The parable of Kisagotami and her dead child

Every Friday at 11am I have the good fortune to spend an hour with a very wise woman. She is my psychiatrist, although I would say that she 'teaches' me more than she 'treats' me. I was referred to her about six months before I became pregnant with Max. I had discussed my desire to have a baby with my GP, and due to my history of generalised anxiety and depression, my GP advised me to have an assessment with someone who specialised in perinatal psychiatry so that we could best determine how to manage my illness before, and during pregnancy.

There were times throughout my pregnancy when my weekly visit to the clinic was the only thing that kept me going through a severe depressive episode. I will be forever grateful for the support and understanding, care and advice she gave me. Since Max died, the focus of my visits has been less on 'treating' me as a patient and more on helping me draw upon, and build, the inner strengths I already have to cope with the tragedy of his death and the enormity of my grief.

Leslie often asks me what I do during this hour and I never have a good answer. I sometimes, but not always, ask for advice or reassurance. Oftentimes I cry and share with her my angry railings against the world. I talk about Max and my fears of him being forgotten. For the last couple of weeks we have spoken at length about my strong desire to try for another baby and all of the mixed emotions and practicalities that come along with those thoughts.

One thing she does, which is worth every bit of the $180 she charges for the privilege of her time and expertise, is tell me very powerful stories. She's a wonderful story teller and she's Jesus-like in the way she can pull a parable out of her hat that applies to just about any feeling or situation I throw at her. She's a repository of sage observations and thoughtful connections.

Today I told her how alone and isolated I felt in my grief. How much a part of me had believed that he might come back to me or be somehow reborn. How I wanted everyone to see and understand the complexity and depth of my feelings, and felt constantly disappointed when they said or did something that showed they never could truly 'get it'.

She told me the story of an Indian woman and her dead child, who also felt desperate and alone. The woman is sick with grief, carrying around her dead son pinned tight to her chest, frantically searching for a magic cure that will bring him back to life. She is sent to consult Buddha and she begs him to help her find a way. She tells Buddha that she will do anything, anything at all to bring him back. The Buddha agrees to help her.

'Go to the village and find me some mustard seeds and I will make your cure', he says.

The woman is so relieved that she almost falls at his feet.

'But there's one condition. The mustard seeds must come from a household which has not been touched by death'.

Immediately, the woman set out for the village, going from house to house, doorway to doorway, begging for the seeds that would save her son. The villagers had immense sympathy for her plight and wanted to help the desperate woman, but in all the houses she visited, she could not find a single family who had not lost a son or a daughter, a sister or brother, from illness or accident.

She returned to the Buddha and told him that she had searched high and low a household that was untouched by death and that she could not find one.

'Now can you see why I sent you on that journey?' the Buddha asked. 'You were never alone. You are not the only one who has lost a dear one. Everything that is born must eventually die.'

The woman finally understood. She buried the body of the dead son she had carried for miles and realised the important lesson the Buddha had taught her. As it is with the flames of a candle, so it also is with living beings in this world: some flare up, while others flicker out. There is only one certainty in anyone's life, and that is that death comes to all things, not just those that belong to you. 

I took a lot from this story, though I have perhaps not retold it as beautifully as it was told to me. The first is that I am not alone in facing death. The second is that those who think they are immune to facing it in its most devastating aspects (as I did, before) are wrong. The third is that I have been given a powerful opportunity to embrace my new understanding of uncertainty as a way to live without fear. That in accepting death and its inevitability I will live a richer, more powerful life, living every moment with those I love as if it were my very last. 

I miss Max more than I can say, and I would do anything to be able to turn back the hands of time and have him stay. But through his death I know I am finding a new; a better way to live, and that in a way, he will be reborn to me in every moment I choose to embrace the precious present.

