Our new special jewellery

For over twelve months now I have been looking far and wide for a piece of jewellery to wear in memory of Max. I was very fortunate to receive a few keepsake gifts bearing Max's name and his initials from friends after he died but I also wanted to choose something special that I could wear every day as a quiet reminder that he is always with me.

I began wanting a locket but could not find the perfect one. Then I wanted an amber pendant, but you guessed it, I could not find the perfect one. I have been fighting a losing battle to find a piece of jewellery special enough to represent everything Max was, and is, to me. I think I was silly to try as there is not an object on earth that could possibly signify such love, such pride, and such sadness.

Leslie had been wanting to get a necklace he could wear too. Then one day recently he came up with the idea of wanting a rabbit pendant - the rabbit being the Chinese zodiac sign under which Max was born. Immediately it seemed like the most wonderful idea. I wanted something that had special significance to us but that would not necessarily be immediately obvious to anyone else. The rabbit would be perfect.

I spent ages on Etsy and other websites looking for a suitable pendant but all those I found seemed a little too cartoon-like or were just made out of cheap materials. Then yesterday I decided to go and spend some of the gift cards I received at Christmas and I must have been in a wandering mood. I stumbled into a Pandora store and found the rabbit that I wanted. I've never been in that store as I thought I hated those silly charm bracelets with all the bits hanging off them, but it turns out that when you wear the bracelet with just one or two charms connected it in fact looks very simple and sweet, just what I like. I snapped it up and ran home to tell Leslie that he should go back to see if he wanted to get the same one. He did, and ended up getting the little rabbit to wear on a leather strap necklace.

When this baby girl is born I will add something that represents her, too, and I may add an 'M' for Max also. I had trouble taking pictures of the bracelet as it showed up terribly in all of my shots, so here is a picture of it from the internet, and the silver Pandora bracelet it is attached to you have probably seen before.

 

We will wear our jewellery for our own sweet bunny rabbit, our darling Max, and strive always to find new ways to remember and honour him.

Mummy and daddy love you, Max - always and forever.

Christmas without Max

I kept thinking that this Christmas would be our first without Max, but of course it wasn't. Christmas came exactly a month after he left us, festive cheer hurtling towards it when we were least equipped to deal with it. I remember thinking it seemed like cruel timing having to face family events and other people's happy children at a time when we were still struggling to draw breath. Due to some incredible thoughtlessness on behalf of Leslie's family, who had all made plans that did not involve us, we found ourselves facing Christmas day alone, bereaved, with only boxes full of a dead baby's clothes for company. Thankfully it didn't come to that. My dearest Kate and her amazing family came to the rescue with a wonderfully pleasant lunch invitation that we accepted, almost desperately. Though we were quiet, withdrawn and sad, we managed to make an acceptable, if not enjoyable, day out of it with wonderful company, none of whom expected anything of us except to sit, eat and drink, which was about all we were capable of.

This Christmas we had planned to fly to Hobart to spend it with my mum and my family, which we had not done for the last two years. We booked Leslie's dad to come and feed the kitties (it's impossible to get them into a cattery at this time of year), rolled our way out of bed at 5am on Christmas Eve and made our way to the airport, even though part of me felt like we'd be better off spending it alone where we did not have to pretend to be happy. I'm glad we didn't though. We had a peaceful, easy day with my small family and the excitement of all the small children present (my family has a lot of toddlers) didn't seem to sting as much as I had expected it might. My skin is tougher these days - so much tougher, like Teflon, where things don't stick as much as they might once have done.

Max was in our thoughts at many times throughout the day, but perhaps most of all on Christmas Eve for some reason. We both missed him. We just missed him so much. It wasn't so much of a distressing emotion - I didn't sob or break down - but it was just there, hanging heavily within us where we suspect it will always be. So many of my thoughts were also with the families of other missing babies I have come to know over this past year. I wondered how they were getting through the day and what rituals they'd stumbled upon to make their little darlings a part of the life that has gone on without them.

We were very touched that my mum made a special effort to make sure Max was included in our Christmas traditions. She had two special baubles made with his name on them, one for our tree at home, and one for her tree, which we just loved. And when I was strolling at the shops one day recently I found another little bear decoration with Max's name on it that I could not resist. Both of them have come to mean so much to us and we will always make sure to make a special occasion out of putting them on the tree in years to come. We hope that next year Max's baby sister will be able to help us with her chubby baby hands.

Speaking of baby sister, she was also not forgotten on Christmas day. She had her own presents under the tree from her very excited Nanna. She got so many things that both Leslie and I were secretly fearful that there might be nothing for us under the tree next year and instead a million presents with her name on them! I hoped....you know what, I might have even prayed that we'd have this baby with us next Christmas.

The Christmas season has fallen at a very vulnerable time of my pregnancy, with the terrifying 23 week mark just a few ticks of the new year clock away. My fear of this baby dying is, I would say, quite extreme at this moment and I know I won't see myself clear of it until she reaches the point of viability, probably not even then. How many ways can I compel her to stay in there? I've been tempted to grab a needle and thread and conduct my own cervical suture procedure so she couldn't get out no matter how hard she tried. I'm struggling to sit with this 'wait and see' approach that the preterm labour clinic are taking. They won't provide any preventative treatment or intervention unless they see evidence of the cervix shortening. I'm not quite that trusting. I want all of the interventions. It still feels like they're taking chances I'm desperately uncomfortable taking. But I have to trust them. That's what everyone keeps telling me. But that kind of trust is hard to cultivate let alone maintain alongside this level of terror.

Leslie has two weeks home from work and we plan to do some things around the house and take the time to enjoy each other's company. I'm feeling well right now, really well, I just wish I could shake the feeling that my world is only a breath away from crashing down around me.

Hope project

My mum has been busily conducting her own little 'hope' project over the last few weeks. She's a very talented seamstress, crafter and general clever-dick, and she has been knitting the most gorgeous outfits for our little baby as a way of holding onto hope that she will arrive safely enough to wear them. When you're too petrified to hope for yourself it is so nice when others are able to take over and do the hoping on your behalf. I know a lot of people are hoping for us right now. If you are one of them, can I just say that we are so grateful.

These little clothes are too adorable not to post bragging photos of, so here are some pictures of what we hope to be able to dress our little daughter in when she arrives.

On sharing

I sent Christmas cards far and wide this week. In them, I thanked people for whatever kindnesses they had sent our way during the last harrowing year. I took the opportunity to announce my pregnancy to a number of people who had fallen by the wayside - acquaintances, really, that were almost friends, but who faded into the distance as I withdrew out of their lives and into myself these past months.

I didn't want to share the news for my sake, for the hearty congratulations. The fact that I've left it 20 weeks without even mentioning my pregnancy to some people illustrates how cautious I feel about sharing the news with anyone whose heart I don't implicitly know. But this baby, like her big brother Max, deserves to be known and celebrated, no matter what happens from here. If she dies, she deserves to be mourned. I know that must sound morbid to some of you, but that's just how it is - I plan for my daughter's death as much as I plan for her birth, for that's all I know. My entire experience of motherhood is one where birth and death share the same unforgettable moment. And all the while I hope to god she can't translate my thoughts for I've become so superstitious and I don't want her to even know that death is an option for her. If I think it does she know it? If so, how on earth do I stop thinking it when it feels like such a real possibility? I don't dare to even mention the fact that it's possible for a baby to be born too soon in case she's listening. Don't get any ideas, baby. You have to stay there whether you like it or not.

In response to my Christmas cards came a couple of text messages of appreciation and well wishes. Of course I don't object to the congratulations - to people's genuine displays of hope and happiness for us. I want all of those things for us and our baby. What I don't want are the empty promises and thoughtless platitudes that accompany my admissions of doubt and fear. 'We are hopeful, but cautiously so...' was the sentiment I expressed in the cards, meaning that we are very aware that we are not guaranteed a living baby at the end of this. What I received in return was a couple of 'I understand your apprehension but you have to think positively and trust that all will be well this time!' That particular chestnut was from someone who welcomed their own first baby into the world this year, who is currently enjoying the fruits of 'normal' motherhood.

