The long drive home after visiting close friends who live at some distance. It's late and three bathed and pyjama-ed children sleep in the back. The sky is clear and the moon is full - maybe. Maybe just past full. It's beautiful and I think back to the days before Emma's birth - the frenzied speculations on the forum about whose labour would be triggered by the full moon. I look again. The moon is a nine months belly - full and round and gorgeous. From here, it's not barren and dusty - devoid of life.
The short drive away from home - I step out of the back door into a peaceful, silent night. I'm wearing a nightdress and wooley socks. I walk, pausing often to breathe...scream ...groan, to the ambulance that has come to take me to hospital. I'm barely away of my surroundings but just for a second, I look at the moon, serene and round. With total clarity, I know that this moment will be imprinted forever - a postcard on my mind. The moments just before the birth of my child. The moments just before her death.
I look behind me. I can't see baby. He's rear facing. I can barely see the oldest - they're in the second row of seats but I sense their breathing and their dreams. Just for a moment I'm aware of my second daughter too - the moon brings her close.
I step out of the back door - no romance. I'm taking the bins and the compost out. But I look at the moon and I remember a poem I wrote a long time ago. I go in and dig around the computer, trying to find it. To lay claim to something that connects me to her.
Emma's Playtime.
Search for me in the slim silver sickle
Of the new moon.
I'm swinging there
Legs out ... legs in
Flying high.
I've watched you teach my sister, mama,
And I can do it too.
See me climb the brightest rainbow
Heart in your mouth.
I'm sliding there
Hear me squeal with delight
As I propel myself down.
I love the orange, mama,
But I know you prefer indigo.
Find me in the softly blushing tulips -
The ones you bring to me.
I'm pretending to be Thumbelina.
I giggle as I hide
Tucking my knees under my chin.
I'm wearing fluffy fairy wings.
Can you see them, mama?
Admire my handiwork amongst the symphony of colours
In a beautiful sunset.
I'm finger painting
Dabbling my fingers in pots of pink and gold
The paint is everywhere, mama.
I'll enjoy my bath tonight.
Feel me in the sleepy kiss of my sister
As you tuck her in,
In the last, long hug my brother gives
Before you turn out the light.
It's been a busy day, mama.
I'll sleep well tonight.
Thursday, 26 August 2010
Thursday, 19 August 2010
Hope Angel
About three weeks before Tobias was born, I contacted Sally to say that if he was a little girl, we were probably going to call him Hope. Sally responded with such grace and generous spirit. It didn't register with me then but we already knew the date our baby was coming - Tuesday 19th January.
Toby, obviously, was a boy. I cannot envisage it (nor would I want it) any other way. And it is right and proper that a very, very special little girl remains, uniquely, Tuesday's Hope.
Sally - because the 19th is significant to me too, now - I think about you and Hope around this time every month. But especially today.
Happy 2nd birthday, Hope Angel.
Toby, obviously, was a boy. I cannot envisage it (nor would I want it) any other way. And it is right and proper that a very, very special little girl remains, uniquely, Tuesday's Hope.
Sally - because the 19th is significant to me too, now - I think about you and Hope around this time every month. But especially today.
Happy 2nd birthday, Hope Angel.
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Holi-holiday
"We're all going on a summer holiday" ... la, la, la, la.
It's nice, having my family around me. August is the biggest perk of having a husband who teaches. The six weeks holiday is delicious for us - completely shared parenting means lie-ins, blissful opportunities for much missed sleep.
We pack picnics and head off to parks, museums and such. Today was lovely and lively and happy. I was surprised by the pang I felt when I saw a V-E-R-Y pregnant lady. I thought I was past that. In the land of the lost, I'm lucky enough to have been found. But, sometimes I still feel lost and pregnant bellies remind me. But, it's fleeting these days and all I have to do to counter it, is look at the tiny sumo wrestler who looks up at me and laughs as if he's really pleased to see me and the feeling folds back into my heart.
