I think it's fair to say that I'm doing okay. "Acceptance", "Integration" ... whatever the correct turn of phrase might be, I see it happening in my life. Not always - the black can still get me in a stranglehold sometimes - but mostly. I am happy. I can count my blessings. I laugh. I am able to enjoy my life again. A friend shared recently how, two years on, she is able to think of her son not only with love (which was there from the start) but with affection too. That's how I feel about Emma too. I don't always cry when I think about her - sometimes I smile with pleasure at the simple idea of her having been. Now, after a little while on this lifelong journey, I can separate her from her death and just enjoy the knowledge that she's my little girl eternally.
Sometimes, I even pull myself up, "Did I really have a baby who died before she was born?". Even after the hard evidence of the trauma and the pain and the hardship of the past eighteen months, I still can't quite believe it. It feels like a hazy, half-remembered nightmare. But then I pick up Toby and hold him in front of the photographs on the mantelpiece and point to Emma and tell him, "That's your big sister." and it feels very real all over again.
Monday, 26 April 2010
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Eighteen Months
The daffodils we planted on Emma's birthday are blooming now. I stood by her grave today, in the peace and the sunshine, and wondered at the passing of time. It's been long enough for us to plant bulbs and for those bulbs to grow and flower. Sometimes it feels like forever. I can't remember the person I was on 13th October 2008. Other times, like today, it's still so close. I can be back in the hospital room, her tiny body lifted onto my chest. Triumph - followed by devastation. I remember removing the clothes the midwives had dressed her in and holding her bare body inside my nightdress in some parody of kangaroo care. I was so warm, she was so cold. My heart was beating hard enough for both of us - but it wasn't enough. I was waiting for my miracle that day - I was going to make headlines. "Baby presumed dead suddenly breathes." I didn't (of course). She remained dead and I remain bereft of my daughter and my miracle.
Eighteen months, sweetheart. We love you and we miss you.
Monday, 12 April 2010
The Ruined Temple
Last year I participated in the 7x7 meme from "glow in the woods" about body image. My answers are here. I talk about being "defiantly self confident" pre-loss.
Defiant because, well, I was under no illusions that I had a future career as a supermodel. As a teenager I was a little shorter than average, a whole lot plumper than average, just a smidgeon plainer and more bookish than average. But, hey, who wants to be average? I was happy with who I was. I would observe with bewilderment as friends, far slimmer then me, launched themselves into the latest fad diets. "Why on earth would anyone choose to exist on a diet solely consisting of grapefruit?" I would wonder (I still wonder). Perhaps some of my body confidence came from my faith. I was taught in church that I was created with purpose. My existence was no accident and I was loved unconditionally for who I was - so why strive to change? Why worry about those extra pounds when my body, seemingly, worked just fine.
That confidence lasted through my twenties. I met my wonderful husband when I was twenty and married at 23. Three years later we decided to start a family and, hey, my clever body knew how to make babies. I took the easy conception of my first child completely for granted. I didn't know, then, how lucky I was. As I have posted before, my belief in the essential strength, functionality, accomplishment of my body was a little dented by the difficult births of my first two children but it was balanced by the awe I felt at the idea that such amazing little beings had grown inside me.
But then Emma died inside me. She grew beautifully for nine months but, at the end, before she ever emerged from my body, she was dead. And it doesn't matter how many times other people tell me it wasn't my fault, my relationship with my body changed forever that day. Because it failed. It failed my innocent, gorgeous, precious child - catastrophically.
Since then it has conceived, with ease, twice more and managed to remain pregnant on one of those occasions. Once again, I am in awe of the beautiful little being who has emerged from me. He is stunning.
But, I feel repulsive. Two pregnancies in two years have taken their toll on my body. I feel old, weak, fat. I am tired from grieving and I can't muster the energy to be defiantly self confident any more. I have a living daughter and I don't want the legacy of disordered eating and body issues from my family to pass down to her. I owe it to all my children, but particularly my girl I think, to be fit and well and healthy. I just cannot seem to find the impetus to change the things that need to be changed.
Defiant because, well, I was under no illusions that I had a future career as a supermodel. As a teenager I was a little shorter than average, a whole lot plumper than average, just a smidgeon plainer and more bookish than average. But, hey, who wants to be average? I was happy with who I was. I would observe with bewilderment as friends, far slimmer then me, launched themselves into the latest fad diets. "Why on earth would anyone choose to exist on a diet solely consisting of grapefruit?" I would wonder (I still wonder). Perhaps some of my body confidence came from my faith. I was taught in church that I was created with purpose. My existence was no accident and I was loved unconditionally for who I was - so why strive to change? Why worry about those extra pounds when my body, seemingly, worked just fine.
That confidence lasted through my twenties. I met my wonderful husband when I was twenty and married at 23. Three years later we decided to start a family and, hey, my clever body knew how to make babies. I took the easy conception of my first child completely for granted. I didn't know, then, how lucky I was. As I have posted before, my belief in the essential strength, functionality, accomplishment of my body was a little dented by the difficult births of my first two children but it was balanced by the awe I felt at the idea that such amazing little beings had grown inside me.
But then Emma died inside me. She grew beautifully for nine months but, at the end, before she ever emerged from my body, she was dead. And it doesn't matter how many times other people tell me it wasn't my fault, my relationship with my body changed forever that day. Because it failed. It failed my innocent, gorgeous, precious child - catastrophically.
Since then it has conceived, with ease, twice more and managed to remain pregnant on one of those occasions. Once again, I am in awe of the beautiful little being who has emerged from me. He is stunning.
But, I feel repulsive. Two pregnancies in two years have taken their toll on my body. I feel old, weak, fat. I am tired from grieving and I can't muster the energy to be defiantly self confident any more. I have a living daughter and I don't want the legacy of disordered eating and body issues from my family to pass down to her. I owe it to all my children, but particularly my girl I think, to be fit and well and healthy. I just cannot seem to find the impetus to change the things that need to be changed.
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