A funeral, a birth and the bit that (hopefully) comes between.

Funeral

I've been trying to find a few minutes to get this post from brain to screen. Now that I've done so, I've discovered that Dave has been writing on the same topic.

Dave's family are lovely. They have been sensitive and compassionate and loving since Emma died. They all seemed genuinely pleased that, at 38 weeks pregnant, I had decided to accompany Dave to his aunt's funeral. I think the word "brave" was used at one point. I know it's a word that can sometimes be somewhat triggering for us all but in this context I was touched that people, in a roundabout way, thought about Emma and the way this funeral might affect me. Because it really wasn't about me. I have very, very fond memories of Dave's aunt - a vibrant lady with an amazing sense of fun and I wanted to do my little bit to honour her memory. I wanted to offer as much support and comfort to Dave as I could. It actually seemed like a very natural thing to throw my hospital bag and labour notes in the car, "just in case", and travel the couple of hours to the funeral. It didn't seem at all brave to me, really.

Although this was the first funeral I've attended since my daughter's, I have had a feeling throughout the last fifteen months that I will feel a lot more comfortable at funerals now than I will at other less sad family functions. I know how to be at a funeral. I can empathise with the gut wrenching grief. I honestly think I would have needed more more courage to have attended one of the four christenings we have been invited to this year. I've yet to find enough gumption for that.

Dave is right though. It's hard not to feel guilty when the tears fall and you know that you're not really crying for the person whose funeral you are at but for a tiny little girl who never got a chance to experience all this world has to offer. My tears now, no matter what the immediate cause, always have an element of Emma in them.

Birth

I had my pre-operative assessment today. It went well - the two midwives who were jabbing me with needles and forcing me onto their scales (something I have studiously avoided this pregnancy - with good reason I discovered today!) were thoughtful and compassionate and gentle with me. The senior midwife did my Glucose testing at 24 weeks and remembered me (and Emma and Jurgen). She asked how I'd found the remainder of the pregnancy and was genuinely sympathetic as I talked about the roller coaster of emotions these past months have been. It ended with her mentioning that she is on a late shift on the day that Jurgen will be born and she is going to make a special trip to the post natal ward to meet our baby. It's nice to leave a hospital appointment feeling just a little bit special! Anyway this will be my last post before Jurgen is born this week. I HOPE with every fibre of my being that very soon we'll be up our elbows in the bit that should come between a birth and a funeral: life - glorious, milky, sleep deprived life.

Seven Minutes.

Beth left a comment on my last post that got me thinking. She said that she hadn't realised that Emma had died SEVEN minutes before she was born. I'm not surprised. I talk a lot about how I plod my way through grief and I even wrote this post about the person I thought my daughter was or might have been. But I've been reticent about sharing the details of her birth - which was also her death. Partly because I've done pretty well at avoiding the attentions of the malevolent "anonymous" trolls who leave despicable and thoughtless comments on the blogs of grieving parents. I suspect a post about birth choices might draw some of them out of the woodwork. Mainly, however, it's because I'm frightened of being revealed as a fraud. I think all of us grieving parents recognise guilt as part of the grief process. We also understand that mostly the guilt is not based on reality. But, how do you process it when choices you made are implicated in your child's death?

In real life, I have worked hard on this. Mostly, I have made peace. My obstetrician assured me just hours after Emma's death that I would never know if she might have lived through an elective section. He was sure that arriving at the hospital sooner would not have changed the outcome. They were some of the kindest words I could have heard in the immediate aftermath of her death.

But, as I approach Jurgen's increasingly imminent arrival in this world and I feel the familiar dread of a surgical birth enfold me, I realise that this might be one part of my grief that I will never fully accept or "heal" from. I'm hoping writing here will release some of the panic I feel as I prepare for our fourth child. I will have the planned section because I am a mother and I want what is best for my child. It seems that operative deliveries are best for my children so, of course, I set aside my own preferences to hopefully obtain the best and safest outcome for my baby but I miss feeling joy and anticipation at the prospect of labouring and birthing my baby myself.