Deep breath.

Do I? DO I? How can anyone ask me to trust that anything will ever be 'well' again after my darling baby boy was so quickly, so cruelly snatched from his mother's grasp? Am I supposed to just forget the fact that it ever happened? To endure this pregnancy without any apprehension would be akin to a pathological fantasy, and though I would love to be able to tell myself that lightning doesn't strike twice or that the universe will right the scales by providing me with some balancing good fortune, the reality of my situation is that no one, not even the foremost experts in the field of maternal/fetal medicine, can promise me, or will even dare to hint, that it won't, that it can't. 'We don't have a crystal ball'. That's what they say. So what's with the lay people's rainbows and sunbeams? How do they know? They don't understand my apprehension. They don't understand it at all.

It's been months since I've felt this call to anger. This is mostly because month by painful month I've shed myself of contact with those who proved themselves unable to sit with my pain and uncertainty and surrounded myself with only those who were willing to accept and abide with me through that hopelessness. Those people can whisper into my ear 'it's OK to hope' or 'there's a good chance everything will be OK this time'. Those people can have happy conversations with me about the things we will do when this little girl comes home with us in May. They've earned that right. They wouldn't suggest that positive thinking would have any bearing on the outcome of this pregnancy. Why? Because it's bloody mad to think so, that's why. If I found a copy of The Secret on their bedside table I'd hit them over the head with it and hope they'd thank me for it later. What I think has nothing to do with it. If Max taught us anything it was that we know nothing at all of anything.

But what do you do with the well-meaning acquaintances, family members, colleagues and strangers who spout the bullshit and impose on you the power of crystals or positive affirmations to change your fate? You know they're just trying to make you feel better, but how do you make them understand that it's not their job, that it's not what you want from them? How do you tell them that such sentiments sting and make it seem like what you are feeling is not 'correct' or 'right'? How do you balance wanting the world to know about your growing little baby and not wanting them to have anything to do with it at all?

I suppose, like all of this, I grin and bear it. I respond where I can. I vent when I can't. I breathe. I wish. I hope, bit by bit, day by day.

A moment of unreserved joy

The week before Christmas has brought us tidings of great joy, so to speak, with the milestone of our 20 week ultrasound finally arriving. I was so nervous for this scan, hyper-vigilant that something terrible would be revealed. The truth is, I wait for something terrible to be revealed every day of this pregnancy, but on that day, like the few that have passed since, nothing terrible came to pass and instead Leslie and I were relieved and ecstatic to find that our little baby is doing extremely well in there, growing strong and kicking all the expected developmental goals.

The TWO HOURS we spent in the waiting room beforehand were rather anxiety-inducing and we became more and more stressed and irritable wondering how on earth the system could be so disorganised. While we waited I was asked to participate in a research project aimed at predicting pre-eclampsia, so getting blood taken and everything associated with that kept us occupied for about half an hour of that time, and made me feel a bit better from the knowledge that I was helping them stop terrible things from happening to other people.

I don't think I saw much of the baby on the monitor during the scan. I was too busy carefully watching the doctor's face as she measured thigh bones and zoomed into brain sections and highlighted blood flow in and around our baby's heart. She was a really nice doctor, but she so happened to have a face that looked concerned when she was concentrating. She kept frowning and screwing up her face and looking closer at the screen without saying anything, and every time she did I stopped breathing, terrified of what she might have been seeing. I think she was just being very thorough, which is good, but I wish she could have been so with a relaxed smile on her face, which would have put me much more at ease!

Our baby was lying with its little hands crossed one over the other and posed perfectly for all the pictures. I have been feeling lots and lots of movement over the last week and the scan confirmed that our baby is a squirmy one that likes to dance around and make the most of all the space it is currently enjoying.

The scan this week took the place of my usual pre-term labour clinic appointment, and so I was subject to yet another transvaginal ultrasound to check the length of my cervix, which is, thankfully, still very long and closed. That's the way it has to stay during these crucial next few weeks and I desperately wish they'd intervene and stitch it or staple it shut, or put me in traction upside down so the baby can't possibly come out. I know a lot more about the old cervix than I did before, but I still don't trust it. I just hope that this constant surveillance is enough to deter it from making any premature moves.

Our annoyance about being kept waiting for so long soon dissipated as we became increasingly intoxicated by the little tidbits of good news the doctor sent our way. Cleft palate? No. Excellent! Cerebellum present and accounted for? Yippee!

Hands in front of face - not a very clear picture, baby!

We were in two minds about finding out the sex of the baby, well, at least I was. Leslie was pretty keen to find out, and I was too, it's just that I was afraid. I had assumed the baby was a boy all throughout the pregnancy so far. It felt right to be having another son, as that's what I had gotten used to, but I also worried I would be upset if it were a boy. I think I was scared I would start to think this baby was Max returned to me if it were another boy; that it would look exactly like him, be exactly like him. I don't know, it's hard to explain. Apart from those fears, the sex of the baby of course didn't matter to us in the way it seemed to matter to me with Max's pregnancy. It's funny how after you've lost a child all the things you once thought you would have wished for your baby get boiled down into a single, ever-repeating phrase: I just want a baby that's alive. You hope that by saying it enough it might just, possibly, in your wildest dreams, come true.

I just kept thinking how I want this baby, this beautiful, healthy, perfect, longed-for baby to live and to thrive, and to come home with us in good working order. That is my Christmas wish, my wish in a fountain or on a star, my prayer to the gods and heavens (all of them) and even Santa Claus if he got my letter. Hell, I'll wish on anything these days.

In the end we did find out the sex. I decided that we deserved the opportunity to have something tangible to celebrate in this pregnancy which is filled with so much uncertainty and fear. I wanted to have a day of celebration. I wanted to be able to start thinking about this baby as a real person without being afraid I would jinx the whole thing. I want the chance to do what normal pregnant women do - decorate a nursery, buy little toys and books, knit clothes and pick out names. And so, we asked the doctor to secretly write down the sex on a piece of paper that we could look at afterwards in a private moment. Neither of us wanted it blurted out in the room where we couldn't respond in the way we wanted to. After the scan was finished we hurried down to the cafe in the foyer, sat down, and set about opening up the CD case where she'd written on the back of the ultrasound photo. Butterflies were simmering in our stomachs and we decided to count to three before quickly flipping it over. I almost couldn't bare to look. Then, I glanced down, and next to a smiley face drawn in black biro was our revelation, and on reading it our hearts stopped:

We were suddenly having a baby girl...a little daughter...a sister for Max...to love and treasure. And we felt so joyous, so light, and so hopeful that for a little while that day everything else seemed to melt away. What a beautiful, joyous Christmas gift we've been given, and we felt that our darling Max was right there with us.

And so, a healthy baby girl to nurture and grow for what I hope will be the next 20 weeks. We are so delighted to share such a happy piece of news with all of our families and friends.

Sharing my experience of neonatal death

Last Wednesday I was asked by Anne from SANDS to accompany her to a midwifery professional development day at The Women's to speak about my experience as a newly (well, fairly newly) bereaved mother. A group of midwives were participating in a whole-day series of seminars about perinatal loss and were keen to hear from someone who had been there - someone who might be able to talk about the things midwives did that helped and the things they might be able to do differently in the future.

I jumped at the opportunity to speak. I was so heartened that they were intent on finding ways to improve their practices for bereaved parents and that this was considered by the hospital to be a valuable pursuit. Of course I was also very glad of the opportunity to talk about Max and to be recognised as his mother, something which happens less and less the further away from his birth and death I get.

It was much harder than I anticipated to come up with things to say. Lately I've had trouble finding the words to express anything much. I've noticed myself becoming quite insular as this pregnancy progresses, my worries and fears too big and unwieldy to even attempt to give voice to. As a measure of protection for myself, I imagine, I've also found it hard to talk or write about Max or my experience without him. The memory of profound and searing pain seems too great to invoke when so much is at stake. I'm tiptoeing through the days trying to anaesthetise my brain so that it cannot go back and so that it cannot go forward. Both are scary places for me right now.

