am because she is constantly there, on the edge of my thoughts, in my periphery, always.  This new pregnancy I always compare to my first and she is part of my discussions, my life.  But this is being a mother, right?  If she were alive it would be no different.  She would be there, in my conversations, in my thoughts, in my life.

Tears have been shed, more leading up to today than there have been today.  It does seem the anticipation is greater than the day itself. 

The thing I struggle with the most is this forever hurting.  This always missing.  This constant of never having her.

The hope of having her brother only 6-8 weeks away (hopefully) helps, but I wish she were here giggling and smooshing cake into her face.

My Amelia, I miss you always!!  xxx mum.

A Trigger

So in a bid to try and feel normal I’ve signed up to attend Antenatal Classes again.  The idea being that once my baby is born it will be nice to be part of a group of mothers who are parenting newborn babies at the same time as me.  

It feels a bit strange going to these classes again as feel like we are cheating.  We know all the answers to the questions, we’ve already been through full term pregnancy, labour and birth.  To be amongst a room of first time mothers who think they know all the answers is strange when we actually do. 

I have told the lady taking the classes of our situation but haven’t told the other parents-to-be.  We’ve only been to one class and missed the second one.  I don’t know if it is fair to tell the other parents and present them with my burden before their births.  However I sense most will be how I was with my pregnancy with Amelia and mentally think to themselves "that won't happen to me".  It will definitely be something I tell them should we get to proceed to a normal coffee group post delivery of my boy, but should I tell them now if it comes up in conversation at the classes?

Any how, this original post started out about “a trigger”.  In the first antenatal class we watched the video of a water birth.  I watched the video without flinching, yip, labour and birth, been there done that.  And then the trigger.  The baby came out alive and crying and was handed to the mum.  Queue me leaving the room in a rush to get to the bathroom to have a wee cry.  Damn, I just didn’t even think how I would handle that.  I managed to compose myself to rejoin the class but I left Jared in the room fretting how he would diplomatically get out of the room if I wasn't able to come back in!

That really did heighten for me how much I really can’t wait for the moment I will be handed my crying, breathing baby and can’t even imagine how AMAZING that will be. 

The inevitable question

I now look undeniably pregnant, not like I’ve just eaten a few too many cakes and pies!  And with this un-deniability comes the inevitable question “Is this your first?”. 

I work in a large office so there are many people I don’t know and who either never knew I was pregnant, or had seen me pregnant and don’t know what happened.   This week at work I had three days back to back where I had to answer this question or something similar.

Day 1 – the lady in kitchen. 

“When are you due?”, “November”, “What date?”, “The end” (I don’t tell people due dates because find it very irrelevant especially when an induction will be done early!) “Do you want a boy or a girl?” “We are having a boy this time” “Is this your first?” “No, it’s my second.” “So you have a little girl at home?” “No, she passed away.” “oh” and then she quickly scuttled off, obviously feeling awkward and not knowing what to say.

Day 2 – the marketing manager from a sister company who I’d played netball with a handful of times before I got pregnant with Amelia. 

“So when are you due?” “November” “You recently had a baby …” (obvious confusion in her question, did you have a baby, are you still pregnant…), “Ah, she was stillborn” – I see the telling scarlet colour creep in around her face.  I notice I feel warmer in the face too! 

Day 3 – someone I don’t think I’ve ever seen or noticed in the office before but now work with in my new job. 

“So how far along are you?” “6 months” (as soon as the conversation turns to pregnancy, about 3 other ladies stopped and joined in) “You were pregnant before, that’s quite close together.” “Ah, yes, my daughter passed away." and then I add to diffuse the awkwardness "So this is our new little hope.” I give them a smile then potter on my way.

I’ve been struck by how uncomfortable people clearly are when I mention what has happened. This has led me to the question – do I deny her to make it easier for others?

I am conflicted.  I don’t want to make people feel badly but I don’t want to deny my daughter her existence.  I am happy to talk about what happened.  I have come to terms with this and no matter if I do or don’t talk about it will continue to feel her absence in my life.  I also feel to some degree stillbirth is not talked about, people don’t realise that it happens as frequently as it does (1 in 120/130 in NZ), more common than SUDI.

So due to these reasons, I will continue to make people feel awkward.  This is something that happened, it is a fact.  Unfortunately life isn’t all peaches and cream so I will continue to share my daughter’s existence with the world.