Emma will be my only vaginally birthed child. Her two older siblings were born by emergency section after long and difficult labours. I experienced some post-natal post traumatic stress disorder after the birth of her elder sister. It isn't nice - it isn't, of course, one billionth as painful as living for the rest of your life with babylost grief - but it isn't a pleasant or easy way to start mothering a child. I know that some babylost parents feel very frustrated by mothers who profess birth trauma after the birth of a living child - and I understand that entirely. I mention it here because it is part of the path that led to me making the decision to pursue a vaginal birth at home with Emma. NHS protocols here meant that I would have been offered a planned section at 39 weeks for her birth. Would I be here if I hadn't declined that path? What if ... what if... two horrible words to live with.

We don't know because we don't exactly know why Emma died. I went into labour spontaneously, my labour for the most part was straightforward. Emma, by every indication used to determine distress, was a perfectly happy baby for the duration of my labour. The last time we heard her heartbeat at 2.17am, just after we had transferred to the hospital so I could have a little bit of help with my second stage, it was well within the healthy range for a baby so close to birth (and we're pretty sure it was her heartbeat not mine, something I've been asked about when I share this part of the story). At 2.25am, I birthed a baby with no breath and no heartbeat. We didn't have an autopsy because it seemed so obvious to us that it was a "birth accident". Sometimes I wonder if a postmortem would have showed something more but I think that's because I want to believe that healthy babies being born to healthy mothers during healthy labours can't die. I'm proof to myself that they can. She was a good healthy size, her placenta and cord were healthy and revealed no clues. The best guess we can make is that her cord became pinched between me and her in those final minutes.

In the absence of any definite answers to her death, I have had to simply surrender to the course of action that will bring Jurgen into the world. I don't feel like I can make any choices for this little boy or little girl. I tried last time to make the choices that were "best" and safest for myself and my child. With the benefit of hindsight, it turned out they were neither.

Never think at 4am.

Because you know, whatever you think, it won't be rational or erudite. I'm seeing a whole lot of the wee small hours right now, thanks to a baby sat firmly and very comfortably, thank you very much, on my bladder plus the whole entertaining rigmarole of trying to turn over in bed. I'm at the point when, if this was a "normal" pregnancy, people would be joking about the wakefulness being "good practice" for baby coming. Except, that even in jest, I can't let people assume that a living, wakeful baby might be a foregone conclusion.

During the day, my grief is muted now. I've learned to let it co-exist alongside all the other emotions. Mostly, my days are okay - even good and happy. It's at 4am that I realise how close to the surface the pain and the horror and the anguish of losing Emma really is - especially right now. It manifests itself as utter and abject fear for her baby brother or sister. Last night I was very suddenly and completely awake at 4am absolutely convinced that this baby had died too. I was utterly paralysed by the terror of going through the loss of a child again. Even when Jurgen tried to reassure me by moving and shuffling and prodding me insistently I couldn't quite shake off the residue of fear. I have felt it all day today, despite good movements from an endlessly obliging fetus.

I am just three weeks away from the date my OB has proposed for my planned section. It really can't come soon enough.

33 weeks.

We're growing, Jurgen and I. Baby is growing right as he or she should. Serial growth scans suggest a baby of "good" size - not too small, not too big. I'm growing at a slightly more alarming rate - measuring 37 weeks at 33. Note to pregnant self - "No more mince pies - you are pregnant, not Father Christmas."

Physically, I have developed pelvic pain - a brand new symptom for my fourth pregnancy, which means I have the advanced pregnancy "ship in sail" waddle down to a tee - and occasionally I just lock up all altogether and can't move! I don't care. I continue to feel absolute gratitude for this gorgeous child.

Emotionally, it's as I expected. Both Dave and I have felt the anxiety levels ramp up these past weeks. We continue to cherish Jurgen and sometimes (occasionally) dare to talk about *when* he/she comes home rather than *if*. But neither of us sleep well and I do believe this poor baby (along with all other rainbow siblings I'm sure) is the inhabitant of the most prodded belly ever.

But we chug along, taking it a day at a time. I'm at the stage where I'll be having weekly checks with either my midwife or my OB - and it isn't long until B-day really, even if it feels as though every day is a lifetime.

Subsequent Pregnancy Guilt

Survivor, survivor's, or survivors guilt or syndrome is a mental condition that occurs when a person perceives himself or herself to have done wrong by surviving a traumatic event. It may be found among survivors of combat and natural disaster, among the friends and family of those who have committed suicide, and in non-mortal situations among those whose colleagues are laid off. The experience and manifestation of survivor's guilt will depend on an individual's psychological profile.