I was so proud of myself for being able to do this, though. It was for me another way I could give something back, or to create something valuable from Max's life. Though I was absolutely emotionally exhausted afterwards I was very glad I was there that day. My story was received with great respect and many of the midwives present were visibly moved by the description of my experience and by the few photos I showed of Max during his short life. I received quite a few sincere hugs afterwards and much genuine gratitude that I had been brave enough to share such a painful, intimate experience with yet another room of strangers.

Here is the talk I presented that day, in memory of Max, and in gratitude to the people who had helped him into the world, and who helped me afterwards.

****

On 24th November last year I gave birth to a beautiful, perfect baby bay, Max. He was a long-awaited first baby, but he would not be mine to keep. With no warning, I went into spontaneous preterm labour at 23 weeks, and Max was born weighing only 682 grams. He died in his daddy's arms when his heart finally stopped beating almost six hours later. Though his life was brief, his impact on our lives was profound and ongoing. A year on, Max is still very real to me. Sometimes I can still feel his feather-weight in my arms.

When I arrived at this hospital that day with back pain and cramping I had no inkling of what was about to unfold. I was not prepared with support people or even a change of clothes. I shared the very worst day of my life with a room full of strangers - obstetricians, midwives, neonatologists. Though the shock meant that so much of what happened that day is a blur, I remember vividly the small things some of those strangers did to help and support me. The things I remember most weren't grand gestures, but they will stay with me forever.

At only 23 weeks pregnant I was very unprepared for labour. I hadn't attended any antenatal classes yet and I could never have been adequately prepared for the fact that I would have to go through that process with the knowledge that all the pain would be for nothing, that my baby would die. The midwife who looked after me for the majority of the labour seemed to know exactly what to say and when to say it. She would say 'now this is going to happen' or 'now it's going to feel like this' and it really did. She never lied to me, but she also didn't overwhelm me. She told me not to be scared and I trusted her. She helped me feel like I had some measure of control over a situation in which I had no control. She made me feel as if I was not alone, and that meant so much. Having the same midwife for the majority of the labour was really important. I don't remember her leaving my side.

The midwives who cared for me sat with us after Max was born for what seemed like hours as we held him in our arms. They genuinely shared our sorrow and they expressed their regret and sadness openly. Those two midwives were the only people on earth who met our Max aside from the two of us and it has given me great comfort to know his life had meaning for them, too - that we're not the only ones who will carry his memory.

We were fortunate to have a midwife who was a talented photographer. As she sat with us that lonely night she took some beautiful, tender photos of us all together. I can't begin to tell you how deeply those photos are treasured, though of course there could never be enough photos. Those images were the greatest gift we could have been given.

Other mementos we were given, which are so valuable to us, are imprints of Max's footprints and the hospital ID tag he was wearing. We were given the sweetest outfit to dress him in. This helped to normalise our experience. At all times Max was treated as tenderly as a live baby - always with great respect. My partner was offered to cut the umbilical cord when Max was born, something else that recognised our role as 'real' parents of a 'real' baby.

The midwives' gentle encouragement and guidance was very important to me. I was in shock and looking for someone to tell me what to do and how to be. I needed someone to tell me what was OK and what was 'normal' as I didn't know the answers to any of the questions I was asked, such as whether I wanted to see Max and hold him after he was born. Or rather, I thought I would want those things but I didn't know if that was OK. Without being pushy the midwife made it seem like those would be normal things to do and I really needed that reassurance and direction.

Having spoken to other bereaved mothers over the last year, I feel very grateful for the compassionate care I received from all of the health professionals at the hospital, and for the protocols that enabled them to respond to our situation in such a careful manner. I was very sad to realise afterwards, though, that the reason the staff responded so well was because our baby was not the only one they'd seen die. It is absolutely heartbreaking to know that they'd done it all before, and have probably done it all since. Nevertheless, I was so grateful to benefit from that shared experience.

Of course over the past year I've also had a lot of time to think about the things I'd like to have happened differently, and while I have no specific complaints about experience, there are some things I have reflected on in hindsight that I'd like to highlight for, if God forbid, I had to go through this experience again.

I wish some of the questions I'd been asked were repeated a few times. As I was in shock, exhausted, and in a drugged haze, I don't think I took a lot of what was said in, or I didn't realise its significance at the time. For example, the midwife asked me if I wanted to bath Max shortly after he was born and for some reason I said no. I really wish someone had asked me again as I regret not having had that experience with him. I don't think I knew what I was saying or why I was saying it.

I wish someone had explained to me what death was like. My son's was the first dead body I'd seen, let alone touched. I couldn't have articulated it then but I was scared and ignorant of what would happen to his dear little body after he died. I thought he would disintegrate before my eyes, go horribly stiff and rigid, or start leaking blood out of his mouth or nose, and I know now that this fear contributed to me wanting to leave the hospital before any of these horrible things started happening to my poor little boy. I wish someone had demystified this for me as I regret feeling as if I had to go home and leave my baby the very next morning.

I wish someone had come to talk to me to discuss the very scary question of 'what now?' before we walked out of the hospital with empty arms. I wish they had made sure that I was really ready to go because in actual fact we just didn't know what to do except to go home. For example, it didn't occur to me that I would be allowed to invite family and friends in to meet Max even after he'd died. I also didn't think to change his clothes so I could keep something of what he had worn, what had touched his precious skin. When we left a new staff shift had just begun and a nurse I'd never seen before came to take Max away - the last time I ever saw him. No one told me exactly what would happen to my baby after we left the room and I didn't get to see where he'd be taken. Leaving him so abruptly was the most distressing moment of my life, far more distressing than the moment that I realised he had died. That I survived to tell you about it today still truly astonishes me.

I wish there were emergency packs of toiletries for women in my situation. After Max was born I just wanted to shower and wash my hair and clean my teeth, but no one could find me a toothbrush or a hairbrush. Those things sound silly now, but I'm sure they would have helped, if only momentarily.

Lastly, I wish I'd been told about some of the external organisations that could have offered their services to me whilst I was still in the hospital. Places like SIDS and Kids and SANDS have a lot of literature, especially about how to create memories with your baby while you still have the chance, but it's too late to find out about these things after you've already gone home. This kind of support is time specific and I wish the hospital had provided it to me earlier. Likewise, there are places like Bears of Hope that provide care packages for parents so they don't have to leave the hospital with empty arms like we did. I would also dearly loved to have known about Heartfelt, an organisation of volunteer photographers who could have come to take professional photos of our family while there was still time. We can't get those moments back so it is crucial for parents to know about these things straight away.

If I could end on perhaps what has been a very special moment I experienced from a wonderful member of your profession recently. At the moment I am 18 weeks pregnant with a little brother or sister for Max, which is a whole other anxious story. However my first hospital appointment with a midwife at 12 weeks, by stroke of fate, happened to be with one of the midwives who'd cared for me on the day Max was born. I can't tell you how much it meant to me that she remembered us, and because she'd seen us go through this experience she really understood the stress and fear that have consequently become a part of this pregnancy. I felt known and understood, and not having to tell my story from scratch to a stranger was about the best thing that's happened during my care for this pregnancy so far. She even offered, personally, to accompany me back to the birth suites where Max was born in the new year so that I can deal with some of the fear and trauma I might associate with the place before this baby is born.

These are the things that count. It is the small kindnesses and moments of true empathy and compassion that make a difference.

Thank you for making a difference to me; to dear little Max.

Just the beginning

The storm of emotions I've experienced since Max's birthday came and went has been truly exhausting. With my thoughts constantly oscillating between the present day and those early days one year ago I've felt in a bit of a dizzy tailspin, unable to stop whirring about in order to focus on anything or anyone much. I've been irritable and impatient with Leslie, which is out of character for me, and generally feeling all churned up. I can't seem to stick with one single emotion, either. There's been a resurgence of shock and disbelief, the beginnings of confusion as I wonder how on earth a whole year has passed in the blink of an eye, and the ongoing sense of loneliness and longing I have felt since Max died - that pervasive sense that perhaps nothing has any point, or at least any that I will ever be able to find again.