The Edge of Life

There was an absolutely beautifully written, heart-wrenching article on p38 of The Age's (Melbourne) Magazine today about babies born on 'the edge of life', like Max was. The article is about babies born at 23 and 24 weeks in the NICU (Newborn Intensive Care Unit) at the Mercy Hospital for Women in Heidelberg, right near my house. I could not even get through the first paragraph without the arrival of violent tears.

I didn't know who the journalist, Kathy Evans, was, but I thought she should be commended for capturing both the vulnerability and strength shown by those families in such an honest, compelling way. When I googled her, however, I discovered just why her article was so arrestingly written - she gave birth to a baby with Downs Syndrome. She gets it - the uncertainty, the pain, the grieving for the life, and the baby, that should have been yours.

Evans wrote an incredible article about her daughter, called Tuesday's Child, for which she deservedly one a couple of awards. You can read it here, and you should. I have never read anything so moving.

I cannot find an electronic copy of today's article to link to, so these images will have to suffice to give you an idea of its content. If you can get a hold of today's magazine in The Age, I really encourage you to do so - spend the time it takes to read 2000 words in those families' shoes, and count your own blessings, as I do, realising how thankful I am, despite everything, that Max did not have to suffer the pain and distress of months of invasive care in NICU or face a life of profound disability.

Welcome to Holland

Since Max died I have read widely and voraciously the stories of those who have suffered similar losses in the hope, I guess, of learning that the things I feel are, if not normal, then at least expected. Whilst no two experiences of loss are ever the same and always incomparable, I have found both in literature and in the every day stories of other people common threads in our grieving that make me feel less alone. 

The following piece was written by a mother whose child was profoundly disabled at birth, though the analogies she makes seem so to also relate to my own feelings of shock, denial and anger to have found myself at such a different destination in life to the one I had expected. To have a disabled child is also to suffer the grief that things are not as they should be. I remember the fear and panic I felt when the neonatologist explained to me the likelihood of Max's profound disabilities should he survive. This woman's writing reminds me that despite the profound sadness I must now forever live with, I have found some good in my displacement, too. 

I am a better person for having known my son. I no longer take anything or anyone for granted. Not for a moment. I am more patient and understanding of others, knowing that some people are carrying sadnesses invisible to the eye but no less heavy to the heart. I see the beauty and importance in small things I never noticed before. I live more fully, mindfully, in the present and my every day life, as well as my relationships, are deeper and all the more authentic because of this. I know that I have been given an opportunity to see truths that others look away from, and to strip my life back to the things that really matter, discarding the 90% of detritus that does not. 

In short, though I would not have chosen this place, it has chosen me and I must learn to see the many important sights it offers with new eyes and altered expectations. 

"Welcome to Holland"

By Emily Perl Kingsley, 1987. All rights reserved.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Things-I-Love-Thursday: Cat Translator

I can't believe that Thursday has come around again. The time is passing so quickly, and I'm in denial that it is almost April. In honour of Max's due date last week I did not post a Things-I-Love-Thursday as the only thing I loved that day was him. This week, despite my empty feelings, I will continue the tradition by sharing with you some funny cat videos that have made me laugh over the last few days, even when I did not think I had any laughing left within me.

They have made me wonder - is the sole purpose of the internet for people to transmit cat-related paraphernalia and funny cat anecdotes?

Chris Cohen is a comedian who translates cat behaviours into English so that we can readily understand, as you will see from his many videos! The first one, Cat vs Printer, had be absolutely in hysterics. Make sure you watch with the sound on. I hope they make you giggle as much as I did!

 

Lost and lonely

This week I feel so lost and lonely. I did not realise how much Max's due date had been in my mind for the last four months, nor how its passing would leave me feeling adrift, without an anchor, and with no dry, safe land in sight. I don't know what to do with the time that now stretches endlessly in front of me. This last week has felt like the symbolic end of Max's life, but only the beginning of mine - the beginning of the life I have to try to live without him. Today I wish that I would be struck down on the spot so that no longer have to contemplate this. On other days I feel shadows of my old self in my determination to keep going and to somehow find peace. It's a confusing and exhausting time. I don't know where to find the energy.

