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.

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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. 

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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.