It was very special to have my mum here for the weekend of Max's birthday, and it touches my heart to know all the ways in which she, too, is incorporating her first grandchild into her life. Not normally one to express her emotions at all, she wrote the most beautiful, heartfelt poem to Max in a birthday card that I will treasure forever. She also gave us the most beautiful gift to help us remember Max each year on his birthday. It's a ceramic angel candle holder, with a space at the front to put a numbered candle. This year the number one sits proudly in the space, it's colourful dots lending an air of quiet celebration to an event that will always be so bittersweet for us.

My lovely, thoughtful friend Leah also gave me a very special gift, which meant more to me than she had anticipated. It is a little doll made from felt, wrapped in a little green cocoon. The thing is that as soon as I saw it, it reminded me so much of Max. This is exactly how he looked when he was born and wrapped in a little fleece pouch by the nurses. The likeness is uncanny. I was really taken aback that she had managed to find such a thing, and that so much meaning could be packed into one little package.

Max's very special aunty Kate, who was there when he as born, and her husband Mark, gave me a beautiful yellow rose plant - yellow being the colour of remembrance (we had everyone wear yellow ribbons in memory of Max at his funeral). I couldn't wait to get home and plant it and watch it grow, as I have the other rose plant we've been tending to in Max's honour.

My good friends Pauline and Katie also spoiled us all with various sweets and cakes they'd baked especially for the occasion. I know their goodies were very much appreciated and admired!

That Max was remembered and celebrated for the amazing little boy he was means the world to me. I received thoughtful text messages of support from a couple of people I have not been in touch with all year who still remembered that the date was a special one. That both surprised and heartened me. The most unlikely and unexpected people have made wondrous efforts to abide with us in our pain over the past year and as a result our friendships and relationships have grown and changed, as we have. Most have changed for the better - I've become closer with many people I might have previously considered acquaintances. On the flip side, sadly some friendships have faltered and been lost - something that seems to be an all-too-common phenomenon amongst bereaved parents.

The passing of a year feels like it should be the end of something, but of course it is just the beginning - the beginning of a lifetime without my baby boy, with each year that will pass a regretful refrain of what might have, what should have been.

To darling Max, from Nanna

Here is a beautiful poem my mum wrote for Max on his birthday - words we will treasure forever.

Today is your first birthday.
Today you should have been blowing out your candle on the cake we would have made for you (well we would have helped you blow out the candle).
Today we should have been singing happy birthday to you.
Today you should have been tearing at the paper on your presents.
Today you should have been squealing with excitement.
Today you should have been playing with your new toys.
Today you are not here to do these things, that I so looked forward to...
Today you will celebrate your birthday with your other family members who are taking care of you in your world.
Those that can't be here either, to celebrate your birthday with us.
Today you will be watching over us, as we give thanks for having you at all, even for a short time, a time better than no time at all.
Today you will look at your family from afar, smiling, knowing that you will always be in our hearts and in our thoughts and so very dearly loved.

On your first birthday

To my little birthday boy,

Your darling little mouth. Your kissable, soft cheeks. Your tender baby hands. Your perfect innocent heart. I long for every part of you today on your birthday.

It's hard to believe it's been a year since I held you - so briefly - because to me, your mummy, you are still so real, so present. Sometimes I can still feel the feather-weight of you in my arms if I close my eyes and imagine you there where you belong.

You are the thought behind my every word and gesture. There's nothing I do where you are not with me, inside my aching heart and all around me.

This time last year we still had hope that you would live. You held on inside me for as long as you could, right up until the very end of the day until night came and everything in the world was calm and peaceful. I know you did everything you could to stay with us - taking a big, strong breath and beating that wonderful big heart of yours - but the challenges you faced were insurmountable. We could none of us survive what you faced. I am so thankful that you tried.

The moments we shared, though there could never have been enough of them, were the most intense, unbelievable and precious of my whole life. I could not believe that you were mine, and as I held you I could not believe how anyone expected me to let you go. I still can't comprehend how this became our fate, my little one. I don't know how I got out of the hospital without you, or how I've ever stepped back inside since.

I wish that you had seen the sun. I'm amazed that it continues to shine without you.

I wish that you could have opened your eyes, just once, to see your adoring mummy and daddy's faces. I only hope you felt our love and adoration in other ways.

I hope you did not experience a single moment of our sorrow. I hope we could at least protect you from that.

I wish - how I wish - that you were still here with me today. I wish you knew what it was like to open birthday presents and blow out candles like all the other little boys and girls I know. I can't look at other children without imagining it is you I see instead.

You have my heart, Max, inside your baby hands, today and always.

With all the love I have to give,

Your Mummy

xoxox

If I could turn back time

If I could turn back time.

If I could find a way.

How many times those phrases have gone through my head today.

On this night last year I was on the cusp of a tomorrow I could not have imagined. It was the 23rd of November, as it is today, and I was at work complaining of cramps in my stomach and joking about what a low pain threshold I had. I sent Leslie a text message, joking, saying 'if these are practice contractions then I'm in trouble when the real ones hit!' I joked about contractions but I never once - not once - considered that I might be actually having them.

If only I'd known.

If I'd gone to the hospital that night, instead of the next morning, would it have made a difference? Would they have been able to stop them? Would Max still be here? The what-ifs and the if-onlys are back in full force today. I haven't seen those for a few months. I forgot how excruciating they are, how all consuming.

On this night last year Max was still safe inside me. He was still alive. I still thought that a few months from then I would be bringing my baby boy home with me. We'd just bought a brand new cot. We'd just bought a brand new pram. I thought it was just a night like any other. I thought the stomach cramps were just another unpleasant side effect of pregnancy. God knows I'd had enough side effects up until that point.

Today hurts much more than I expected. It's not 'the' day of Max's birthday that I have been long approaching. Instead it feels even sadder. Today marks the last day I was a particular kind of person - innocent, hopeful, naive. I didn't know what I had to lose. I didn't know that I was about to lose it. How can that be? How can I get back to that night, that place, that girl?

These thoughts are all pervasive today, all confused between scenes of back then and now, and all the while I'm disbelieving that a year has passed. A year has passed and I still achingly long for my baby. My poor, beautiful baby. My darling little boy.

Birthdays

Today I spent the morning helping my sister-in-law prepare goodies for her little boy's second birthday party this Saturday. We had such a lovely time baking and packing treat bags, but amongst the fun I couldn't help but feel a lingering sadness that our little boy's birthday BBQ, which we are holding on the 24th, will be missing it's most important guest - our special little boy himself.

I'm finding it difficult to feel comfortable calling the day his 'birthday'. The word sounds too frivolous and happy. In my head I've been calling it the anniversary of his birth, but that doesn't sit right with me either. Why shouldn't he be able to have a 'birthday' like everyone else? In the end, though, it doesn't matter what we call it. 24th November is Max's special day, and a special day for us because it was the day he came into our lives and changed us forever. It's the only day he was ever alive in the outside world. It's the day he took his only breath before returning to the stars from where I'm sure he came.

That we've lived one year without Max is something I can't quite believe. I guess the last few months have crept up on me as I've been so preoccupied with being sick. This week I've been doing a lot of reflecting, and not all of it in a good way. Much of it has been of this kind: 'on this day last year I had no idea of the tragedy that was just about to befall me'. I've learned that my body would have already been priming itself for labour it's just that I didn't know, I didn't recognise the signs. I want to go back, knowing what I now know. It feels as if any window I had to go back and change things will close once Max has been gone for a year. I won't be able to say 'this time last year he was alive' for very much longer.