After a lovely chat with Anika last night I miss her more than ever. She is making tentative plans to come back to Melbourne and they seem so promising - child care enquiries, job applications - but I'm afraid to go along with them. I want a sign, somehow, that their return is a sure thing before I get my hopes up. I worry that having to let them go, again, will spin me back to the bottom of the ladder I'm every day trying so desperately to climb. I almost can't imagine how wonderful it would be for her and Sasha to be only a few streets away from me and part of my everyday life once more.

Anika and I in happier times

I also miss Kate, though it sounds silly to say. I feel lately that I am constantly throwing myself at her and that she is just as often withdrawing away. She has a whole new set of responsibilities - a law degree - and less time than she had before. She has discovered that her uncle has terminal cancer, which I know to be a strain on her mind. I know it is unfair of me to expect her to have me in her every thought, but I think I just feel so desperate to have someone by my side that I must be a constant source of stress and annoyance for her.

I have not contacted Sharon since her baby was born. I don't want her to feel any of the sadness and sorrow and envy I feel towards her and her son. I feel that anything I do or say is infected by it and impossible to hide so I say nothing at all. I know this is not the best way to deal with this situation, but it's all I feel capable of. I have not seen Isaac's photo and I am afraid to. I am so afraid to see what Max should look like right now; to see a baby breathing and screaming and robust when the last one I saw was dead in my arms.

I want these thoughts and images to stop. Some days I have respite from them, but it is as if when they come back that they are twice as distressing as before for me having forgotten them. It's like when you miss a week at the gym and when you return you can't believe how much it hurts all over again; how quickly you lost your fitness.

Kate gave me these flowers on Saturday: beautiful yellow roses that have softened and bloomed in the days since then. I look at their colour and wish I felt like that inside. Sunny and bright, rich and warm.

Both Sides Now: Lyrics

Both Sides Now

by Joni Mitchell

(Played at Max's Memorial Ceremony)

Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds * that way

But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As ev'ry fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way

But now it's just another show
You leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know
Don't give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all
I've looked at life from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all

© 1969 - Siquomb Publishing Company

Godspeed (Sweet Dreams) Lyrics

Godspeed (Sweet Dreams)
By the Dixie Chicks

(Played at Max's Memorial Ceremony)

Dragon tales and the "water is wide"
Pirate's sail and lost boys fly
Fish bite moonbeams every night
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

The rocket racer's all tuckered out
Superman's in pajamas on the couch
Goodnight moon, will find the mouse
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

God bless mommy and match box cars
God bless dad and thanks for the stars
God hears "Amen," wherever we are
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Godspeed
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

Max's Blessing, read by Kate

Kate explained the significance of the balloons to our family and friends, and then gave a blessing before we released them up into the sky. Here is what she said.

These are not just any old balloons. They cost $1.50 each, so I’ve been instructed to explain their significance lest you think they are just for tawdry decoration.

There are 23 balloons of baby blue – one for each of the weeks that Max lived, and kicked, and tumbled.

There are 17 pearl white balloons that signify each of the weeks he had still to grow.

There is one lone, sunny, yellow balloon. Yellow represents memory. - memories of Max, his heart and his spirit, the things we all promise here today that we will never, ever forget.

We send these balloons to the grey clouds to encourage them to show us a silver lining. We send these balloons to Max, wherever he may be, so that he will know we miss him, we love him, that we let him go.

Darling Max,

Into the freedom of wind and sunshine
We let you go
Into the dance of the stars and the planets
We let you go
Into the wind’s breath and the hands of the star maker
We let you go
We love you, we miss you, we want you to be happy
Go safely, go dancing, go running home.

As the balloons caught the wind and flew away, we all joined hands as this song played. I cried a lot during it. It was a beautiful moment.

Mummy's Speech

I shared this song with everyone before I spoke at the memorial service to recognise Max's due date.



Here is what I said.

