Eighteen Months

The daffodils we planted on Emma's birthday are blooming now. I stood by her grave today, in the peace and the sunshine, and wondered at the passing of time. It's been long enough for us to plant bulbs and for those bulbs to grow and flower. Sometimes it feels like forever. I can't remember the person I was on 13th October 2008. Other times, like today, it's still so close. I can be back in the hospital room, her tiny body lifted onto my chest. Triumph - followed by devastation. I remember removing the clothes the midwives had dressed her in and holding her bare body inside my nightdress in some parody of kangaroo care. I was so warm, she was so cold. My heart was beating hard enough for both of us - but it wasn't enough. I was waiting for my miracle that day - I was going to make headlines. "Baby presumed dead suddenly breathes." I didn't (of course). She remained dead and I remain bereft of my daughter and my miracle.

Eighteen months, sweetheart. We love you and we miss you.

Still Here.

I needed to step away, pause, regroup - enjoy these fleeting, precious newborn moments with my last child.

But I still need this place. Because, despite the joy and happiness that Toby has brought back to our family, my daughter is still dead. Still dead. Still dead. Stillborn, still dead. And I still miss her deeply. I still want to speak her name. Toby has given me opportunities to do that. People ask who he looks like. "Emma. He looks like Emma," I say - and watch their confusion, their memories ticking over as they try to remember who Emma is. My daughter, his sister. I have not forgotten and I will speak her name over and over again. It may discomfort them but it brings me comfort.

He smiles now - and it melts me to tears. Tears of joy, tears of absolute devastation. He is so beautiful when he smiles. I know her smile would have been adorable too and I feel like I've lost her all over again.

And even though I've not been writing or reading here as frequently, I have been thinking about you all. I am still here.

Greedy.

I want to have all four of my children. I want to raise both the sons and both the daughters I have birthed. I should be grateful - I AM *so* grateful for Ben and Lucy and Toby but I miss Emma. Toby hasn't changed that.

When we attending counselling with our bereavement midwife, she used the metaphor of Emma's death as a great big black ball. She said that as time passed and as we mourned we'd find things to wrap the ball up in. Gradually we'd find more things to stretch over it, we'd get more adept at covering the ball but, crucially, the ball would remain the same size forever. It would never shrink. Toby has provided us with so much wrapping for the big, black ball of our grief but it is true. The absence of Emma remains as big and as tragic and as sad as it ever was, as it always will be. I stood by her grave with Dave, just after Toby was born, and told him I wanted them both. "I know", he said, "I'm greedy like that too."

The same, so different.

All four of my children have looked similar at birth - there is no mistaking their sibling relationship. But Emma & Toby ... perhaps because of their colouring or perhaps I just want to see it more ... they are so very, very alike.

I am happy and I am content. I am totally and utterly in love with the tiny boy who snuggles in my lap. But when I hold him as he naps, I can look up and see her photograph (the same picture as the one on this blog) and the tears fall so easily. In his sleep, the similarities are painful because that is how I remember her - the stillness. And yet, it isn't the same. Even in his sleep, Toby is not still. He frowns, he makes little milk moues searching for the breast he is dreaming about, he squeaks, he melts our hearts. He wriggles with wind.

I call Emma our forever baby - I don't like the term angel and this description sits more easily with me. The truth of it hurts though. At one week old, Toby has changed more, grown more than ever Emma will. I am forcibly reminded of what I am missing as the mother of a child forever a newborn. And yet, I agree with Jay when she speaks of the thinness of the veil separating us from our children. I feel Emma's presence so profoundly and strongly right now and I'm so glad of it.

I'm relieved that I was prepared (a little) for this. I have read lots of blogs by mothers raising subsequent babies so the grief that is entwined with our joy has not taken me by surprise. I have always been clear that none of my living children bear any responsibility for healing me. They simply make my heart sing - and that is the same for Toby as it is for Ben & Lucy.

Joy and Fear and Trust.

So, I had a nesting urge this week. I went with it. I can honestly say that I just didn't get this when I was pregnant with Emma. It's one of the things I look back on, now and wonder if I had an intuition stronger than I realised. I felt uncomfortable buying anything. I did wash clothes and prepare but not with the same urgency that I had felt with my first two pregnancies. Maybe I'm reading too much into it or maybe I'm not ... Either way, I decided to embrace the urge to get some things ready this week.

With hindsight, I should probably have waited. As we don't know Jurgen's gender, I'm washing all the neutrals, a few girls and a few boys things. I really don't have a problem with my newborn boy wearing a pink sleepsuit or my newborn girl wearing her brother's things. The trouble is, I only have the girl clothes here with me currently. I passed along all the boy things when my nephew was born back in May and I haven't got round to collecting them again yet. I don't know if mixing the (oceans and oceans) of pink with a bit of manly blue would have made the job any easier. Perhaps. I know I spent Monday morning sitting on my little boy's floor sobbing into a pile of pink clothes - remembering when my first daughter wore them, remembering when my second daughter didn't. I missed her so profoundly then. It wasn't anger or denial or any of the other complex grief emotions - just straight out MISSING my baby. I want her, I want HER. I want my Emma ...

And I want Jurgen. I know there have been several posts in different places recently on the subject of subsequent/replacement babies. I don't go to that place in my mind very often. Physically, it is possible that I could have had both children but realistically, it's not that likely. I tend to avoid the difficult emotions that the subject evokes. Simply, I am sad I don't have Emma and I'm enormously joyful and grateful for this new pregnancy and the possibility of a new baby. There was joy too as I sat surrounded by piles of tiny clothes. The end still seems so far away - I still can't quite imagine that it will work out this time but as I sorted teeny-tiny clothes, there was a definite spark of hope that someone will get to fill them out and outgrow them this time.

I realised, as I poured clothes into the washing machine and arranged them on radiators, that the fear and the joy are ever present and entwined but there's a big hole where the trust should be. The first three times I was pregnant I trusted my body to grow a healthy baby. That trust was eroded slightly by two difficult births and blown away completely by a catastrophic one. I trusted God to protect my babies. A year on, I'm still feeling my way with that one. Still trying to fathom what it is I now believe about the way the universe works, about what I trust outside of myself. But trusting in something felt like a safety net and it's pretty terrifying walking this tightrope without one.