I wanted to hold a gigantic memorial service for Max's birthday. In truth I want the whole world to stop, and if it wasn't going to of its own accord then I was going to create an occasion that would make people stop and remember that Max was here, and that he mattered, and that he matters still. Apart from the fact that I've been too sick to organise such an event, and that nothing I organised would have come close to matching what I had in my imagination, I also realised I'd be fighting a losing battle. Not everyone will remember Max. At least not everyone will remember Max in the way I want them to. I have to learn to accept that, for my own sake. Others, like my friends on this blog, will remember him though they have less reason to than many of the people I know in my 'real' life.

So instead of a statewide celebration, Leslie and I are holding a small BBQ at a pretty park not far from our house. I don't just want it to be a BBQ, but I don't know how to make sure that Max is included. It doesn't feel right to have party items or first birthday balloons, though I'd like him to have those. Perhaps I should just take a few of his special things, get a few balloons that I could release skyward. How do you have a 'celebration' that is not a celebration, but something quite different? Something bittersweet?

Preterm Labour Surveillance Clinic

Sounds like some kind of police forensic department, doesn't it? With all the monitoring and the 'surveillance'. After my first visit a few days ago I realised it was going to be about as personal as one too. The doctor was very business-like, with little warmth or emotion. I know she's not there to hold my hand, that she's there to make sure my baby lives, but I was still taken aback by the clinical nature of the visit. It was all gawking and probing and vague. It didn't feel comforting. It didn't feel reassuring. I left quite overwhelmed with a whole bunch of questions I now can't ask until my next appointment. This is one frustrating thing about a public hospital - you don't get a phone number for your doctor and you don't have any way of contacting them outside of appointment times.

The results of my examination were as reassuring as they could have been, though. At 14.5 weeks my cervix is still long and closed. That's the best we can hope for. I think she said it's 35cm. They also test for infections and bacteria but you don't get those results on the day. If there are high levels of any bacteria or evidence of any infection they will call me and get me to start taking a prescription of antibiotics.

This is a very medicalised pregnancy. There's speculums, torches, ultrasound probes. It's no worse than a pap smear, though. And given they're not much into the small talk my first appointment was over pretty quickly! I return in a fortnight for more of the same. I'm quite anxious about the whole process. While I know that all this monitoring is for the best I can't help but be apprehensive that on one of these visits, in the not too distant future, they're going to tell me that there is something very wrong. I just can't imagine how things will work out differently this time. I just can't get the mental image into my head that this baby will stay in there, will stay alive.

It's an absolute rollercoaster.

Alongside these anxieties and dreads I am feeling better in myself, though. I'm trying to keep as busy as I possibly can as I still seem to fall into a low mood when I'm sitting with nothing to do. But I've been active and functioning like a normal person for a good 10 days now. I've Christmas shopped (yes, already!), I've cleaned the house,  I've washed my hair, I've eaten food, I've visited friends, I've been sleeping better. I'm so grateful for all of this. I'm so grateful to the magic little white pill that has quietened the intense despair and the hopelessness.

Today I was visited by an outreach nurse from the psychiatric clinic I was admitted to. It's a wonderful support service they offer, and home visits are fully covered by my health insurance. The woman that is visiting me is in charge of the mother/baby unit there. I'm not yet sure how she is going to help me, but I feel that she will. It is also nice to build a relationship with her in case I do need extra support later down the track. I know the clinic is there, and that they can help.

Next week Leslie and I are spending the week in Ocean Grove, in anticipation of our Max's birthday. We don't have much planned yet as we don't know how we are going to feel as the week approaches. I'll write more about this soon, and more about Max and the year that has somehow, impossibly, passed since I last held him. One year, two babies. That was not part of our carefully-hatched life plan.

Q&A

Two months is a long time to catch up on blogging. Now that I am feeling a little better I hope to be back here with my usual regularity, but I wanted to just fill you in on a few facts that I know a few of you are wondering.

When is the baby due?
10th May 2013.

Who is your doctor?
Senior obstetrician, the amazing Dr Fiona Cullinane from the Royal Women's Hospital.

Where will you be having the baby?
The Royal Women's Hospital in Parkville, where Max was born.

What kind of care are you receiving?
Plenty of it. I've been having fortnightly visits and ultrasounds with the obstetrician, and from this coming Monday I will attend weekly for tests in the preterm labour surveillance clinic.

What is the preterm labour surveillance clinic?
It is a special clinic that runs weekly to keep an eye on women at risk of delivering prematurely. They undertake cervical surveillance using transvaginal ultrasound, they test for infections and bacteria (the leading causes of premature birth), and I'm not sure what else. I'll have a better idea of what this involves after my first visit. It's anxiety-producing, and overwhelming, to have so much medical attention, but I know it is all for the best. I am also seeing my GP every few weeks, and am continuing to see my psychiatrist each week. I'm supposed to be getting support from a midwife from the mother/baby unit at the psychiatric clinic I was in, but they didn't turn up for their first visit today, which I thought was about the worst thing a psychiatric outreach worker could do!

Are you 'showing' yet?
God, I hate that term. But no, not really. I lost some weight through all the vomiting, but have almost caught that back up, helped along by the four butter croissants I just ate.

What do the cats think of the news?

As you can see they so far seem largely unaffected. I don't know what they've been saying out of earshot amongst themselves, though. Will dinner still be served at the same time? That's probably the foremost question on their minds.

Over to you. If anyone has any questions I haven't addressed then feel free to ask them in the comments below!

The Troubles

This blog has been neglected. I have been sick, so very sick, that my life has been on hold, along with everything in it, including my relationship, my friendships, my household, my work. The last eight weeks I will refer to as 'The Troubles', because that's what they've been. That's how they'll be remembered.

I didn't have a trouble-free pregnancy with Max. Far from it. Unfortunately, this pregnancy has panned out in the exact same manner, marked violently by the suffering of hyperemesis gravidarum, and distressingly, the depths of a major depression.

What I should say first is that this baby appears to be healthy, despite my suffering. This is important. What I should also say is that I am still grateful for this chance, for this baby, although this gratitude has been overwhelmed so far by sickness, terror, hopelessness, and hospitalisation.

Firstly, the hyperemesis. It is so widely misunderstood. It resembles nothing like this 'morning sickness' I keep hearing pregnant women talk about. It transcends amelioration by ginger biscuits, black tea, and dry toast. It involves vomiting that goes beyond the kind that makes a funny story when you vomit one day on the train. It means you cannot eat or drink or move or speak. It requires IV re-hydration and strong medications you'd rather not take. It means you can't work, or socialise. It means you can do nothing but lie in a darkened room and count the hours, the days and the weeks away, wishing to be put out of your misery, questioning the decision you made to get pregnant again, feeling like it will all be for nothing when this baby dies too.

The nausea and vomiting has been bad. I've felt more like I've got a terminal disease than I'm pregnant. I've been taking Maxolon, Doxylamine, Vitamin B6 and Ondansetron since about 6 weeks, when it kicked in with a vengeance, ending up with me at the emergency department numerous times feeling like I would surely die. The drugs have helped, especially with the vomiting, but it's not until the last couple of days that I've felt like eating or that I haven't felt the pangs of nausea as constant background noise in my body. If I don't take the medication on time, the vomiting returns with a vengeance. With Max, the sickness didn't begin to improve until around 16 weeks, which is the usual course of the illness. That's still a lot of weeks to go. These 13 weeks have been so long.

Secondly, the depression...the depression has been something else entirely. Not that it's unfamiliar to me. I've suffered major depression most of my adult life, probably longer. But the speed with which I went down, and the depths to which I fell, shocked and scared me, and those around me. I'd been previously stable on a 20mg dose of Lexapro and weekly sessions with my psychiatrist. I hoped all of this would not come crashing down, but it did. It's been the roughest few weeks of my life.

During my pregnancy with Max I also became severely depressed, and as a result, my psychiatrist increased my medication dosage to 30mg when I was about 13 weeks pregnant with him. And then Max was born prematurely. No one can say for sure it was the antidepressant that caused this to happen. In fact, all of the experts I've consulted have assured me that it wasn't, and that what happened doesn't fit the risk profile for the drug (there are other risks associated with it, though, being a Category C drug, which my doctors and I had made informed decisions about). But it was the one definitive thing I've clung to that I did 'wrong', and so the increased Lexapro dose has rather a nasty reputation in my mind.