Everything that ever was or could have been culminated in the moment that my little child drew his first breath, gasping as if he’d emerged from a joyful dive under the sea. He didn’t open his eyes, but who could blame him? How could the surgical sights of a delivery room, no matter how dim and mood-enhancing the lights, compare with what he’d seen in his fetal Atlantis?

Afterwards I was glad he’d held them closed shut against the intrusions to his dream life. He was in this world but not of it; a creature so serene because he would never have to confront the traumas and disappointments of this world like the rest of us.

He emerged with a determined heartbeat, and a hearty breath, but with no other earthly concerns or responsibilities to weigh him down. He was all lightness, and I held him as if he was a butterfly that’d landed briefly upon my hand; one I knew would fly away should I make the slightest move. He was the most longed-for visitor. He might have travelled light, but he left me with a heavy heart as the beginning of his legacy. His end was my beginning. The beginning, as I’m realising, of all things.

Almost four months have gone by since Max was here. I do not know where the time has gone, and I have no real memory of where I’ve been or what I’ve done since then. It’s all just hazy – as is my sense of the world, its promises and its betrayals, all of which, until recently, I thought I understood.

As it turns out, I don’t. I don’t understand a thing. The song I just played, of which I’m sure you are all so familiar, summed it up more eloquently than I could ever hope to. When Joni Mitchell sang ‘I really don’t know life – at all’, well, I finally get what she meant; that any control, or certainty over life or love we think we have is only an illusion.

This realisation, that I am ultimately powerless, has been so hard to accept. What I would give to once again be ignorantly under the misapprehension that I could avoid or mitigate disaster by ‘doing the right thing’. I’ve spent my whole life doing the right thing only to find that it has afforded me no such protections. My son still died. Other people’s sons did not. And I feel ripped off, and angry, and bitter, and jealous and just plain murderous some days. I am a Moran after all. On other days I feel immensely calm, at peace, grateful for the powerful lessons Max taught me and hopeful that I will live a richer, more rewarding life for having known him.

Today I long for Max in all the ways you would imagine of someone who has had a baby born and snatched away in an instant. This week has been immensely challenging as his due date signifies an end to all of my illogical beliefs that he might be reborn. My very-catholic grandmother would be relieved that I’m still harboring closet fantasies of divine resurrection. My psychiatrist might not be.

Max is not coming back, though, is he?I know that. But he will never truly be gone whilst I still live either. That’s why I go on, even when I think I can’t. Like the song just said, there’s something lost, but something also gained in simply living every day.

I wrote Max a poem. I want him to hear it today, but it means you’ll have to forgive me whilst I also inflict it on you. I may be a decent writer but I’m a pitiful poet. Lucky you’re my friends, huh?

It’s called To Max, with Love.

When you were born I saw the sun.
It shone so briefly, then was done.
I didn’t get to be your mum;
You had to go away.

And now under the dark, black clouds,
I’m on the street shouting out loud
Your name, my darling, which makes me proud.
Won’t you come back to me today?

My arms they ache to hold you tight,
To wrap you up, so warm at night
To touch your face in the morning light,
As if you were mine to stay.

My baby, are you now at rest?
Do you lay your head on mummy’s chest?
Nothing would make her feel so blessed;
Would make everything okay.

I cry because, oh no, at last,
Hope of your return has gone; it’s passed.
The time, it’s gone so very fast.
I didn’t get a say.

Bring me a season, one that’s warm,
To help to heal my heart’s fierce storm.
Send me a rainbow; hope reborn.
Help me find a way.

I look for you in starry skies,
Each night before I close my eyes.
You’ll always be my lucky prize.
You’re safe, now, where you lay.

Our Ceremony to Remember Max

Today, the 24th March 2012, we held a small, informal ceremony to mark the day on which we expected to welcome Max into our lives.