My First Freak-out

Last Wednesday I had my first proper freakout.  My boy stopped kicking me reducing me to a shivering, quivering crying mess.  My boy has been a good wee kicker, a nice routine especially in the evening.  But this night, he just didn’t give me a nudge in the tummy like normal.

I’d been browsing the net after a busy day at work not really noticing when Jared asked if our boy had been kicking well today.  Then I realised I hadn’t felt him since I’d been home…  eek, worry starts to creep in.  Then off to bed when he definitely gives me a few quick kicks before sleep.  Still nothing.  I, we, lay there waiting for the movement. 

It’s amazing how quickly my mind flicked through everything I’d need to do practically if I didn’t get that kick, if that heart had stopped beating – go to hospital and confirm, ring work, deliver my baby, pack away all the blue I’d just filled the draws with so I’d now have one box of unworn pink and one of unworn blue newborn clothes!  All this while I was a shivering, quivering crying mess.

And then, my boy… he woke up and gave me a big kick in the tummy. 

My gosh how I LOVE that feeling.  How I cherish his movements, his confirmation that “hey mummy, I’m here and ok – I was just having a big sleep!”.  Darn it little boy – I love you soo much, no more giving me frights like that.

The next day at work I was telling a fellow male co-worker about my freak-out.  I know he was trying to be helpful but his down playing comment of “Oh Di, babies don’t kick all the time” really didn’t help.  Yes, tell me that once you have had a child die inside you and the sign that they had died was their lack of movement (pretty sure you wouldn’t if you had).  

I know you can’t understand but there is no way you can ever diminish my fear.  Don’t try to comprehend because I doubt you can.  The fear I have is real, based on experience.  I hope history does not repeat, but I know that it could and can. 

I love this child in my belly and am so glad that his kicks have returned to normal again over the last few nights.  So is his dad!!

The new kiddo

I’ve been slack at writing.  There’s so much to write about – lots rattling around in my brain, but its winter time in the Southern Hemisphere and I’ve been hibernating. 

I’ve been spending time with my growing bump, enjoying every kick that makes me know that the kid is there, rolling around getting comfy.

The new kiddo is tracking along well – measuring ahead at the last scan.  The new kid will be a little brother for Amelia.  

I love knowing he’s a he.  Connecting and bonding with my new little boy.  It still seems surreal that I might have a baby to care for outside of my tummy at the end of this pregnancy, forever hopeful but just unable to grasp the reality as strongly as I had already done with Amelia.  I’ve started the task for packing away all the girly pinks, peaches and purples and have started filling the draws with blues and greens – nothing new so far, I haven’t been brave enough to purchase, but a lot of hand-me-downs from his cousin Luke.

I’ve also had some aargh moments lately – getting frustrated still by happy people who are in their first pregnancy and just a bit frustrated I can’t just be like that too!  I get jealous of the people who already have babies and as Amelia’s first birthday approaches I think of other parents planning their babies’ first birthday celebrations.  I can’t imagine ever wanting to go to the parties and it makes be nervous that I’m going to be a bad mum to this new kid.  Will my unwillingness to go to these celebrations mean he misses out?  Will my own inadequacies, my own sadness at what his sister has missed or what I have missed out on with his sister, my own intolerances, my own fear – mean that he won’t have a normal childhood but instead one with an overprotective mother who can’t let him join his peers?  I hope not.  I hope once he is born my outlooks, my mindset will change.  I seem to do a lot of hoping lately!

The Fraud

I feel like a fraud.  Like I’m just pretending to be part of this club with which I now know so much, the “Being Pregnant Club”.  I feel like a dab hand at it, I know what to expect, the ins and outs, the ups and downs, and now the ‘what can go wrong’.  But while I sit here in this groundhog day of being perpetually pregnant, others graduate before me.  I feel like the dunce at the back of the classroom – unable to move beyond this grade and onto the next.

I don’t feel like I belong. I’m nervous to start wearing maternity clothes.  I can’t tell if it’s because I don’t feel I deserve to with a second pregnancy and yet no baby, or because it means accepting that this pregnancy is slowly burgeoning, become more and more real. 

I don’t want to step inside a baby store and buy the things that I was initially looking forward to, a new cot and stroller rather than the second hand ones we had ready for Amelia.  The idea of being amongst those happy, pregnant people – again I feel like I don’t belong, I am not one of them, I am not blissfully happy and excited, I am not of the belief I will get a baby to take home.  There are still so many months to go, still too many things that could go wrong.