So, when I started going downhill this time our approach was to proceed with caution. Not to increase the drug dose until absolutely necessary. It did become necessary, about two weeks ago, after I was admitted to the Albert Road Clinic, a private psychiatric hospital, in a state of absolute despair and distress, unable to go on, unable to function in any way, shape or form. I have to say that the last two weeks have been some of the darkest days of my life, and that's even considering the time I've spent grieving for Max over the last eleven months. Depression is such a debilitating illness, and such a scary one. There have been times when I have feared I would not survive it.

I write today because I've had some small reprieve as a result of intense treatment and new medication. I could not have done this even ten days ago. I could not have done anything to help myself. I feel that I'm far from out of the woods, but the new medication has given me a glimmer of hope that things won't get any worse.

I hated being in the hospital. I felt helpless and abandoned and scared and ashamed and guilty that I was causing everyone who loves me to worry so much. But one good thing came out of it. My psychiatrist sought the advice of a specialist perinatal psychiatrist regarding my treatment. I could not have been more bloody relieved to see him. He is an expert in the field of treating pregnant women with various mood disorders and mental illnesses, including ones far more serious and debilitating than mine. He was the greatest guy. Just the greatest. He took my situation very seriously, but he was also incredibly reassuring that there was a lot we could do to make it better; that we were at the beginning of the road of possible steps, not at the end of a hopeless one that I would have to continue to endure.

There was too much information, too much discussion, to go into here. It was about causes, and treatments, and consequences, and about a giant balancing act between my health and that of the baby. We are treating my depression with a different drug, a 'safe' drug, at a higher dose. The drug has no known associations with preterm labour, but untreated depression does. The drug is working. I am at home. I am eating and drinking. I am dressed and functioning. This is what the experts say is best for my baby - a healthy, functioning mother. I have to trust them. I will not be fit to look after a baby, should this baby live, without this treatment.

There's still some way to go. I'm still so much on the edge, with so little resilience in the tank. And I'm so scared. I'm scared I will not cope with the months ahead. I'm scared I will not cope with another dead baby, and then sometimes I'm scared that I will not cope with a living one. I didn't expect to be so scared. So utterly, utterly terrified.

And where is Max in all this? I haven't been writing to him, or about him, on this blog, but he is here with me as present as he ever was. He is part of everything I experience and feel. He is part of this pregnancy. God, I wish he were here. I wish my baby were here. As the anniversary of his birth approaches this is more true than ever. November was going to be a rough month without all this other stuff. With it, it's not surprising that life has been pretty unbearable, that I've been so helpless and needy.

I want to feel better. I'm trying so hard. But this is not easy. None of this is easy.

12 precious weeks

This morning I went for my 12 week scan.

There's a baby in there, despite my greatest fears. It looks healthy and happy. It has a low risk of downs syndrome (1 in 6525). It was jumping about. Two little hands. Two little feet. A perfect profile. It is already practicing swallowing.

It's not the first time we've seen baby. I've been getting fortnightly scans, but they are just brief ones to check the heartbeat, and the pictures aren't worth showing. It's amazing to see its growth from one to the next, though. The baby is growing so rapidly. At the moment it is measuring past its dates. I'm 12 weeks 6 days, and it is measuring 13 weeks 4 days. It's a big baby. A big, strong one, I hope.

Here's what's been causing all the trouble over the last eight weeks (more about that soon):

Three words

For over three months, maybe more, I have longed to say three words - I am pregnant. But I wasn't. So I couldn't. I didn't imagine I'd ever get to say those words again.

For those months, which stretched ahead to me in what seemed like perpetual succession, I just had to roll my tongue around those words as if I were learning all over again how to write, tracing their outline with my pencil, afraid to press too hard lest the mark they make not quite look the way I'd intended it to; in case I didn't recognise what had come from my own mouth, or hand. I'd practice them silently so I'd be ready, just in case. I thought it wasn't likely, but I maintained a fading glimmer of hope. That tiny sliver of hope made it OK for me to wake up in the morning. It won't always be like this, was my mantra. It might not always be like this.

Now I am pregnant. I simply am. And yet those words are no easier to say. When I say them out loud or see them on the page they mock me. They embarrass me. They make me cower with guilt. And yet when I saw that test, two glorious pink lines, I could have collapsed with relief, with joy, with hope, and happiness. The feelings are all mixed up. But so are our lives. Nothing is where it should be, nothing is as we expected. So I accept this confusion without judgement. I allow the fear and the suffering. I embrace the warmth and the light. How I embrace the warmth and the light.

I have known about this pregnancy for two days. They have been the lightest two days in my living history. The complications are there - the connections that will be made with grief and uncertainty and stone cold fear. But they're a vague undercurrent right now. They are something separate. Let me have these days, I say silently to myself. Let me just have these few, precious, happy days, before this news becomes linked with what came before.

I am so happy. We are so happy. We are delighted, and grinning and hopeful.

But we are not healed. Please don't think that we are healed.

We have been given a second chance. But it is just a chance. These cells multiplying inside me will do their job without me, despite me. But they offer no guarantees. There are no guarantees. But there's a chance. And if a chance is all we've got, then a chance is what we'll take.

We won't talk of babies. Not now. Not yet. It is not our place to get carried away. That kind of enthusiasm is for the lucky majority. We are not them. But we are lucky still. We may be less lucky than most, but we are luckier than many others, for whom months of trying to conceive does not end in the result they long to see. I think of them, most of all, now.

We have love, and we have hope. We know those two things will get us through any challenges the coming months bring. It is not going to easy. It is going to be very, very hard. We will take this one day at a time. We will take the photos we did not take before. We will celebrate even the smallest milestones. We will try to experience this moment by perfect moment. And we'll pray to who ever will listen that those moments will last.

A special day for daddy

It's a special day for Max's daddy. It's Fathers Day. It's a hard day for a daddy who doesn't get to spend it with his son. Sometimes the daddies get forgotten in the ferocious din of grieving. Max's daddy doesn't cry easily, he doesn't really have any way in which he draws attention to himself, even when he needs it most. He's the most resilient, self-sufficient person I know. And that's the very reason how I know how much Max's absence hurts, because despite this, it is written all over his face, in a faraway stare or a furrowed brow. We like to think our hurts lie secretly hidden inside us, but of course they don't. A wound this size is there for all to see, especially those who love us, who know us so well as to be able to pick up on the slightest change in a tone of voice or a glance or a sigh.

My dearest, darling Leslie. I know.

What I also know is that you would be the best daddy in the world. You were to Max. You will be, I hope with all my heart, again. I'm so sorry you can't do any of the things you planned to with our little boy. It breaks my heart to think of that, even when I think it couldn't possibly be broken any more.  But I want you to know that you did everything you could with him, and for him. I will never forget looking over to you and seeing our baby in your arms straight after he was born. I was in shock. I was afraid to hold him, so you took him so gently from me and held him tight. You kept him safe, and warm, and loved. You made sure he was not alone for an instant. And you made sure that I was not alone for an instant, either, on that day, or on any day since.

Max knew you. If there's one thing I believe, it's that. He was comforted by your touch and by your voice and by your love.

You are no less a father today for Max's absence. This makes you more of a father to me. You loved our baby, and you had to let him go. That is the greatest, though most painful act of love imaginable.

Because Max can't be here, I honour you and everything you are to us, on his behalf. You are our safe harbour on a stormy day. You never falter. Rest, today, and let me take the helm. Max and I have you in our embrace. We love you so very, very, very much.

For all the dads who have lost children

Nine months without you

My darling Max,

It's been nine months without you. And what does it feel like? Well, most of the time now it just feels like my new 'normal'. The days still pass without me having much awareness of where the time goes, just as they did in the early days after I lost you. But I feel like doing more things more of the time, I guess. I can hold an idea in my mind for more than a few hours at a time. I've stopped saying if tomorrow comes and started assuming, as I once did, that it will come; that I and all of the people I love will more than likely survive to see the sun rise again.