I'd had mixed feelings about holding the gathering throughout the week. On the one hand I really wanted to have it to show Max that we had not forgotten him; that we were still mourning the loss of everything that he would have been to us. In a way, I also wanted it to be a reminder to our families and friends not to forget us; that our loss was just as raw as it ever was and that we are still so painfully suffering. As Max's due date on Thursday had passed without too much of the emotional trauma I had expected, however, I started to dread having organised another day whose pain I might not escape so easily. I thought about cancelling it, but I decided, after talking to Melanie, to take the pressure off me feeling like I had to feel a particular way. The gathering would take the mood of however I woke up that day. If I felt sad, I could express that sadness. If I felt relief, I could express that too.

We met, along with about 15 friends, at Darling Square in East Melbourne at midday. We used to live nearby and it is a lovely part of the world, as well as a really quiet, peaceful, pretty park. I had organised some balloons that I wanted to release up into the sky, but we had a bit of trouble getting them to the venue. I had not thought about how they would fit into the car, and they only just did, although Les and I both felt quite sick from breathing in all of the rubber on the way there!

We set up a table with his balloons, my favourite photo of him, and the teddy bear that was made for him by my Aunty Mary. I'd chosen two songs to play and prepared a speech that I wanted to share with everyone.

Leslie, Kate and Mark at Darling Square

It was an unusual bunch of people who gathered with us. Many of my close friends were unable to attend, but it was really lovely that some people I don't see very often took their time to come and express their condolences to us and to share in this important day with us. 

We began with a song: Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now. I have always loved this song, but in recent times I have listened to it with a new understanding of what she was singing about. Listening to it had brought me great comfort over the last few weeks, and I wanted to share the message of the song with everyone present. I'd also like to share it with those of you who are reading this blog, so here is a link to the song, as well as to the speech I gave after it.

Leslie spoke to thank everyone for attending, but especially for all of their support over the last four months. We could not be more grateful for those who have given us their time and their hearts. 

Afterwards, Kate helped us explain the significance of the balloons and she read a blessing out to Max, which I'd found through a support group a few months ago. It was a beautiful, beautiful moment. She read this, we listened to a very special song (Godspeed by the Dixie Chicks) and we released the balloons up into the sky. The wind took them eastward and onward towards the horizon. 

Here is what Kate said.

I felt exhausted after the ceremony, but also peaceful. Our friends had all gathered around us as the song played and held our hands. Everyone said how beautiful it was; how my words had touched their hearts and helped them understand how we feel. In short, the sentiment was that through our pain we had helped our friends and family also grow. 

I feel so fortunate to have the gift of expression that enables me to so easily share my feelings and experiences with others so that they, too, might see the things that I see. I do not know how I would have survived this experience without being able to write about it. I don't know how those who cannot as easily express their feelings cope with having them all pent up inside.  I felt very touched that other people had benefited from me sharing my story, and I also felt that Max would be proud of me. I faltered as I spoke those words, and a few times I cried, but I did it for him. Everything I do in my life now I do for him. I want him to see me, hear me, feel me, wherever he is. Wherever he goes. 

Some of our friends stayed on to enjoy a picnic with us, which was just lovely. Here is Les and his best mate Hugh sharing some quality time:

The weather held out, and the sun came out just as I was giving my speech, which was perfect timing. I feel that Max was there. I really do. And I'm glad we took the time to publicly recognise the significance of this date. 

Thank you to everyone who came and helped make it special. We love you all.

22nd March 2012: Max's Due Date

The 22nd of March, the date which I have had etched in my mind for nine months, finally arrived. Max did not. He was further away than he ever was - a helpless, despairing thought.

The day itself I had been dreading, but in fact the days leading up to it were far more emotionally wretched. My friend's baby, who I've talked of many times, arrived safely on Monday. Although I was relieved to hear of his arrival, the news spelling the end of an anxious limbo where I waited for the inevitable pain to greet me, it was the news that started my unravelling, as I feared it would be. From that moment on I felt Max's absence afresh, as if the wound were newly inflicted, stinging and throbbing. I cried more than I have since I first suffered the shock of Max's death. I feel that this baby has taken Max's place. No matter how much I try to console myself that this is not the case, I feel it to be true. One baby could live, one baby could die. Someone chose mine to suffer the latter fate.