(from Wiki.ped.ia)

Lately, I've been dealing quite a lot with what I can only really describe as "Subsequent pregnancy" guilt. I love this community. I have no doubt that my path through grief has been a little smoother, a little less lonely because of my involvement in various online communities. But, it is strange to actually cry tears of anger, frustration, joy for people I have never met face to face. There is a large degree of trust going on here. You have to trust that I am truly a bereaved mother, just as I do for you. And I do ...

To digress for a moment: my husband and I are big fans of a cult, terribly British, sci-fi show from the seventies (sounds great, doesn't it !?) called Blake's 7. I remember, in particular, an episode when an idealist, alien, freedom fighter tells a far more cynical character: "My people have a saying. One who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken." I can't quite decide if that is profound or just terribly cheesy. Maybe it's both. But I think of that quote often when I'm meandering around in cyberspace, especially this babylost portion. I choose to believe the blogs I read - usually because there is something in them that strikes me as real or honest, something I recognise from my own experience of losing a child. As a result, I do invest a lot of emotional energy in what I read. I quite often dwell on posts throughout my day. I quite often feel frustration at my inability to do more than simply post an (often inane) comment.

So, back to the pregnancy guilt. There are a lot of us here who are navigating our ways through pregnancy after loss. But, I am so very aware at the moment, there are many other blogging parents who are hoping and longing for another pregnancy. And I feel so tremendously guilty that I already have 2 living children and I've been able to conceive with relative ease again. I feel a little ashamed of having broadcast my very straightforward, average PAL when other pregnancies after loss are not straightforward and have risks of complications and difficulties attached.

I suppose all I can do is to say that I do not take the blessing of my living children for granted. I do not, ever - not for one minute - take the blessing of this little life within for granted. In the midst of fears about losing again and grieving again, I do acknowledge the awesome privilege that this pregnancy has been and is. And to say that I long for each and every babylost mother or father who wants it to be able to walk this path too is an understatement.

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.

On Teeth and Being Average. Some pregnancy ramblings.

So there is an old wives tale that you lose a tooth with every pregnancy. I'm not exactly a toothless crone (yet) but I certainly seem consistent with regard to mouth trouble during pregnancy. I planned to update here earlier in the week. A more positive post to say that I have been climbing slowly back out of the funk that has surrounded me since Emma's birthday and regaining a little bit of equilibrium. Then I developed a horrible hacking cough which has kept me pretty sleepless most nights this week. Then, to add insult to injury, the wisdom teeth decided to throw one of their infrequent (but not infrequent enough) hissy fits and - well - the equilibrium vanished again.

It's hard not to feel a bit low when your mouth throbs and your chest rattles. My wisdom teeth are terribly misnamed, given that they are trying to grow into my mouth at a 45 degree angle. They have been doing this periodically for ten years. Once or twice a year they attempt to break the gum, only to hit the tooth next to them and then retract. Just one more small example of the way my body doesn't exactly do "normal" all that well. "Normal" wisdom teeth grow straight up. Normal births result in live babies. Every so often I am reminded of my body's idiosyncrasies in unpleasant and painful ways.

***

On a happier note, I had one of my monthly growth scans this week. At 29 weeks, Jurgen is estimated to weigh 2lb 12oz - exactly 50th centile on the size graphs. Whilst I know such things are not absolutely accurate, I have had 3 other babies who weighed around national average at birth so I choose to believe that Jurgen is almost certainly of "average" build too. Most of the other measurements were pretty near the middle of the charts too (a slightly larger than average tummy measurement and a very slightly shorter than average femur length? Mummy's mini me I think!). I felt a definite lightness as I walked out of the scan. It felt good knowing that, despite the distinctly unaverage nature of my emotions as I navigate pregnancy after loss, physically Jurgen and I are happily experiencing a very average pregnancy. I just keeping hoping for a perfectly average outcome.

Play acting "normal" pregnancy.

... that's what I've been up to this week. I decided to head to aqua natal classes at the local pool. I have been doing a salsacise class at our local community centre but Jurgen is no longer a willing participant in being shaken about like that - not even the sedate sort of shaking that I am able to manage. Aqua natal is perfect - all jiggling goes on beneath the water, which acts as a wonderful cushioning pillow to poor, saggy (non-existent, possibly) tummy muscles like mine.

