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."

Mad about the Boy.

I've gone quiet. I'm sorry. It's just that if it comes to a choice between catching up on my blog or one more snuggle with my delicious boy, then the snuggles win hands down!

He is two weeks old - and gorgeous. He is feeding well and getting to be a chubby little thing. He has perfected his Queen Victoria impression and quite often pulls his "we are not amused" face whilst asleep. I could sit for hours and watch the different expressions flit across his face. I wonder if Emma visits him in his dreams. I have told him about her. I remember reading "An Exact Replica ..." and crying when Elizabeth McCracken describes whispering Pudding's story into the ear of newborn baby Gus. The night he was born, I did the same for Toby. I described Emma to him. It pleases me that he will grow up hearing her name spoken.

Here he is:

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.

The baby formally known as "Jurgen" ...

I know Dave has already posted our wonderful, wonderful news on his blog (and has been very touched by all the lovely comments) but here it is from me:

Tobias Matthew (Toby) - 7 lb 9.5oz
Born at 11.37am, 19th January 2010
UTTERLY GORGEOUS!


***Warning: Entirely self indulgent bit of blogging to follow. Toby's birth story and lots of gratuitous shots of the little man.***

I wanted to write out Toby's birth story as soon as possible. I was pretty cranky a few posts back about his imminent arrival by c-section. I think I went a bit loopy from the pregnancy hormones and anxiety for a couple of weeks back there. This is where I eat humble pie and say that Toby's arrival in the world was beautiful and I want to honour it and remember it. Dave and I agree that, of the four births we have experienced, Toby's - despite taking place in a brightly lit, surgical environment - was the calmest and most gentle. I worried I'd never fully feel at peace about the way he needed to come earthside. I was wrong - I already do.

So here is our journey to meeting our second son:

Jurgen's last night in utero (38+2):


We arrived at the hospital on Tuesday morning at 8am to be booked in. We were met by the midwife, A, assigned to be our main carer and we warmed to her immediately. Because we were booked for surgery, her role was primarily to support us emotionally and help to advocate for us. Ordinarily, only one midwife would accompany us to theatre but we were asked if a student could come too - and our midwife's manager - as A. had just transferred to our hospital from a trust with different procedures. Our baby was certainly going to have quite an entourage!

We filled in forms. We met LOTS of different staff - who had all read our notes (not always a foregone conclusion) and were respectful and sympathetic about Emma's birth and death.
... and then we waited. An emergency had occurred. Of course it took precedence. The waiting was probably the hardest part of the whole day - we felt so close. And the fear of something going wrong again was palpable.

Finally, at 11, we set off to theatre and I said goodbye to Dave as he went off to make like George Clooney in his surgical scrubs. The atmosphere in the OR was really amazing. I could tell everyone in there was rooting for us (Dave said he heard one of the midwives in the seconds before Toby arrived say, "Please be okay baby.") It was SO very different from my experiences of birthing in an emergency. The pace was measured and everyone's professionalism really reassuring. It took quite a while to site my spinal but finally Dave was by my side and we were informed that our baby's birth was imminent. They lowered the screen and our very cross, pink, SCREAMING baby appeared over the top. A boy we discovered - I actually guessed right this time!! The next few minutes are - quite literally - a blur. They had taken my glasses away and I was crying so hard I couldn't see anything for quite a while. I did hear lots though - I heard the wonderful, wonderful midwives chatting away to our son, cooing over him and telling him how gorgeous he was - which I think are pretty good things to hear when you're minutes old! ... and then he was in Dave's arms. We had waited a lifetime for that moment and it was hard to believe that he was healthy and whole.
Emma - we miss you every single day. This week more than ever. So many mixed emotions, our sweet forever baby. We love you.

Toby - welcome. We are so grateful for your presence in our lives, our precious rainbow son.

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.

SOOO done with the snow

I've just read Jeanette's post and all I can say is a hearty "I agree".

This is the view from our front door:





Beautiful - but treacherous. I'm at the stage of pregnancy where, by instinct, I slow down, withdraw and go just that little deeper inside myself. But, previously, I've been this heavily pregnant during the dog days of summer (three autumn babies). I've never been forced into this sort of hibernation before.

When it first snowed, I was so excited - the potential for a white Christmas, the first I can remember (and it was!). But since Christmas, there have been four people and two guinea pigs living in what are feeling increasingly cramped conditions. Cabin fever and Pregnancy after Loss anxiety are not making for pleasant bedfellows. We have had lots of fun, the great Christmas LE.GO rebuild was a great success - Ben is now able to have full on St.ar Wa.rs LE.GO battles now that we have reconstructed most of his battle fleet.

But it's all come to head today. The children have been off school and Dave has been off work and I was supposed to go to the hospital for my 36 week scan and my final appointment with my consultant - the one where I would get to know Jurgen's birthday for definite, the one where I'd be booked in for a pre-operative blood draw and meeting with the anaesthetist. In other words, an appointment I *really* wanted to go too. We couldn't get through to the hospital - the road was blocked and we couldn't use the car. Buses weren't running and people have generally been hunkering down and keeping warm. In the scheme of things, it isn't a big deal. The appointment is rescheduled for next Wednesday and, fortunately, little one has been as good as gold. As if realising that mama needs extra reassurance today that things are okay, Jurgen has been more active than he/she has managed in a while (even in my voluminous belly, space is at a premium). But, it hasn't helped my anxiety levels. In the unlikely event I were to go into early labour, could I get to the hospital? Would an ambulance make it onto the ice rink that is our estate? What if there's a problem with my placenta or umbilical chord that might have been picked up today, an issue with fluid or growth? Might it be too late next Wednesday? Given the pregnancy I've had, it's such an unlikely scenario - but then so was a healthy baby dying 7 minutes before she arrived in the world at the end of an uncomplicated labour. ... unlikely isn't impossible and I'm having to force myself to take deep breaths and find a little bit of optimism from somewhere.

I don't need sunshine and roses but a thaw would be nice.