By the time today came around the acute pain from earlier in the week had settled and mostly just felt exhausted. Leslie and I had planned to spend the day together doing pretty much anything we fancied. We just wanted to be together, to be quiet, to be thoughtful, to go slow. We managed all of that on what turned out to be an unexpectedly warm, sunny day.

Our day began with a late breakfast at our favourite local cafe, Miss Marie's. We walked there and back and enjoyed each other's company in the fresh Autumn air.

Getting caffeinated at the start of the day

Afterwards, we visited the Heide Museum of Modern Art, which is somewhere I've wanted to go for an absolute age, but never seem to have gotten around to. The grounds of the museum - an old working dairy farm in Bulleen - are absolutely beautiful, and you can enjoy them for free. The property used to be home to John and Sydney Reed, art collectors and benefactors who formed the Heide Circle in the early 1930s. The Heide Circle, if you don't know, was frequented by some of Australia's now best known modernist painters, as well as writers, poets and other creative folk. Though I don't always enjoy modern art, I did enjoy just being there in the quiet stillness of the galleries; a contemplative space rich with history and memory.

Leslie enjoying the grounds of the Heide

We stopped for refreshment at the cafe they have on site. I had a lovely mint tea sourced with mint from the two kitchen gardens Sunday Reed set up so that the artists colony would be self sufficient. You can visit the gardens and they are truly amazing. I learnt an interesting fact, that I can't believe I didn't know: that pumpkins grow on a vine on the ground, not underground as I always assumed they did! Here are some lovely pumpkins soaking up the sun.

My favourite exhibition out of the three showing was Forever Young: 30 Years of the Heide Collection featuring works from the first circle of radical young artists who were supported by the Reeds during the 1930s and beyond. A selection of documentary photographs taken by Albert Tucker were really fantastic and evocative, capturing the key figures who had lived and worked at Heide during that time. The photographs were by far my favourite part of the exhibition.

Leslie, though perhaps not as keenly interested in art and history as I, nonetheless professed to have had a good time wandering around with me. There were some moments that baffled him, however, such as this one:

'Is this a sculpture or just a dead tree?' he was heard to ask. I must say, even I did not know the answer to that one. The grounds were dotted with several unusual sculptures, including this one, which was my favourite:

No doubt Les was looking forward to the part of the day that included Devonshire Tea, which luckily for him came next. We'd briefly considered driving out to the Dandenongs to visit Miss Marple's Tea Room as we have done once before, but we were feeling lazy and decided we'd like to keep it local so we went to the Fairfield Boathouse instead. In actual fact, their Devonshire Tea was decidedly average. The tea was crappy, the scones not warm, and we were chased by a number of very determined bees who wanted to partake in our jam. Here is the spread we had:

Our Devonshire Tea overlooking the Yarra at the Fairfield Boathouse

Though Fairfield Boathouse's wares were disappointing, we were just pleased to be hanging out together somewhere nice and sunny, spending some quality time together. This we did the best way we could.

Me at the Boathouse

Neither of us mentioned Max much this day, but we both knew that he was present in our every thought and action, as he will be every day for the rest of our lives. 

I feel relief that the day has passed, but saddened that my time without my baby boy has gone so fast. The passing of this date also raises many questions for us about the future that we do not yet know how or when to answer. The time that I spent pregnant seems so long ago, almost as if it never took place. We are now filled with uncertainty about whether, or when, I will have that experience again. Whether we will dare, I guess, to hope that things might turn out differently next time. It is our heart's wish to take this leap of faith; to honour Max with a baby brother or sister, but we know it will be an extremely tough road that does not have a guaranteed happy ending and we want to make sure, as much as we can, that we are strong enough to walk it.