At some point we'll head back to the place I wrote about here and it'll be lovely. I have been there with Dave and Ben and Lucy and Emma (34 weeks pregnant). I was there last year with tiny, still mostly secret, Jurgen tucked inside of me. This year, I actually get to follow up on a pregnancy and head back with a baby - an honest to goodness little person. I will get to see how Toby reacts to sand (on current form - my prediction is he'll try to lick it!) and I'll still wonder what Emma would have made of it all.
It's nice, having my family around me. August is the biggest perk of having a husband who teaches. The six weeks holiday is delicious for us - completely shared parenting means lie-ins, blissful opportunities for much missed sleep.
We pack picnics and head off to parks, museums and such. Today was lovely and lively and happy. I was surprised by the pang I felt when I saw a V-E-R-Y pregnant lady. I thought I was past that. In the land of the lost, I'm lucky enough to have been found. But, sometimes I still feel lost and pregnant bellies remind me. But, it's fleeting these days and all I have to do to counter it, is look at the tiny sumo wrestler who looks up at me and laughs as if he's really pleased to see me and the feeling folds back into my heart.
At some point we'll head back to the place I wrote about here and it'll be lovely. I have been there with Dave and Ben and Lucy and Emma (34 weeks pregnant). I was there last year with tiny, still mostly secret, Jurgen tucked inside of me. This year, I actually get to follow up on a pregnancy and head back with a baby - an honest to goodness little person. I will get to see how Toby reacts to sand (on current form - my prediction is he'll try to lick it!) and I'll still wonder what Emma would have made of it all.
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Strange but true - Denial.
I wondered, when I wrote the post entitled "Acceptance?", whether I was just setting myself up for a fall, hence the question mark. The question mark was supposed to show I wasn't taking it for granted at all, that I wasn't trying to push my luck.
I don't think I ever "did" denial - I sort of skipped over that little bit of the grief cycle. Emma's death was unexpected - I laboured, I birthed her, we rejoiced and then we were handed our dead baby. I don't suppose labouring, knowing is any easier. I doubt it. But, even in the absence of any time to process what this was going to mean for us, we held her and I think we both realised that denial wasn't an option. We both felt that we needed to face the grief, the hardship, the horror face on. I was definitely numb for the first couple of months but I never sunk into any sort of denial. I have told people that I have four children - and omitted to mention that one is dead but I don't omit that information because I can't face it or because I forget or because I try to fool myself. Usually I omit that information for the benefit of the other person or simply for privacy for me.
And yet, since Toby, I have struggled to hold onto her. Immediately after his birth, I lived in the land of gratitude and joy. I had a baby WHO LIVED. I cried a lot more often for Emma, I felt so close to her all over again because I could see her in him. And then, I hit a bit of a slump. Tiredness, hormones resetting ... who knows. But recently, I've found myself resenting the fact that I'm a mother whose child died. I'm tired of grieving and I just want to pretend that I'm not. I've never needed to visit Emma's grave with regularity but it's close and it's a very beautiful and peaceful place. I've never found it hard to go and just be still there - until now. Recently, I've felt like I ought to go and I've been unable to. Something in me has resisted. And I feel so guilty - as though Emma is drifting away from me - and I'm pushing her away. I still love her so much but I haven't quite worked out how to parent my living children the way I want to, how to be the sort of mother I want to be and not deny my precious, precious third child in the process.
I don't think I ever "did" denial - I sort of skipped over that little bit of the grief cycle. Emma's death was unexpected - I laboured, I birthed her, we rejoiced and then we were handed our dead baby. I don't suppose labouring, knowing is any easier. I doubt it. But, even in the absence of any time to process what this was going to mean for us, we held her and I think we both realised that denial wasn't an option. We both felt that we needed to face the grief, the hardship, the horror face on. I was definitely numb for the first couple of months but I never sunk into any sort of denial. I have told people that I have four children - and omitted to mention that one is dead but I don't omit that information because I can't face it or because I forget or because I try to fool myself. Usually I omit that information for the benefit of the other person or simply for privacy for me.