I am annoyed when people tell me of friends and family that are pregnant for the first time and expect me to feel some kinship or excitement that they are pregnant while I am.  That so-and-so had their first antenatal class last week and are most nervous because 10 people are due before them and they don’t want to hear all those birth stories before they get there.  I could tell them one they surely don’t want to hear!

It’s a strange feeling, because while I feel like a fraud, I still am hopeful.  I am not constantly anxious like I thought I would be.  I worry and question and feel guilty I’m not doing enough for the baby – but this, I can imagine, is what any mother feels – a feeling that will hopefully last well into when this baby is an adult and having children of their own. 

You see, I still have hope I will bring this baby home – I still look forward to that day that I will hold this baby in my arms and hope to hear their cry herald through the air announcing their arrival, awake and alive into this world.

Taunting myself

I need to learn not to be nosey, not to care, not to facebook stalk.  As soon as I find out someone is pregnant I limit their updates to my facebook feed, close them down and pretend like it isn’t happening.  Once they have their babies and it is so in my face, I do the same!

However I can’t help but taunt myself, every so often I go and look at their profiles and see their growing bellies and posts filled with optimism, I see their posts raving that “life couldn’t be better right now” after the arrival of their new baby, photos of the intimate moments of getting to know their babies.  And I get f*cked off that its not me, that I don’t have a sweet 8 month old baby brightening my home.

Instead I am designing a baby book filled with photos of my beautiful daughter who was born dead.  Whose memories I scrape together to fill 30 pages, no more.  A book I will never show anyone because who would want to look at that many photos of a baby who is lifeless.  She is beautiful to me but due to the time between her dying and being born she had deteriorated and had bruising etc and those ever telling crimson lips.

I know the simple solution to avoid this frustration is to not look, to stay away from facebook, but I also get the guilt that I’m not being a good friend because I’m not interested.  And… I do know they are entitled to their happiness, damn I would have been if it had all worked out for me!  Instead I sit on this side, angry, frustrated, annoyed at their bliss and ignorance to my pain.

Getting there...

It has been a long time getting to this point, but we’re here, the last week of trimester one.  It seems to have taken a lot longer than the 3 months it has been!

I’ve finally found the courage to let people know, slowly.  I sometimes think it is quite nice to have the little secret to myself and wonder how long it will be before someone asks if I’m pregnant or just need to loose some weight.  The bump has started to pop out of my loose fitting dresses.  I like the bump, I don’t feel pregnant apart from tiredness and a bit hungrier so it reminds me it is real!  It’s definitely popping much sooner second time around!

But I’m in no hurry to spread the word and am just taking my time.  Especially at work where there are so many people and it can become overwhelming – people always have a lot of questions and advice or words they think are comforting “it will work out this time”. 

But if I’ve learnt anything, it’s that there are no guarantees.  I am filled with hope that this time it will, but I am aware that things don’t always work out.  I am not pessimistic, but a realist.  As I said, I still have hope; I am still making plans for the future that involve us having a baby, I’m just aware that things sometimes don’t go to plan.

Naivety

I want what I will never have.  To give birth and believe that nothing can go wrong.  That bad stuff happens to other people, not me.

I hear of the safe arrival of babies constantly at the moment.  The gushing facebook posts, and I find myself annoyed/frustrated that another person knows this joy.  Obviously I would hate for it to be any other way for them, but I am selfish for me.  For what I want. 

I remember the excitement and anticipation as I passed the full term mark, knowing I was so close to meeting my daughter.  What happened at 39 weeks was so beyond what I was ever prepared for and now that naive joy I know will never be mine. 

I do know, or hope, however that I will have such a deeper joy when I get to hold Amelia’s sister or brother.  That will be a great day.

Wishing Time Away

The waiting is so hard.  Wishing time to go fast but not wanting to will away my life or the moments of this pregnancy.  I am not even out of the first trimester, it seems to be taking so long.  I’m trying to set myself mini-milestones but work is so quite at the moment so the days pass by so slowly.

This week at work has been quite ironic.  I work in retail and we’ve just launched a new brand in our stores of gorgeous infants’ wear.   I spent my day putting together marketing material for the launch, which meant looking at lots of photos of beautiful babies and reading about sweet little clothes.  It’s not hard, I love babies, I so desperately hope to have one, and I so want this little one thats growing to be THE ONE. 

I am still nervous, every ache or pain or twinge makes me immediately think its all gone wrong and the baby’s not alive anymore.  And this is why I just want time to pass a little quicker so I can be in the second trimester and feel a little more secure, so I can get to the weeks when I can feel those jabs and kicks and movements, so I can be a little closer to holding a warm, breathing, blinking baby in my arms.