I see things very much in terms of this concept of likelihood these days. I am very much aware of risk, and illness, and death, and uncertainty, and randomness, and fear. Many times this has threatened to overwhelm me. When you died I lost everything I had ever believed in. I lost the ability to trust. Most of the time, now, I am able to talk myself down from the ledge of hysteria that tells me my world is about to come crashing down, again, around me. This is because I have survived, against my every expectation, things that I would have once thought would kill me. I have tested my strength and I know my might. It's also because I have worked bloody hard, wringing out my heart and soul and mind to get my bearings in the world again; to begin to make some sense out of what it is all about. There is a very special doctor who has helped me so much. She helps to keep your mummy safe, and for that everyone who loves you, and your mummy, is very, very grateful.

When I go to visit her, you are very much alive in the room where we spend our precious hour. Apart from here at home, it is perhaps the only place I have in the world where you are real, and present, and welcomed without fear, without thoughtless commentary. We talk of other things, of course, but all with the understanding that you are there beside me, invisible to most anyone else, but vivid, oh so vivid, to me.

I wonder how many others see you as I do, how many others see you at all. When I stare at myself in the mirror I see you behind my eyes. You inhabit me still, just as you did for the precious five months you were alive. Who else can see you there? When I think of you, as I do most moments of the day, the pain of your absence is heavy, but you are light. You are so light. You are my light, my solace, my guiding, twinkling star. People say it must be hard to think about you, and dream about you, and talk about you, and write about you, but they've got it all wrong. It's the easiest thing in the world. Talk of your pours from me from all the holes in my heart. It's a deluge. It washes me clean, warm and clean. The hurting is in the plugging it up, the conversations where you remain unspoken or unacknowledged. There is pain is in the nightly revelation I have before I go to sleep that you won't be there when I wake up in the morning, that still stings and burns and threatens to take my breath away. But to evoke you, the very essence of you, in a thousand different ways, is my healing salve.

Lots of people mummy knows have given birth to healthy, living babies this last couple of weeks. All of them, without exception, have been able to take their babies home. One was a few weeks premature. I overheard some people coo about how cute and tiny she would be, wearing doll's clothes. I swallowed hard. I thought of the most creative ways to derail that conversation. Nothing like a line about a dead baby to shut people the fuck up. But I swallowed that too. And then I left the room.

Some more babies are expected soon. Sometimes I fantasise about flushing my phone down the toilet when the text messages arrive while I'm trying to enjoy my breakfast. I simply do not want to know, and if that means cutting myself off from everyone but a select few people then that feels like an entirely reasonable solution to me right now. Who needs 'em? Of course I don't mean everyone - the few in my inner circle, including everyone who reads here on your special blog, know that these sentiments don't apply to them. They've earned the right to share fabulous news with me if they've been willing to sit and hold my hand, without taking issue or offence, while I cry during its delivery.

Because I am so concerned with doing the 'right' thing, the 'right' thing is what I do - I congratulate them, I send bubbly text messages of celebration that feel so inauthentic, so fake, that even my own words even begin to make me sick. I hate myself for it. I truly do. I'm too polite, too accommodating, for my own good. I'm a hypocrite. But I don't know how to act any other way, its not in my DNA. And, it's not my place. Who am I to rain on their glorious baby-making parade? But then again, I often think, who are they? Who are they to intrude upon my mind, my heart, with equally as little regard for the consequences?

I'm not happy for them. I'm not happy at all. I'm angry. I'm angry that I'm on someone's group text message list, that they want to shout their happy news to me from the rooftops, but don't care for an ounce of sensitivity in its delivery. Mostly, I just wish I didn't have to know, especially when it's concerning distant friends, relations or acquaintances. What possible benefit is there in this knowledge for either party? None, as far as I see it, especially since as soon as I receive the news,  I hear myself, almost sotto voce, express what I know to be the truth of how I feel. 'Guess I won't be seeing you again' is the sentiment. Yes, I cut them off. Just like that. I'm pruning the branches of my life, darling, so there is more room for you.

Nine months brings us close to Father's Day. I see your darling daddy flinch in anticipation of its sting. He's had a hard week. He's lost his job, and it was his last day today, and he doesn't know what to do next. He's like me, afraid of moving on because he doesn't know what the future holds. He's probably afraid of closing the door on a part of his life where he was once happy. Where he was once just a young professional guy with a heart unbroken. We both long for those times past, but at the same time we would never want them back again, because to do so would mean to erase you. Though the breathtaking pain of your absence is hard to bear, we both know that we'd do it all again for you, even knowing that you would not be ours to keep. We'd do it all again, because you changed our lives. You showed us love. You made us realise what we want most in the world. You strengthened our bond so that it is now unbreakable. You made us a family.

You are our gift, our prize, our heart's song. We love you so much. We miss you so much. You are our little son, still, forever. You are with us always and everywhere. We remember you. We give thanks for you. We mourn for you. We love you.

Your adoring Mummy. xoxox

Returning

I hadn't anticipated that the very sight of the building where Max was born would having me trembling, unable to catch my breath, and wanting to run outside into oncoming traffic. Or maybe I had anticipated it but had been trying to block it out. I spent the whole day before that hospital's annual memorial service last Wednesday feeling anxious as hell. I wanted to be there and yet I desperately did not want to go. And I had a good experience at that hospital, receiving the best care, from the most compassionate, knowledgeable professionals. I can only imagine how difficult it would be returning to the scene of the so-called crime had it been associated with mistakes, distrust and betrayal. If that were the case I could picture myself wanting to burn it down. I'm not shocked by my violent fantasies anymore, for what else could I expect of my thoughts these days except to be consumed with shockingly unexpected acts of destruction and trauma? That neural pathway's been well worn now. I assume everything will take the same path I did - the one surrounded by wailing and emergencies and panic and ashes.

There is not much to say about the service itself except that trauma was relived, sorrow intensified, disbelief stripped bare, my wounds painfully ripped open again. I hadn't even realised I'd done any healing over the last nine months. But boy, I knew it when I realised all over again just how raw and bloody that wound could be again. Only nine months and I had already forgotten the sheer agony and anguish of those early days. I didn't recognise that my pain had become somewhat muted because it still hurts so bloody, indescribably much. I guess the difference is that it aches now; it has settled into a chronic pain that I have to learn to live with, where nine months ago, perhaps even six months ago, it was sharp and it burned, and everyone could visibly see that I was wounded. I think my pain threshold has increased dramatically to the point where sometimes I forget I ever lived without this ache; that just nine months ago I did not even have an inkling of the trial that would come to define me for the rest of my life.

It was a beautiful service, acknowledging the babies who died during 2011. There were many more than I expected. I thought around 20 or so, but Leslie said there were more than that. I was too busy waiting for Max's name to appear on the screen to pay too much attention to the names who came before or after his, although I did also try to say those names silently in my head to acknowledge that they were as real, and as loved, and as missed, as was my baby. Just two floors up, fortunate mothers were likely begging for epidurals because labour was more pain than they could bear. I remember when I thought that giving birth would be the most painful day of my life. If only I'd known how much more painful it could get.

I walked past the hospital florist, filled with happy balloons and teddy bears for excited visitors to purchase and foist upon all the new parents, and I was angry. What the fuck else do they need except their living, breathing baby? Now they want gift baskets and body lotion too? Our baby was born and had no visitors to the hospital. His birth was not celebrated, only mourned. Only one friend acknowledged his arrival, everyone else only acknowledging his death. Admittedly, we didn't invite anyone to the hospital, but to be honest, who would have wanted to come and hold our dead baby? That seemed like too much to ask. But I wish someone had. I wish someone had bought me a fucking ugly balloon and a cheap teddy bear so I could feel like all the other mothers, just for a second. So I could feel like a mother at all.

