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.

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.

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!

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. 

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. 

==========

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. 

Who am I today?

Who am I now?  Am I the same, or have I changed? 

I don’t think I can fully answer this yet.  I think I am still too involved in my grief and not fully back into the real world. 

But this is who I am, or rather, who I am not at this moment after the birth and death of my daughter.

I am no longer the dependable friend. 

I would never let my friends down and I would never miss a social function even if it meant driving out of town and back again in the same night.  The guilt would plague me otherwise.  I can’t do this now.  I’m sorry, I cannot come to your baby shower even if you NEED me there to be part of your memories – why can’t you understand.  I cannot be there because it would not be beneficial to ME or my heart at the moment.  For once I am thinking about ME.

I am no longer the confident, sociable, happy, outgoing, engaging person.

I use to be able to make conversation with people easily.  My friends always commented on how they wish they could breeze into a room with confidence and chat to strangers like I could.  Now I cannot be bothered.  They don’t know what I’m going through underneath the false exterior I present.  They cannot see that all I think about when I talk to them is my dead child.  I now avoid social situations where I know there will be large numbers of people.  I don’t want to pretend anymore.

I am no longer ambitious.

Building a career, achieving and doing well in my job were high priorities to me.  Now I’m not sure I really care.  Working long hours for a corporation won’t prove to the world that I’m worthwhile, it won’t protect me from bad shit happening to me because I’m good at what I do and a corporation won’t care or support me when bad shit does happen to me.

I AM more in love.

After 13 years, my love is now insurmountable.  How immensely I love this man who chooses to love me right back.  The guy who accepts my crazy and understands me.  Who lets me say the inappropriate thoughts of jealousy, sadness and anger that are rolling around in my head.  The guy whose daughter died too.

I am now also a home body, a computer addict, insular, sad, incomplete, jealous, routined, an over thinker, consumed constantly with thoughts of my daughter, a runner, a blogger.

I am interested to see who I will become, where my life will go from here, after this life changing event.  One thing is for sure, I will not be the same again, please don’t expect me to be.

Going back to ‘Normal’

Will I ever be normal again?  Will I ever feel like I can smile and not feel guilty, like life can continue without my daughter being present either physically or in my thoughts?

Today I went into work for the first time since I lost Amelia.  Last time I was there I was happy in the thought that I was going to meet my little girl in a matter of days. Last time I was there was the day I think she died.

I had prepared myself for visiting work and leading up to it was fine with the theory of it all.  The actual task of walking through the doors and talking to people was much harder.  Facing people I don’t like and who caused me immense stress in my last few weeks of work (of which I can’t help question if that contributed to this horrid outcome), talking to people I do like about everything else except the fact that my child has died.

My first visit back to work was meant to be me showing off my cute little baby girl, not talking about returning to work and life going back to “normal”.

I survived though.  I managed.  Only one little break down, which I managed with the help of a colleague who has since lost her father unexpectedly.  She may just be my saving grace when I return. 

I don’t want to go back. 

Or if I have to can I please be pregnant again!  (please).

The Real World

The other day I started playing netball again – I was on the court and got knocked over and I felt like yelling at the person that knocked me “don’t be mean to me, my baby died 2 months ago”. 

All I could think for the rest of the game was, how can I be playing sport and acting like everything is normal when I am not ‘normal’ anymore, life will never be the same again.  At the end of the game I got an overwhelming urge to cry, I had to say goodbye really quickly so I could retreat to the haven of my car to burst into tears.

Is it wrong to feel such self pity?

I’m nervous about going back to the ‘real world’.  It means facing up to the fact that life exists and carries on outside my grief.  That my daughter is not the sole focus of everyone’s universe, just mine.

Slowly I start to venture back into society and see people that knew I was pregnant.  The dentist enquiring if my baby arrived on time – ‘no, she was stillborn’, the person at the bank enquiring if I was working or looking for a job – ‘no I’m on maternity leave’, her ‘oh, you don’t look pregnant, how far along are you’, me ‘oh it’s a sad story, my daughter was stillborn’. 

I wonder what people think when I can say that without crying.  Do they judge me, do they think I’m insensitive or have moved on.  I’m not, I haven’t.  It’s just I’ve had time to come to grips with this shocking reality and this constantly heavy heart.  I hope they don’t judge me.

I am nervous about returning to work.  About becoming the ‘big elephant’ in the room.  I know people won’t want to bring up my daughter for fear of how I will react and a general not knowing what to say, but all I want to do is talk about her, she is real and this really happened.

I remember my friend’s son being stillborn a few years ago and when I visited not mentioning him at all, just being awkward and not knowing what to say.  Now I know, just talk about him, he is their son, I bet all they wanted to do was talk about him.  

Does this define me?

My life must have meant something before I had a baby.  But now it just seems to be meaningless. 

I sit at home pretending that I’m occupied but all I crave is to seek someone out who I can rant about my feelings too, someone that doesn’t want to talk about themselves but just wants to sit and talk about me and my baby.  This is why I’m blogging – to share, to get out into the ethos how I’m feeling to people that just might understand where I’m coming from and somewhere I can constantly talk/write and it’s up to people if they listen/read.

Someone that asks to look at the photos and doesn’t hold back, someone that’s not afraid to look at my dead baby and can see what I see, a beautiful girl that was once alive, a baby girl that is mine, that is beautiful and perfect and would have been amazing. 

How did my life have more substance before I even considered having children and why does it feel so meaningless now I don’t?

Why do we work so hard to fill our lives when it should really just be simpler – life is so much more for living than working?  I can’t believe I was even considering going back to work so soon after having Amelia.  My how priorities have changed.

I’d like to be more self-sufficient, live off the land, live cheaply.  I want a family and to be happy.  I do want nice things, but my life will be fine without the fancy.

Is it strange that I now want lots of children?  Initially I only wanted 2, then when I was pregnant and enjoying it I thought 3 would be nice.  Now I could easily go up to 4.  My partner is from a family of 4 kids so why couldn’t we do that too!  But then reality kicks in – what if I have a problem that makes pregnancy too difficult or risky?  What if the stress and anxiety of being pregnant after loosing a baby is too much for me to handle?