And yet, since Toby, I have struggled to hold onto her. Immediately after his birth, I lived in the land of gratitude and joy. I had a baby WHO LIVED. I cried a lot more often for Emma, I felt so close to her all over again because I could see her in him. And then, I hit a bit of a slump. Tiredness, hormones resetting ... who knows. But recently, I've found myself resenting the fact that I'm a mother whose child died. I'm tired of grieving and I just want to pretend that I'm not. I've never needed to visit Emma's grave with regularity but it's close and it's a very beautiful and peaceful place. I've never found it hard to go and just be still there - until now. Recently, I've felt like I ought to go and I've been unable to. Something in me has resisted. And I feel so guilty - as though Emma is drifting away from me - and I'm pushing her away. I still love her so much but I haven't quite worked out how to parent my living children the way I want to, how to be the sort of mother I want to be and not deny my precious, precious third child in the process.
Saturday, 10 July 2010
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.
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.
Friday, 11 June 2010
Some things will always hurt ...
... like:
The family who followed my son and I into his trampolining class, last week. Daddy, little boy, little girl and mummy - proudly pushing 10 day old baby girl. Baby girls will always give me a pang. It was the briefest of pangs because she was gorgeous and sweet and DIFFERENT. Not my baby. That makes a difference these days. What hurt for longer - what still hurts - was the hungry look in my son's eyes. He's seven. It's not fair.
...like:
Coming across her name as I'm marking exam papers - or your baby's name. Because, even though the exam scripts I'm marking are from 11 year olds - giving them first dibs on the names really, I still consider those names OUR names, chosen with care for the babies we love so profoundly. I have to be careful not to overmark all the Emmas I encounter - not to give them extra marks for simply giving me the pleasure of seeing her name written in girlish scrawl.
... like:
Taking Toby "swimming" (dandling him in slightly warm water for all of five minutes, whilst he ponders it all very seriously - as is his wont - before he considers my skimpier than normal attire an open invitation for a snack and attempts to dive bomb my breasts!)
I take him out of the pool, wrap him in a towel and feed him. Milked up and exhausted, he falls asleep in my arms and I'm BACK, back in the hospital room when the midwives handed her to us. She was wrapped in a towel, her hair was still curly-wet fuzz from amniotic fluid and her sweet little mouth was a little slack - not from milkdrunkeness - but from death. I don't see her in him so often these days. He is almost 18 pounds with the cheeks and the thighs to match. He is so alive and so substantial and so very much himself but, in that moment, she was there too. Which is good and painful and confusing, all at once.
The family who followed my son and I into his trampolining class, last week. Daddy, little boy, little girl and mummy - proudly pushing 10 day old baby girl. Baby girls will always give me a pang. It was the briefest of pangs because she was gorgeous and sweet and DIFFERENT. Not my baby. That makes a difference these days. What hurt for longer - what still hurts - was the hungry look in my son's eyes. He's seven. It's not fair.
...like:
Coming across her name as I'm marking exam papers - or your baby's name. Because, even though the exam scripts I'm marking are from 11 year olds - giving them first dibs on the names really, I still consider those names OUR names, chosen with care for the babies we love so profoundly. I have to be careful not to overmark all the Emmas I encounter - not to give them extra marks for simply giving me the pleasure of seeing her name written in girlish scrawl.
... like:
Taking Toby "swimming" (dandling him in slightly warm water for all of five minutes, whilst he ponders it all very seriously - as is his wont - before he considers my skimpier than normal attire an open invitation for a snack and attempts to dive bomb my breasts!)
I take him out of the pool, wrap him in a towel and feed him. Milked up and exhausted, he falls asleep in my arms and I'm BACK, back in the hospital room when the midwives handed her to us. She was wrapped in a towel, her hair was still curly-wet fuzz from amniotic fluid and her sweet little mouth was a little slack - not from milkdrunkeness - but from death. I don't see her in him so often these days. He is almost 18 pounds with the cheeks and the thighs to match. He is so alive and so substantial and so very much himself but, in that moment, she was there too. Which is good and painful and confusing, all at once.