I knew it would be unsettling the first time I went. The last time I went I was 20-something weeks pregnant with Emma. But I thought it would be okay. I mean it isn't as though I was a regular aquanatalist the last time - the classes didn't coincide with nursery pickups so I had many good intentions but not much in the way of actual exercise. I think I managed 3 classes all told.

And the class was fun, once I got past the initial weirdness of the same swimsuit, the same instructor, different, but still bumplicious, other participants - I got to pretend cycle up the pool on an green latex noodlely thing - what's NOT fun about that I ask you? But, it was like being hit by a brick. I am NOT a normal pregnant woman.

Normal pregnant women don't wonder if they are killing their baby by doing (very gentle) exercise. Normal women don't pause and wonder how much information is absolutely essential when the instructor asks if there is anything she should know about this pregnancy. Internal answer: Yes, it's a blessing, it's a miracle, it's fragile, it might end at any minute for absolutely no reason, don't you dare do anything that might cause my uterus to erupt or my cervix to melt or my baby to die, d'you hear me? External answer: No, everything is fine thank you. Normal pregnant women don't almost fall of their green, latex noodle when the instructor (who is also a midwife) tells us all, during the relaxation phase of the class, that S. - the tall one with bobbed hair - had her baby last week. A nice, straightforward labour. You see, says the midwife joyously, it does happen, even with first babies. We need to focus on the positives not the horror stories because it's mind over matter. If we think positively, it'll all be fine. I was in the deep end so I couldn't throw my noodle at her but the temptation was there. I was an all singing, all dancing advert for the power of positive pregnancy. I LOVED pregnancy and I LOVED all things birth related. I was the Little Miss Sunshine of the positive birth community. Guess what, my baby died. I don't want to broadcast this fact to a group of women I've never met before but I don't think I'm unreasonable to think that a midwife, of all people, might recognise that there might just be someone in her class for whom those sort of comments might just be a little bit on the sensitive side.

So, I think I can safely say that I'm not really, truly a normal pregnant woman this time around. I think I'll still go back though - I DID like the green noodle and I might get a pink one next time.

Intact

Several months ago I was reading a post I came across in a grief and loss forum. A mother, six months out from the death of her toddler, talked about the difficulty in trying to reconnect with friends from the time before. "I can't just pretend," she wrote (I'm paraphrasing slightly as I can no longer remember the exact words), "that I don't hate their intact lives."

It was one of those "Whoa" moments. I understood exactly what she meant. That sentence clarified exactly what I had been feeling. I have written here before about being introvert, about needing solitude and preferring to avoid anything requiring a degree a sociability. Deep down I had a sense of what this mama was saying but I hadn't managed to articulate it, even to myself. I planned to write a blog entry about it, back then, several months ago. But then other things came up, other topics to consider and I would remember it as various times but never got round to writing about it.

I've been thinking about it a lot over the summer and the post I write now is very different from the one I would have written three months ago. I have had a LOT of company these past few weeks. My husband and both my older children have been on holiday for six weeks and we've crammed such a lot of things into a month and a half. Most profoundly for me, we have visited with family and I held my thirteen week old nephew for the first time and spent time in the company of my little niece - 5 weeks older than Emma would be. What struck me was the lack of resentment. I braced myself for these visits, expected to survive them and sink into a deeper grief afterwards. It wasn't like that at all. Of course I thought about my daughter and looked for her features in these cousins of hers. Of course I longed for it to be different - to be passing my nephew back to his daddy because I needed to stop my 11 month old making a beeline for the staircase. But there was more too. I enjoyed snuggling a wonderfully warm and cuddly three month old and seeing him smile. I realise that somewhere in the last three months I have stopped hating people for their intact lives.

I know, of course, that some of this is down to Jurgen and the hope that he/she engenders in us. If I weren't pregnant again I doubt I would have had the same capacity for graciousness. But, there's more to it than that. After all, my husband and I have both considered how best to tell people about this pregnancy (it is still for the most part a secret to anyone except family and blog readers). We want people to be pleased but not to assume that this baby replaces Emma or somehow makes us "intact" again. He/She doesn't. If this baby lives and thrives, I will still be a bereaved mother - something everyone here gets but not everyone in real life.

