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.

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.

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.

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.