Thursday, 20 May 2010
Exam pressures, Alien invasion and other reasons not to blog.
Perhaps this is how it'll be here - no formal goodbye just, well, less of a presence. I made a conscious decision to walk away a couple of months ago but I knew I'd wander back. I like this place and I like the virtual friends I have made here. So, there will be no final post here. Like others before me, I'll meander back to say "Hi. How you doing?" I'll still try to read EVERYTHING that comes through my reader, fail miserably and feel guilty. I ponder posts, like the darned good one I thought about which was an extended metaphor of grief as a forest (don'tcha wish I'd been around for that scintillating piece of writing) and then reject them. I agree with Jess - I still have things to say but they aren't always about sinking in a morass of grief or even specifically about Emma any more - although all my observations of my world and my life are threaded with her and my love for her and my longing for her and the space that is not her, but not always consciously now.
So, I will still be writing and definitely still trying to read your blog too if I know of it. It's just got harder. I've just embarked into my annual foray in the world of work-at-home motherdom. Our dining room is currently home to several hundred exam papers to be graded and returned by the end of June. I do this most years and I always forget the slightly panicked feeling I get as friendly postmen unhunch themselves on my doorstep as they divest themselves of heavy looking parcels for me to pour over. I manage it all by chanting "Think of the money, think of the money" under my breath and drinking too much tea.
Besides which, I no longer have internet access during the day. Our ancient old PC has been re-sited into Ben's room, which does not have anywhere for the modem and there seems no way of asking it nicely to connect wirelessly. So, I am constrained to visiting here, via the laptop, in the evenings only when, frankly, my brain has seen better days. The PC has been moved to accommodate a cot in our room for the gorgeous and exceptionally chubby Tobias, who has now outgrown his Moses basket. I always feel slightly envious of co-sleeping mums and dads - it seems so lovely and snuggly to me but it's a no go here. My lovely husband has what I have boldly - and with no medical training at all - designated a mild sleep disorder. It's not at all bad but occasionally he acts out his dreams. I was woken a few months ago when the duvet was unceremoniously ripped off my legs and my (completely asleep) husband started slapping my legs (not hard, I want to stress!) Upon further questioning of said sleepy other half, it turns out he was "getting the aliens off [me]"! So, no little baby in the bed for us (although he does sneak in for his night-time feeds) and no more computer in our bedroom. But at least I can rest easy that I'm sorted in the event of alien invasion.
So, I will still be writing and definitely still trying to read your blog too if I know of it. It's just got harder. I've just embarked into my annual foray in the world of work-at-home motherdom. Our dining room is currently home to several hundred exam papers to be graded and returned by the end of June. I do this most years and I always forget the slightly panicked feeling I get as friendly postmen unhunch themselves on my doorstep as they divest themselves of heavy looking parcels for me to pour over. I manage it all by chanting "Think of the money, think of the money" under my breath and drinking too much tea.
Besides which, I no longer have internet access during the day. Our ancient old PC has been re-sited into Ben's room, which does not have anywhere for the modem and there seems no way of asking it nicely to connect wirelessly. So, I am constrained to visiting here, via the laptop, in the evenings only when, frankly, my brain has seen better days. The PC has been moved to accommodate a cot in our room for the gorgeous and exceptionally chubby Tobias, who has now outgrown his Moses basket. I always feel slightly envious of co-sleeping mums and dads - it seems so lovely and snuggly to me but it's a no go here. My lovely husband has what I have boldly - and with no medical training at all - designated a mild sleep disorder. It's not at all bad but occasionally he acts out his dreams. I was woken a few months ago when the duvet was unceremoniously ripped off my legs and my (completely asleep) husband started slapping my legs (not hard, I want to stress!) Upon further questioning of said sleepy other half, it turns out he was "getting the aliens off [me]"! So, no little baby in the bed for us (although he does sneak in for his night-time feeds) and no more computer in our bedroom. But at least I can rest easy that I'm sorted in the event of alien invasion.
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