I think mainly it is the passing of time. My grief, in the early stages, was of necessity selfish. How I felt, how I handled things, what I needed to do to survive and get through the day - these were my main considerations. They had to be. As I'm slowly emerging from the deepest level of this pit I am able, once again, to consider other people more objectively. Whilst very few of the people I know in real life have experienced tragedy at a level I have, I can now recognise that life is not perfect for anyone and I do not need to hate their "intactness". Also, I'm in a better position to appreciate the joys and good things that still exist in my own life - my truly amazing son and daughters and their wonderful daddy and other smaller daily gifts.

If this sounds insufferable, I apologise. I do not intend it to come across that way. This is a season I'm in at the moment - a breathing space for which I am grateful. Emma's first birthday is approaching - I know. This fact nudges at me through everything else. I have other milestones to face - my 20 week scan on Friday, my son's seventh birthday, my daughter's fifth birthday. For now, all my concentration is on these things but when October comes around there are no more distractions and I don't quite know how I will be. It's too big and momentous a time. For now, I'm just trying to enjoy a period of respite.

A pregnancy post.

Where to start ... in a little over an hour, I will be 17 weeks pregnant. I have been feeling small amounts of fluttering from Jurgen for several weeks now and this past week they have turned into definite movements - not regular yet but there.

I am completely in love. Any idea I had that I might remain detached was a falsehood. I adore this little one, just as I adored each of his or her brother and sisters. I have survived (am surviving - I don't know when it gets to be past tense) babyloss once, I don't know how I would do it again. I am just hoping and hoping that I don't have to.

I have never had a distressing ultrasound. Emma died 7 minutes (7 stupid, tiny minutes) before I pushed her into this world so the first we knew of our descent into hell was the paediatrician turning away from her and saying "I'm sorry". Those sickening words. So, I shouldn't fear ultrasounds, right? Except losing Emma has brought me into a world where babies die at every possible gestation - and beyond. And losing one child does not exempt you from the possibility of losing another to completely random and different circumstances. So, as my "big" scan approaches I can feel myself tensing. I try to shrug it off. I try to focus on now. I cannot change anything that is happening within me. I simply have to surrender to it happening and love my baby with everything I have ... and I do. Sometimes I dare to hope. As one of my fellow posters on MDC said of her own new pregnancy, "Being hopeful is brave. Be brave."


I do manage sometimes. I dreamed I was holding a little dark haired newborn boy with startlingly blue eyes. I try to hold onto that dream. I bought a pair of maternity jeans today and a journal with enough space to include not only my diary of the pregnancy but of milestones beyond. I looked at the newborn clothes too but didn't buy - I'm not there yet. We've discussed names - since D. is the one who christened Jurgen, you can see why we might need to start the conversation for "real" names somewhat early. We've debated whether to find out Jurgen's gender or have a surprise (still undecided). Yet, it all feels a little bit surreal and "naughty" as if I shouldn't be doing those things.

At 14 weeks, my Obstetrician asked me if I was feeling anymore reassured yet after three "good" first trimester scans. He seemed surprised when I said that I wasn't. I was surprised he expected me to feel reassurance at any point in this pregnancy. I will never reach a safe milestone. Emma died at 40 weeks, this baby will come at 38 weeks. He or she will need to be in my arms before I can tell my OB I feel reassured and even then ...

All I can do is love and hope and be brave.

My grief work

After reading Lea's lovely news about her new pregnancy and her thoughts about a second blog, I contemplated the possibility of starting a new blog to document Jurgen's journey. I only contemplated it briefly. I am unlikely ever to win an award for world's most prolific blogger as it is and I know that I would not be able to do either blog justice. So, with your permission, I will remain a solitary blog kinda girl for now.

This is Emma's place and I still intend it primarily to be about her and my journey since meeting her, kissing her and saying goodbye. There will be the occasional pregnancy post of course. The crazy triad of birth/death/maybe life that is pregnancy after loss (so powerfully articulated by Sally here) is an enormous part of my tangled, messy grief yarn right now. Parts of Emma's birth and death that I thought I had begun to process, begun to integrate suddenly loom very large again now.

