No meme today - just memories.

I attended my first SANDS meeting just 5 weeks after Emma died. Dave and I were desperate to know we weren't alone. I remember one mother there, who had just passed her baby's first birthday, talked about how the day before was somehow harder than the actual birthday. How the day before was all about remembering how *this* day x years ago was the last time I was completely happy, completely the person I was before I became this person.

This time two years ago, I was already in labour - pretty far on as it turned out. This time two years ago I was excited about the fact we were about to meet the last baby to join our family - our little boy, George Joseph (or maybe George Nathaniel, it wasn't decided). Or, if I was completely wrong about the gender, our little girl ... Felicity Hope / Felicity Joy, maybe? I was SO wrong on so many counts. I don't really remember the physical pain of this day 2 years ago but I remember those wonderful, innocent expectations that things would turn out just the way we planned them.

Thank you and Day 12

Thank you to everyone who responded to my last post. I'm tremendously touched that people are willing to reach out for my little girl and pleased that Thursday will be a day punctuated by small acts of kindness. Thank you.

So, my OCD. My family have often been wont to wonder whether I really, truly do have this illness. I don't think I do, certainly not enough to entail a formal diagnosis. But  I do have a very strong need for things to be "just so". If someone puts a can in the cupboard upside down (or back to front) then I HAVE to turn it around the right way. It is a long running source of humour/frustration for my husband that I cannot -absolutely cannot- go to sleep if he has his pillowcase turned wrong side up - even if it's dark and I can't see it. Just knowing that it is "wrong", is enough to leave me lying uncomfortably awake. When we changed the bookcase in our living area, I ended up demanding that Dave just let me put the books back - he wasn't putting all the books by the same author in the same place, you see. All this seems nothing more than harmlessly idiosyncratic to me ...

I'm always LATE for everything though ...

A request for Emma's birthday (and Day 11)

I feel as though Emma's birthday has hit me out of nowhere. Because Ben and Lucy have birthdays at the end of September, the build up to her special day is short, but intense. I just feel ... malaise ... I want her back, I can't have her back and I don't want to be trying to find ways to make a second birthday that is also a death-day into something meaningful. I mean I do, of course I do, but I don't. Oh ... if you're in this with me, you know. You understand the sentiment behind that befuddled stream of words. Last year, we planned lots of stuff to do. This year, not so much. I'll make a cake and we'll each have a gift (a tradition - if second time through can be said to make a tradition - I hope will continue through the years.) But, I wanted something more for her.

Her name means "All encompassing" or "universal". If that seems a random leap, it's not. I'd like to ask all my bloggy / FB friends if they would be prepared to try and do a small, random act of kindness on October 14th, in memory of Emma - making kindness "universal". It doesn't have to be big (and I know it's not an original idea - I have stolen it directly from lovely Angie!) but it would mean a lot to me to know she is remembered in some little ways around the world. Thank you.

And now ... Day 11. A photo of me now. My husband took the "now" literally and took a picture of me, sitting at the laptop (actually leaving a comment on Angie's blog, if you want to be precise about it) - tired, a bit low, scruffy after a quick tidy round now the kids are in bed. Literally, me NOW. Not the most flattering thing I've ever seen!

Day 10 - A photo over 10 years old.

Me - age 23 - on honeymoon in Malta. So young, so happy.

Excuse my lack of words, Emma's birthday is on Thursday - my brain doesn't have room for much else.

Day 9 - A picture taken since my loss

I just commented on Angie's blog  that I try to avoid having my photo taken - but here's an exception. And I know, it's a picture taken by someone else, not me (Dave!) but, once again, I'm working with the limited resources of the laptop!

But, I like this picture. It's the first time I managed to get Toby on my back using my woven wrap. It's the wrap I bought to use with Emma. I didn't know anything about "babywearing" with Ben and Lucy, although I did have a carrier that I used with them, so I was excited to try it out for real with our third child. The wrap was the only thing I bought new for Emma, little third child with hand-me-downs, that she was. I never got to use it for her but I love snuggling Toby in it - a small connection between him and her.

Day 8 - A photo that makes me angry or sad.

This was taken 20th September 2008. We were celebrating my mother-in-law's 60th birthday by going on the "York eye" - one of those slow moving, viewing  ferris wheels. I don't know who took the photograph - I didn't even know it was being taken, hence the completely unguarded pose. I'm 36ish weeks pregnant, rubbing my bump and chatting to Emma. I feel so sad that a beautiful, full, happy pregnancy ended like this and so angry that I went through a full nine months for "nothing" (not that she is nothing, but you know what I mean). I didn't look at the camera for a long time after Emma died and when I came to sort out the prints I wanted, this was the picture that made me sob and sob and sob.

Day 6 - 20 things that calm me.

In no order:
1) Listening to Classic FM.
2) Cross Stitch.
3) Card Making.
4) Playing Lego with Ben.
5) Playing "Princess" Snap with Lucy.
6) A rise and fall of Toby's chest when he's peacefully asleep (not teething, like now :( ).
7) The "good" walks home from school, chattering about nothing much with the children.
8) Colouring in!
9) The Sea - especially on cold, dreary days.
10) Sunsets.
11) Visiting Emma's grave.
12) Revisiting an old book or getting completely hooked on a new one.
13) Browsing (but never buying) the For Sale folder of the babywearing forum I recently joined.
14) Toby's grin and babbling when he's in the wrap on my front.
15) A lovely cup of tea (keeping up the best of British, Jeanette!)
16) Singing along to really cheesy pop.
17) Praying (when I am able to).
18) Galaxy chocolate.
19) Setting the world to rights with my best friend.
20) Lighting some candles and snuggling on the sofa with Dave.