I’m already counting down and know that’s not good this early in the piece.  

What can I do to stop counting down? Stop wishing time to pass faster?  Just relax?  It's like waiting an extremely long time to unwrap a present that you really REALLY want!

An unmarked grave

For the 6 month anniversary of Amelia’s birth we installed two new plaques - one on a central memorial plinth and one on her grave.  It made the day less hard as we were doing something practical and nice to honour her.

Amelia is buried in our home town so on Easter Friday when we went down to visit a friend who has just had her baby, we popped out to the cemetery to visit.

We were greeted by an unmarked grave. 

Just the most awful feeling – I felt guilt that I had neglected her even though it was not something we had done.  Luckily we had the old plaque we had removed still in our car so put this straight back in.  The plot next to ours had their plaque missing too (they are small silver markers).

I rang the cemetery once they opened after Easter and asked if they had removed it because it didn’t comply with regulations.  But no, they hadn’t. 

So the only assumption I can make is that someone took it.  But why?  I’m so confused, I wonder if the plot next to us had taken it as an example to get their own made up since their marker was missing too – but why would they do this, they have lost a baby too so surely they would understand how upsetting that would be.  I just can’t think of any other reason why someone would remove the marker off a baby’s grave.

Distraction Therapy

Introducing my new distraction therapy.  The newest member of our family is a 10 week old kitten named Pixel.  She is fun and cuddly and helping distract me from over thinking other things. 

Shock… in a good way for once

After finding out last Monday at my Obstetrician’s office that he suspected (and was pretty sure of) a missed miscarriage, I’d spent the rest of the week angry that I still felt nauseous and sick even though I was no longer pregnant.  I thought it a cruel joke.

On Friday I had the formal scan to confirm the miscarriage.  I went into that waiting room knowing the outcome I expected.  I watched happy people come out of rooms with smiles having just seen their babies flipping on the screen… and I was ok.  I had emotionally disconnected.  In no way did expect what happened next.

A flicking flash of light rapidly pulsing on the screen, a heartbeat, a baby.  Holy shit!

It turns out I am earlier than expected based on LMP but they match perfectly to my ovulation dates (I’d been BBT charting).  It’s still very early days (7 weeks) and I would not normally “out” myself this soon, you know, wait for that magic (or not so magic as we all know) 12 week safe marker.

But the support I received to my post when I sincerely believed I had miscarried was amazing.  I was broken on Tuesday, but the support you all gave me helped me pull myself together and remember I am not alone.  THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!

This week has really tested my limits of extremes and now I just don’t want to get my hopes up too high.  I’m too full of fear and anxious to get too excited again.  I’m just going to try and take one day at a time.

And then BAM, right back where I started

I was pregnant.  Now I am not – what am I when I still am carrying something that is no longer alive?  Anti-pregnant, a coffin?

We found out yesterday that our new hope had not developed and was not viable at 6-7 weeks gestation. 

Yesterday I was in shock driven practical frame of mind.

Today I am a mess.  I am angry.  I am pissed off.  I am sad.  I am confused.  I am just so fucking sick of dealing with this.  Pissed off that the world continues on around me when I hurt this much.

After Amelia died, all I wanted was to get pregnant again.  After this loss I am now scared to try again.  I know I will but I am just afraid to have to feel this again.  Knowing also that because it is a missed miscarriage that I have to wait for the spontaneous miscarriage to happen – how long will it take to happen and get back to a regular cycle again?  Do I push for a D&C?  There goes any chance to have a baby this year…

Can someone tell me how I get through this?  How I can move beyond this hurting and keep focusing on the future and functioning on a day-to-day basis?  At the moment I am struggling to see beyond this grief (again).  I am sick of this hurting, this pain, this shitiness that has become my life!

Apologies for a post filled with raw anger – just venting.

She's been gone awhile now

6 months she’s been gone.  Half a year.  Too many weeks and days to consider.

I miss her.

To remember what happen on those days 6 months is like a foggy dream and wonder if it was real.  But the details of those days are clear in their haze-like appearance - forever etched into my memory.

=========

Wednesday 21^st September 2011

Have I felt her move today?  I don’t think I have.  Surely she’s just running out of room – we’re due next Wednesday, that must be it.  Still poke, prod, push – wake up baby girl.

Thursday 22^nd September           

I wake with tears in my eyes.  I know something’s not right.  I try more things to get her to move – sugary food, cold drinks, warm bath, pleading.  Not one thump, push or kick, not one hiccup, not one single thing. 