I remember reading "Empty Cradle, Broken Heart" just a few days after Emma died and latching on with absolute fervour to the idea of "grief work". The idea that grief was something I could "do" something about, the possibility of clawing back some control in a situation where I lost every last vestige of controlling influence - that possibility was a heady and intoxicating one. It still is, although I think I possibly have a more nuanced idea of what it means now. I might be able to "do" grief but I cannot do away with with it.

I also remember reading a thread over on the pregnancy loss section of Mothering, not long after Emma died when my arms ached to hold a baby and getting pregnant again seemed the cure for all ills. There was a wise and gentle post written by a someone who was several years into this journey. She found herself unexpectedly and quickly pregnant again after the death of her precious firstborn daughter. She talked abut how she handled her still very raw grief alongside her hope of a different outcome for her second pregnancy. She talked of working on her first daughter's scrapbook & journal whilst all the time documenting her journey towards meeting her second little girl. It seemed to me then, and still seems to me now, a powerful and positive way to approach a new pregnancy and I have stored it away in my brain for a time like now.

I'm about to leave the first trimester and today I saw Jurgen again, doing headstands. I am being forced to believe (against my current inclination to preclude any optimism in case of a jinx) that at his moment in time, this pregnancy is progressing well. When I was expecting Emma, I started a cross stitch birth sampler for her. I didn't start it until I was 34 weeks as I was making one for her cousin first who was expected before she was. So Emma's was unfinished when she was born. I looked at it a few days after I arrived home from the hospital and had what might have been my first coherent thought of the aftermath. "I can't complete this now but if I ever have another pregnancy, this is my project to get me through". I have not touched it again but now I'm ready. Ready to document my daughter whilst I wait hopefully for her sibling. Like the cross stitch, this blog is a place to document her too, another place where I do my grief work.

I think there is still quite a lot to do.

The Glass Baby

Apologies to fellow MDCers. This might seem familiar as I posted it when I wrote it back in December. But, conception, fertility, hoping for another a baby, parenting after a loss - all these have been on my mind a lot recently and I still don't think I can express how I feel better than this.


The Glass Baby

I wake one morning
Aware of molten glass
Pouring into me.
It burns and the pain makes me cry.
But my tears don't cool the fire
So I grit my teeth and reach down.
I pull and push until a shape is formed -
A tiny glass child.
I look at my hands, burnt and bloodstained,
And I fold them over my belly
To protect the fragile life within.
IT ISN'T ENOUGH.
Until suddenly, my little glass boy floats.
I look inside and see his sister.
She is rocking him and crying tears of joy.
Her tears surround him in a warm, wet bath.
He floats, protected and happy,
My tiny man.
Her tears reflect in the glass of his limbs
And Rainbows burst from my womb.
Her tears, my broken hands, his rainbow
Surround him on our journey
'Til he bursts forth in a gush of her tears and my blood.
I recognise his newborn cry
As a call of goodbye to his womb mate
His newborn limbs flailing a wave
To his loving sister,
Who smiles and kisses his head,
Before wrapping herself in our rainbows
And tucking herself back into my heart.

My Girl.

The test on 4th February 2008 confirmed what I already knew. I had joked on a TTC forum that I was either pregnant or having one heck of a phantom pregnancy. Even before the hormones were strong enough to show, they were making me sickly and sore. My solicitous daughter - giving me strong, strong signs to support me through the frightening early weeks of a pregnancy conceived quickly after a miscarriage.

I felt her move at 14 weeks - early I suppose. I feel such gratitude for having a few extra weeks of cherishing her presence in a more tangible way. Her movements were gentle, unlike those of her big brother, who thought he was John Travolta and gave frequent in utero renditions of "Staying Alive" at 2am in the morning. I never worried for the health of my ribs or my bladder with Emma. Ironically, hers was the only pregnancy not to entail a frightened phone call to the maternity ward concerning reduced movements - she was never terribly active nor terrifyingly still. She and I passed our days gently, lyrically.

I had regular osteopathic treatment through my second and third trimester and I'd lie quietly, feeling her feline stretches in me. She liked those moments as much as she hated the Doppler. Her heartbeat always seemed easy to catch but never for long. She would twist and turn away from the wand - demonstrating a definite preference for privacy.