Today, though, it was just Mummy, Daddy and Max and all of our dreams of what might have been. 

To Max, with Love

I don't profess to be a poet. But on this day, when Max should be here, I feel that no one has any right to hold bad poetry against me, so I wrote some anyway. 

To Max, with Love

When you were born I saw the sun.
It shone so briefly, then was done.
I didn’t get to be your mum;
You had to go away.

And now under the dark, black clouds,
I’m on the street shouting out loud
Your name, my darling, which makes me proud.
Won’t you come back to me today?

My arms they ache to hold you tight,
To wrap you up, so warm at night
To touch your face in the morning light,
As if you were mine to stay.

My baby, are you now at rest?
Do you lay your head on mummy’s chest?
Nothing would make her feel so blessed;
Would make everything okay.

I cry because, oh no, at last,
Hope of your return has gone; it’s passed.
The time, it’s gone so very fast.
I didn’t get a say.

Bring me a season, one that’s warm,
To help to heal my heart’s fierce storm.
Send me a rainbow; hope reborn.
Help me find a way.

I’ll look for you in starry skies,
Each night before I close my eyes.
You’ll always be my lucky prize.
You’re safe, now, where you lay.

Death and its administration

We finally received Max's death certificate at the beginning of this week. It had already been issued once, a few weeks ago, but it had incorrectly stated the day he died as the 24th November (his birthday) instead of the 25th. I was pretty pissed off about this at the time. Of all the things to suffer an administrative error why did it have to be something that was already painful enough to deal with? After calling the Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, I found out that the error was made by the funeral home and that I would have to follow it up with them.

To their credit, White Lady Funerals dealt with the matter very promptly and apologetically, but I did have a laugh when their letter of response to mine also had a mistake in it. Clearly someone in charge of administration there needs to take a typing test! They didn't even bother reprinting the letter, but used good, old-fashioned white-out to fix it. Oh well!

Receiving the death certificate in itself was not overly upsetting. I count it as one more thing I can collect that is Max's, as morbid as that sounds. The part that saddened me is reading through all of his particulars on the certificate. It is a piece of paper so clearly designed for someone who has had a life. Someone who has had married, and who has had the chance to have children. His 'period of residence' in Australia is listed as 'life' as he did not have the opportunity to go elsewhere. 

More than anything, I suppose, this certificate gave me a glimpse of the life my son will not have - the life that was mine to give him and his to keep.

This certificate will go along with all of our special family documents. There is not even a filing cabinet that Max will not be part of. He is everywhere in our house, and always will be, as long as we live. I take comfort from the fact that one day, when I die, Max will be listed on my death certificate as evidence that I did something special with my life; something that all of my descendants will know.

An invitation

Leslie and I would like to invite you to a small, informal ceremony we are holding in memory of our little baby Max, to mark the date on which we expected to welcome him into our world. This day will come to pass with great pain for us instead of the hope and excitement that should rightly accompany it. We would like you to share this day with us and help us confront, once again, the unfathomable, irreversible loss of our child - our greatest love.

Please join with us to remember Max and celebrate his life:

When: this Saturday the 24th March 2012 at midday.
Where: Darling Square, Cnr Simpson & Gipps Streets, East Melbourne

We will be staying afterwards for a picnic lunch in the park. Please feel free to bring some lunch, along with your families or significant others, and spend some time with us.

It would be great if you could let us know if you are able to make it, so we have some idea of how many people to expect. Please email janelle.moran@gmail.com 

Darling Square, East Melbourne

Protecting his memory

‎It's been said that when a baby is born, it's a mother's instinct to protect their baby, but when a baby dies, it's the mother's instinct to protect their memory. That's all we have left, only a trace of what once was, a snippet of a dream.

This is the week, long awaited, that my baby was to be born. The march of time has brought it forth despite my whimpering protests that I am not ready to say goodbye to the dream of my baby returned. Though I know my baby is dead - we held him as his heart beat its last and we felt the cooling touch of his skin - in my heart I cling to a stubborn belief in the magic of resurrection.