I ring my midwife, trying to sound rational and calm.  “Meet me at the hospital” she says.

I say to my midwife as she arrives ‘I know I’m just being irrational and we’re just going to hear her heart beat and I’m going to feel really silly’.  The Doppler goes on.  It’s moved to the left.  It’s moved to the right.  My partner had been optimistic too but within a split second relocates from the end of the bed to my side.  Then those words ‘I’m sorry Diane.”  I knew. 

My eyes shut, my hands over them, shock. We’re shuffled off for an ultrasound through the waiting room full of expectant mothers – I couldn’t see their faces, everything was awash with white, a blur. Do you want to see the screen, no I don’t want to see my dead baby floating on the screen, please turn the monitor off.  Eyes closed, whispering ‘this doesn’t happen to me’. The technician chimes in with those words, ‘I’m sorry, there is no heartbeat’.  Ushered back into a room - sitting there, us two, not us three anymore.

We go home.  We needed time to comprehend, to understand (if we ever can), to cry, to talk, to let some of the shock wear off. 

At home we cry, we choose an outfit for our daughter to wear, we cry, we call people and tell them the devastating news, we discuss names, we mindlessly watch tv.  We are confused - this doesn’t happen, how does this happen, why does this happen.  I am one week from my due date, this isn’t how its meant to happen. 

Friday 23^rd September & Saturday 24^th September

I wake up numb.  Today I deliver my baby.  My baby who is not alive.  I am afraid, I am numb, I am in shock, I am on auto pilot.  I spend the last peaceful moments in the shower with just my baby and me.

We get a taxi to the hospital and sit in silence watching the world continue on around us.  People going to work, people unaware that our baby was dead.  The taxi driver dropping a pregnant lady off to the hospital, unaware that I was carrying a baby that no longer moved with life.  People watching us enter the hospital with bags thinking ‘there’s another happy couple about to have a baby, how nice’.

I want to get on with this quickly and urge for the induction to begin.  Prostaglandin is administered and then the waiting.

Those 2 days waiting were hard, so hard.  We talked, we cried, we waited for the labour to begin.  We listened to music that was far too sad and made us cry more.  I felt afraid.  What would happen once she was born, what do they do with her, what are we meant to do.  Do we see her, how will it be to look at a dead baby, I don’t want to hold her, I’m too scared.

On Saturday afternoon I am finally in active labour and they take me down to the birthing suite.  They hadn’t taken me down earlier to avoid seeing any other pregnant ladies in labour with living babies.  I know it was for my benefit, but it made me feel tragic - like I was something that needed to be hidden.

On Saturday 24^th September at 7.24pm - after many cursive words, no epidural (but entenox and Pethadine) and many points of just simply wanting to give up this futile exercise – I delivered our beautiful daughter, Amelia. 

Finally the moment I was frightened of arrived.  Seeing and holding my daughter.

The fear melted as soon as I held her, she was after all, my perfect, beautiful daughter.  She was mine.  I spent 9 months growing her so perfectly and here she was along with the instant love and pride of a new parent.  Finally being able to gaze upon her sweet face, feel the weight and warmth of her body, and cradle her in my arms was amazing and a moment I will treasure forever. 

==========

The moment I knew of you, I loved you Amelia.  I will continue to love you now and forever.  

“If there ever comes a time when we can’t be together, keep my in your heart, I’ll stay there forever.” Winnie-the-Pooh

Always in my heart - my Amelia.

Knocking on Wood

I don’t really believe in fate, or destiny, or luck now after what’s happened to us, but today Amelia’s dad reminded me of something I said when I was pregnant.

I often joked to people that because I had such an easy and enjoyable pregnancy that I was going to have a really hard birth.  It was only ever a joke and I didn’t really think it was the case.  I think I just felt guilty that some people struggled through pregnancy but I had really loved it and not found being pregnant cumbersome apart from some indigestion issues.

So, my birth wasn’t so bad – actually under the circumstances I had a very good birthing experience.  But that full term pregnancy period – wow that I never saw coming.  Never, ever did I expect after such a great pregnancy that my little girl would die before she was born at 39 weeks.

So I still don’t believe in fate, or anything, but - just incase - maybe I’ll keep knocking on wood when I say silly things like this in the future.

Everywhere I look, I wonder who she’d be

I sit in a crowd.  I watch the happy families.  And I wonder who she’d be.