I always think of her as generous spirited and giving. After all, Tuesday's child (according to the rhyme) is full of grace. She was the only one of my children (and will always be unique in this respect) to initiate spontaneous labour - and on the day before her due date. As a mummy who was concerned about a long pregnancy (40+12 & 40+7 for the last two) , I was so proud of my little "Bobby Bingo" for surprising everyone with an "early" arrival.

I don't know if I will ever write about the details of my actual labour here. I don't think I can. My feelings are confused, vacillating. One the one hand, it was a beautiful and peaceful space - a time to heal a lot of the birth trauma that I experienced with my previous two births. On the other hand, something went very silently and catastrophically wrong. Labour killed my baby girl. She slipped away from us without us ever knowing.

And then I held her in my arms: 7lbs & 4oz and chubby. Gorgeously round little body - so healthy looking. She was the image of her sister - the same button nose, perfect cupid bow lips and almond shaped eyes but with dark hair. I'd joked in labour how I was hoping for the set - a red head, a blondie and now, maybe, a brunette. She was a brunette - the only one of my children to have my colouring. She had long fingers, like her brother - another pianist for the family. I wish I knew if she had a birth mark. I didn't look for one when I took off the clothes the midwives had dressed her in and held her naked against my chest, willing her heart to start beating again. I forgot to look to see if she had the little genetic tic that runs in my family - a very slightly webbed toe that both my son and I have. "Did Emma?" he asked once. I cried when I told him I hadn't looked.

As I read back what I've written here, I see my choice of words give shape to the person I think she would have been: solicitous, gracious, lyrical and generous hearted, less of a fire cracker than her big sister! And my heart breaks all over again to realise that I will never truly know in this lifetime. All I can do is share my proud memories of my littlest girl, my Emma Faith.

Quieting the snakes.

My darling man looks burdened tonight - his shoulders are hunched and his eyes are dark. There's been an inspection in school so it isn't all that surprising. But I recognize grief beyond tiredness so I ask ... and he replies "A. was off today." A & his wife both work with D. More than that, they are his closest friends there. A's wife is currently on maternity leave with their third child. They have a daughter, they have a son ... so far, so parallel lives. I have prayed since Emma died that their new baby would be a boy.

Today, they had a baby girl.

Whenever, I feel like this pit must have a bottom ...

I hide my Medusa head - I shush the snakes, cram them back down and try not to focus on the fact she cried when she found she was having an unplanned third pregnancy. Because her new daughter will be loved and cherished - just like mine is. Because when I miscarried our tiny one, she send me a huge bouquet of flowers. But mainly because my husband is hurting and I want to make it right for him. I can't but I can try to avoid making it more wrong.

Getting it wrong.

You are only an acquaintance - we met at a coffee morning, probably a year ago. I remember I had an obvious bump - probably about the same size as the one you are carrying proudly now. I was probably stroking my wee girl - in the way that absent minded and unburdoned pregnant mamas do in public. You didn't say much then - I thought you were shy. My best friend fears you are just arrogant.

I can't tell how pregnant you are - I think you must have been pregnant when Emma died. That at least would explain why you look like a rabbit in the headlights when we pass each other at the school gate. It's your third - like Emma was my third. I shouldn't judge but I suspect you've had no losses - your children are close in age. I wish I knew what you are thinking when you look at me with such empty eyes. Are you feeling sorry for me? Guilty over your third beautiful bump?

Most pregnant women seem to exude an air of relief around me - a naive assumption that because I was the unfortunate 1:200, their odds are somehow lowered. I've done the suffering for them. I could tell them that I'm the third of three generations to experience stillbirth in my family or I could tell them of an internet acquaintance who lost her baby daughter to a placental abruption back in September and posted a heartbreaking message just weeks ago to say that her sister's tiny boy had been born too soon to survive life outside of his mama. The fact is their odds remain the same - low but not somehow lowered by my tragedy. Perhaps your reaction is more honest; perhaps my daughter's death has shocked you to the core. But I dislike you and I go out of my way now to avoid eye contact with you. NOT because of your pregnancy - pregnant bellies do sting me but I can't stop the world gestating and I hope to do it myself again one day. No, I dislike you because I can't read you - you don't warm your sad eyes with the ghost of a sympathetic smile. You make me feel worse - if that is even possible - about being a deadbaby mama. I don't like you because when it comes to reacting to me, you got it wrong.