Cycles

I have been a bad blogger. A combination of horrible grief and sick children has pretty much robbed me of the power to articulate all I want to say.

But it's simmering in my head so here goes ...

Well, as the light nights get longer again, DH has once again raised the possibility of me getting a bike (DD1 insists it must be a purple one). Our eldest two can cycle a fair distance on their own and we have a great cycle track near us - the old disused railway. I have a very poor record with bicycles. My only broken bones? (the tiny ones in my right hand since you ask) - a trip over the handle bars of my first (only) bike. My enduring memory of my German exchange trip? Cycling to my exchange partner's school, applying the break, locking the front wheel and sailing over a 4 foot metal barrier. Yep, me and bikes - it's a fraught relationship.

And yet, it appeals (a bit). Getting out, getting away, doing something *so* different. I feel betrayed by my body on so many levels - it feels saggy and flabby and I cannot help but regard it as the cause of my daughter's death. I have, I think, been essentially punishing it since Emma died and it's definitely showing the strain of too much wine and too many bars of chocolate. Maybe showing it some loving kindness and trying to nurture it for a change might not be such a bad idea.

So, if you spot an overweight women on a purple bicycle this summer, do give me a wave. And if I'm head first in a gorse bush at the time do, please, pull me out.

:::

How do I feel about The Kubler-Ross grief cycle? I think of it a bit like this:

Hard to balance with a blooming uncomfortable saddle.

On the one hand, just as I seek out other babyloss mamas to compare what I am feeling with what they are feeling and so check that I'm "normal" (!?), I also find reassurance that I recognise myself in the dips and peaks of the graph. On the other hand, there is a part of me that screams that my grief is my grief and no-one can quantify it, measure it or label it. How dare anyone assume they can explain or explore this to me. I think I'm bothered by it now because I worry that it is unavoidable - that whether I will it or no, I will encounter ALL of these phases. I know for sure that I've "done" denial and anger ... oh yes, I have done anger. I have screamed until my throat hurt and I have thrown some spectacular temper tantrums as I have raged about the unfairness of my daughter's life curtailed before it had even begun. I suppose I'm scared of depression - I think that's it. I've never experienced depression personally and it frightens me. Anger feels more acceptable to me somehow perhaps because it is "active" - I am doing something with the grief not just being pummelled with it. The inertia I associate with depression frightens me and I've had a taste of it this week when the grief has seemed black and deep and utterly all encompassing - when everything else has been smoke and shadows and my daughter's absence has been the realest and most solid thing I have.

:::
And so to menstrual cycles - which is not such a big leap as it might first appear since my cycle is at least partially implicated in the nasty funk I have found myself in this week. I used Fertility Awareness to help us conceive Emma and I was absolutely fascinated. I loved the knowledge I gained about my body and about the hows and the whys of all the different hormones and their effects. Of course, when that knowledge showed me that my body was functioning as it should and I conceived quickly, it was all brilliant. I restarted charting after Christmas, thinking that it might help in restoring some equlibrium in my relationship with my body. When it revealed that things had not returned to "normal" yet, I started to feel like a hamster in a wheel ... waiting to ovulate, measuring my luteal phase ... waiting to ovulate ... frustration, rather than fascination, has been my primary emotion. This month I conceived very briefly, only for my period to arrive (3 days late on Emma's 6 month day) and quench that tiny spark of hope. I am uncertain of how I feel about this chemical pregnancy. I do feel sad but the sadness is about Emma, about wanting to be caught up in sleeplessness and weaning and chubby thighs not themometers and cycle days and cervical fluid. I'm sad that I'm even trying to get pregnant again when that was never supposed to be part of the plan. I know that if I get pregnant again and if the pregnancy sticks and if I get to bring home a breathing baby, I'll once agan see the wonder and value of having this amount of knowledge about my body and its inner workings. Right now though, I'm sad that I'm back in this particular cycle again.