Would my Amelia be the boisterous little girl grooving away at the front to the band.  The sweet little girl running circles around her daddy and then enveloping him in a hug.  Would she have curly hair like her daddy had when he was young, or straight hair like her mummy. 

I think of too many things and it breaks my heart all over again.  I wish this mystery of her didn’t haunt me.  No, actually if I were to wish anything, it would be for her to be alive.

Weekends are my sad time now.  My weekdays consumed with work let my mind remain occupied.  And then the weekend comes and there is space to remember what I don’t have.  The 6 month old little girl sitting on a rug in the sunshine at a fun event in the park - an event that would have been fun, but instead became a tortuous reminder of all I will miss out on with my daughter.  

I love you Amelia.

The Working Week

I’ve been absent from blogging for awhile.  I’ve been busy getting back into the swing of things with work. 

I started back 4 weeks ago and I’ve been getting use to early mornings and long days again.

Being back at work has been an interesting, but good step in my journey.  I was initially very anxious to go back but being on the other side of 4 weeks, I feel good about this step.

The first two weeks really were a mind trip.  It felt so normal to be back and then I’d get caught up by something someone said about their 5 month old grandson that was born weeks before Amelia or see a pregnant person wondering around.  I got very annoyed in those first few weeks because no one would talk to me about my daughter and what happened and ignore the fact I was pregnant the last time they saw me and that I HAVE given birth to a baby.

The last two week, as people get more comfortable with me being around, people have started asking, talking, chatting about my daughter.  I prefer this – it is so much better than the silence.  I like to say her name and acknowledge that she was born.  I think people can see that I don’t cry and break down when I talk about her so they are more able to talk with me.  And then people open up – my mothers first son was stillborn, my niece was stillborn…  how is this common thing so taboo to talk about!

The hardest thing about being at work is breaking the news over and over again.  I work in a large company.  Many people knew I was pregnant but don’t know what happened.  So many questions come “how old is your baby now?”, “Who is looking after your baby while your at work?”.  The same heartbreaking answer is then delivered by me, making these sweet people feel awkward and sad – my daughter died.  I find this hard and it makes me shaky.

Being at work makes it easy to forget what my life has become and what I don’t have.  It really feels so normal and there are moments when I feel like the old me.  I thought that wouldn’t happen.  So being at work is good, the 8 hours I am there is like a play – I get to pretend that I am a normal, integrated member of society. 

It’s just when the play ends and I remember and yip, it still really sucks.

Content with my lot

The other day I saw a friend who, within 18 months, has meet a man, married him, got pregnant (due soon) and brought a large rural section to build a brand new house on.  She also has her own successful business, as does her husband, along with multiple rental properties and fancy cars.  She was relaying a story of how someone asked her if two years ago she thought her life would be where it was now and that she would have ‘everything she wanted’.  I asked if she did have everything she wanted and her reply was immediate and unwavering - “NO”.  I asked her what else she could want and she said “to win the lottery and build a mansion and…”. 

I found this incredulous.  I am not begrudging of anything she has.  Of course I would love these things (especially the baby!) but it made me realise how unless you are satisfied with what you have, you will never truly be happy.

I am happy and proud of where I am. Obviously there is one fundamental thing I would love to have – my daughter alive – but of everything else, I’m satisfied with where I am right now.

I am proud of what I have achieved in life including moving from my home town to the big city at 21, putting myself through University, moving to the other side of the world to live and work in London, travelling through Europe, Asia and Australia and forging a career amongst all of that. I like that we’ve now settled down in a (rented) house in a neighbourhood we love.  That we live comfortably and enjoy each other’s company.

I like that we have many good friends who we care about and who care about us. I love that I found the man of my dreams so early in life - I love loving him and love being adored and loved by him straight back.  I love having a big sister who is amazing and acts as my  counsellor, confident and best friend.

I am thankful for my sisters beautiful little people, my nieces & nephew, whose impact on my life has been immense, especially in the last few months since their cousin died. They know I am sad so the hugs are free and flowing and rich with sincerity and love and are like big loopy stiches for my heart.  They do not have an agenda, they do not need me to be anything I am not.  They remember Amelia as their cousin and talk about her by name.  I love them whole heartedly for this.

Amelia’s death is horrific and if I could change it I would.  But I can’t.  So I integrate it into my life and am instead grateful to know the love of a parent.

I am glad that I can still recognise the things that bring happiness to my life.  Loosing my daughter was one big way to learn this lesson, but it’s a lesson I’ve learnt and I’ll take it. No more “keeping up with the Jones’” for me!

I just wish more people could feel content with where they are and what they have.