It was akin to torture to sit there quietly during the memorial and weep polite tears when everything inside of me was screaming out to get my baby's name off the big film screen where it sat alongside those of the dead babies. My instinct is still to believe, and to shout out that belief, that my baby can't possibly be dead. That it's all been a terrible mistake. I know in my head that I've lost him, but my heart can't, or won't follow. Max just still feels too real to me to be dead. He is so much a part of my thoughts, my heart, my daily life, even in death, that I still can't accept that he no longer exists in the flesh. Often it feels like I've just left him in another room. That I can go and pick him up and cuddle him any moment I choose.

To some these are the sensations of the mad, but I know that I am not mad. In fact I believe that I am now one of the sanest people I know, for I see everything as it truly is, uncovered by the layers of denial and ignorance most of us spend our lives building so we can better get through the day. I have no armour and no shields, but still a mighty battle to fight. No wonder I am so easily wounded. I have none of the 'normal' person's defences.

The other parents in the room were from all walks of life. Some who looked like us, young professional couples, some with older children, some for whom a dead baby was perhaps not even the cruelest blow life had dealt them.

And then there were the newborns.

Newborn, after newborn, after newborn baby, freshly minted and mewling in the dimmed light over daddy's shoulder, or in mummy's arms.

They were the rainbow babies that came after the fatal storm. I knew that. But it was like being held in a vat of boiling oil to sit there mourning my baby with the evidence of living, breathing babies all around me. I knew they had to be there, that they had every right to be there. I really did. But I still wanted them to be in another room. Any room. Just not the one I was in. Hearing the cry of a baby is still a sensation that I have no idea how to describe. It is a primal panic that overtakes me and I feel like I am going to explode, or worse, drop dead, if I don't get away from it, far, far away from it.

But, of course I just had to sit there as I'm a person loathe to make a scene, no matter the one I'm imagining making inside my head. I sucked it all in. I buried it all down in my chest until I could let it out in a safer space.

I lined up with all of those parents and their brand new babies and I lit a candle to remember Max and placed it in the bowl of sand. I pinned a yellow ribbon on the altar with his name on it. At the end of the service, so many coloured ribbons, with so many loved babies names on them, formed what they called a rainbow of hope. I wanted to collect all the ribbons for I sure as hell feel like I need all of the hope. I'd eat them, swallowing the rainbow whole, if I thought it would help.

There was a harpist, readings, songs, and acknowledgements. Amongst the parents were many of the hospital's staff, who had attended in their own time, which I found truly amazing. Included was the senior obstetrician who had cared for me when I went into the hospital that day with a few weird pains. To say it made a difference that she was there is the understatement of the century. She is one of the most amazing women I have ever met, not just in terms of her knowledge and expertise, and commitment to her job, but in the way she is able to empathise, really, truly empathise, with her patients.

She sat next to us for the entire service. More than that, she sat with us. And she remembered everything about us and about our little son; how perfect he was, how tragic was his death. Despite the fact that she's probably seen hundreds of patients since that day, she remembered. I could not have been more touched. I could not have been more thankful. I could have clung to her and insisted she take me home like a lost puppy, so deep is the sense of gratitude and trust I have for this woman who showed me kindness on the very worst day of my life. Yes, I really would jump off a cliff for her. I'm funny like that, intensely loyal in my obsessions with people and things. She is part of the story I can't share with almost anyone else. She knew Max, she saw him, she was devastated that he died.

She spent a good deal of time talking to me before and after the service. I didn't have to say much. She seemed to be reading from a woeful narrative that must have been written all over my face. She knew it all; the hopelessness, the feelings of failure, the guilt, the fear, the life of inertia I'm currently leading. She said she could help. She said she could make an appointment to see me and that we could discuss all of my concerns, all of my fears, about Max, or about the possibility of a new pregnancy. 'Let me do the worrying for you', she said. And I could have sunk into the ground at her feet with sheer relief that someone else wanted to help shoulder the pressure I have been struggling to carry. Someone wants to lighten my load. And I'll take it, I'll take anything she can give.

Leslie and I will see her October 2nd. She's even made the appointment at the beginning of the day so we don't have to sit in the waiting room with all the happily pregnant women. She said 'I hope you'll have some news for me by then', and I dared to hope for a second that I might. It was just a second, but the hope was there; someone believes we will get a second chance at parenthood.

I'll take a second of hope if that's all I can get. I'll take it and hold it close and try, try, try to re-ignite it when the light goes out.

It is so hard

It is so hard, all of this. It is too hard. On some days I think I will suffocate from the very heavy thickness of the air I now breathe. On some days I think that no one would even notice if I did, so alone do I feel even amongst the friendliest of company. I am on another plain. Though I sit next to you with open eyes and an interested expression, I really am very far away, and you would not want to follow no matter how much easier you'd like to make my road for me. You would not want to follow, though I'd desperately like to take you, just for a glimpse, of the way things seem to me now that I've lost my little son. Only then, perhaps, will you understand that there is no closure for me to find. There is no place better I can expect to be. There is no neatly packaged lesson I have learned to have made this, in that sickening phrase, 'meant to be'. My injuries can't plastered, and there's few aids I can find to help me stand tall again. All the torn and raggedy parts of my heart and soul cannot be sutured shut. I can't re-break a fracture this fatal so as to re-set it in a more pleasing shape.

God, or the universe, does not dish out only what it knows we can survive. He, or it, has no concept of what is 'enough' or what is 'fair'. We will not be rewarded for our good deeds, or compensated for our suffering in the next life. This is all we have. These fleeting moments. The ones that most spend worrying about what they're going to wear in the morning. That's all you've got.

And you know what else? What doesn't kill you sometimes doesn't make you stronger. It makes you more tender, more easily wounded than you ever were. It puts a impenetrable fence between you and all the things, and all the people, you used once to love. You just can't care about the minutia anymore, and that means you just can't care about most anything anyone wants to talk to you about.

Of course other people's infant gains, most of all, sting you until you just go numb from all those bites. You resent people with choices - even the people you love - because you had none, except to watch your baby die or let him die alone. And probably, they resent you because you're selfish these days. You don't want to see their newborn babies or hear about their birth plans, or have them stay for a jaunty holiday in your 'spare' room (yes, there's room for guests now as what use does your dead baby have for a room lovingly prepared for him?) And not just now, but never. I never, never ever again, want someone else's newborn baby slumbering under my roof when my own flesh and blood didn't even have that opportunity. I think that's an entirely reasonable response to what is an entirely unreasonable situation to be placed in. But still I come off as a selfish bitch with no feelings anymore for anyone other than myself.

I feel like I am being judged. Always judged, because, no I do not feel 'lucky' the way, perhaps, I should, when you tell me a story of parents whose baby died of SIDS, and how much worse it would be if you'd actually bonded with your baby and gotten to know him and then he was snatched away. It's not a sliding scale. I'm nodding and smiling politely when you tell me that you lost a baby in 'similar' circumstances (not really understanding or even asking what the circumstances of my loss were) and you've come to discover that it happened for a reason you now magically understand. That's fantastic for you. Fantastically deluded. I'm only smiling because the quickest way to get out of the conversation is to let you gob off rather than taking you to task on any number of the inane responses that fall from your lips.

Call me selfish because I don't have the energy to fix friendships that have been offended by this new me. Call me ugly, hurtful, or self-obsessed. . . say they all must be my true colours coming through in my time of darkness. I just don't care. How could I care? I care about Leslie and Max. I care about Max and me. I care about the people, many of whom weren't even good friends nine months ago, who have cut me some slack. Who can let me be unreasonable, and venomous, and weak, and hopeless, and self-pitying, and who haven't tried to snap me out of it by throwing me in front of a fucking filthy window and demanding that I see the sun. I'll be there for each of you, you can count on that.

I don't want sympathy, because sympathy suggest that the giver is outside looking in, feeling sorry for a tragedy they believe couldn't possibly happen to them. But empathy. . . well, that's what gives comfort. Sit with me and show me that you are willing to imagine the extent, the magnitude of what I have lost. Sit yourself beside me, not in opposition. Only then do I know to trust that you've gone as far as you are humanly able to 'get' it.