Balance.

Some days I realise all over again that these scales can't be balanced.

I'm an optimistic, "count your blessings" kind of girl. The stuffing got knocked out of me, big style, twenty-odd months ago, leaving me limp and floppy and sad. But, on the whole, I have been unwilling to sacrifice any more of me than was ripped away without my permission. So, I've strived to grieve actively, to confront it all head on. Keep my eye on those blessings. Dave, Ben, Lucy and Toby - they're my lifeblood.

But I can't put them on one side of a set of virtual scales and expect them to balance with Emma on the other side. It's not that simple. That simile doesn't work. That view of life doesn't cut it. She's my lifeblood too, my love for her wraps around everything. Sometimes, it's possible not to be sad - to remember her and simply be glad that I ever had her at all. But other times, like now, fighting my way to the positives is just too hard. I am sleep deprived - I don't mind. I am losing sleep in the best possible cause. But I know me and I know how lack of sleep pulls me down. I don't think this is depression, postnatal or otherwise. But, I don't always have the energy to fight the sadness. Finding balance is hard.

Malaise

I'm still here, still reading - though not so frequently right now. Still celebrating when there is news to be celebrated and breaking my heart when I read of more sadness and more hurt. Just - not posting or commenting much.

I know from other mothers that what I'm experiencing is not unusual. The aftermath of Emma's birthday has been so much harder than the days before or the day itself. It's not the raw numbness of this time last year, the weeks between her death and her funeral. It's flatness - and tiredness. Exhaustion seems to be a very physical manifestation of grief for me. I just can't seem to pull round and find my va-va-voom. It's been swallowed up in a general sense of "bleurgh".

I have such fear too. I have been working so hard to embrace this new pregnancy and give our little Jurgen all the love and excitement and anticipation that his/her siblings have all had in utero. Mostly, I think I've managed it - I am genuinely in love and every kick represents hope. But, passing Emma's birthday has brought the alternative possibility right back into my field of vision. I reached viability the same week I reached my daughter's birthday - a minor co-incidence that I have found very hard to reconcile. Catherine has written very powerfully about what the word viability means to her. My, somewhat morbid, thought on the subject was that legally I'm now in the same position I was last time. If Jurgen dies I have to go through exactly the same again - registering his/her birth, arranging a burial. Jurgen has been so real to me for so much longer than just these past two weeks so but somehow that landmark - a small celebration for most innocently pregnant women - has combined with the oppressive sadness of these past few days to make the hope and the possibility of a better outcome feel a little more elusive.

I haven't fallen back to the very bottom of the pit but it feels like I've fallen in and got caught in a ledge half way down. I will climb back out - I know that. It's just taking a little bit of time.