Perhaps that day was a figment of my imagination and I will open my eyes to find it only the anxious nightmare of a woman who's actually in labour, and I won't be able to believe the nasty tortures my brain has inflicted upon me in my sleep. In another scenario, I turn up to the hospital this Thursday - Max's due date - to find him there waiting for me. 'He is ready now,' they tell me, revealing that they've  been keeping him in secret until he was fully grown - from that day to this - as the biggest surprise ever successfully kept.

Over the past few months I've had many dreams that I've found Max in all manner of unlikely places, each time grabbing him greedily with relief that I've finally found him after carelessly losing track of his whereabouts. Is that what happened to my darling? Was I too careless to mind whether he lived or died - careless enough to let him disappear without warning? Did I leave him behind during a moment of overwhelming tiredness? Did I wish him away through my early ambivalent thoughts about pregnancy?

The passing of this week will see the end of my fantasies of Max's return - at least an end in the belief that they might miraculously come true. The 22nd of March, though an arbitrary due date that gave no promise it would actually be the day of my baby's birth, represents in my mind the end of my pregnancy, though my body knows that the pregnancy ended a long while ago.

This disparity between the knowledge of the mind and of the body is something very strange to experience. I've been caught between these two different consciousnesses oftentimes since I pregnant one moment and a bereaved mother the next. My arms have ached, physically, for a baby I know no longer exists. For long after his birth I felt phantom kicks and flutters where none could possibly be. Sometimes I still feel like a pregnant person, and am surprised to later have to acknowledge that I am not one, especially when others visibly are. I struggle with the fact that no one can tell, physically, that I've had a baby, that I'm someone's mother.

Max is not coming back. I know this, and yet, because I've realised how little I really know of the world, I convince myself that his return is a possibility - a remote possibility, yes, but then so was his death. Somehow this seems to justify my desperate belief.

Leslie and I are planning to pass the day of the 22nd together, doing something special and nice. We have a list of things to choose from, but I don't know, none of them seem quite right or quite fitting enough. I guess nothing we could do on a given day would ever feel significant enough to honour Max's life, so perhaps we'll have to be content doing something that we ourselves enjoy, and that might bring us some small comfort or joy.

We will mark the passing of Max's special day on Saturday with an informal ceremony at Darling Gardens in East Melbourne, near where we used to live. Then, afterwards, I don't know what we'll do - that day or the rest to come. I just don't know.

A baby is born to my oldest friend

Today is the day that my oldest friend's baby boy will be born - her second child. Pregnancy and birth, as I have learned the hard way, are experiences over which we have much less control than we realise, and in some cases, frighteningly little knowledge of what to do when things go wrong. There is little uncertainty surrounding this baby's entry into the world, though. He will be born via elective c-section - his mother's way of controlling what has long been for her an overwhelming fear of childbirth. Before I became pregnant in July last year I used to share this intense fear of natural delivery. For years my friend and I joked that we must plan to get pregnant at the same time one day so as to be able to  have side-by-side caesarians, like truly civilised women should.

Years later, through some stroke of fate, my friend did become pregnant very shortly after I did - a period of only a fortnight separating the gestational ages of our babies-to-be. But this is where our imagined similarities would end. I knew from the beginning we would not share the same birth experience in the way we always said we would. In part this was because I'd by then undertaken a significant amount of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy that taught me to better manage, instead of avoid, the sources of my anxieties, including childbirth. I was still afraid of the unknown - of pain and of tragedies that might befall me - but I knew that I had become resourceful enough to face the complications life might throw at me with courage and strength.

What I didn't know was that the differences between mine and my friend's experience of birth and motherhood would soon become more manifold, more significant, than this, when during the last week of November, long before he was expected, my baby was born, and died in his father's arms. He was born for no known reason at 23 weeks gestation - what the doctors like to call the 'threshold of viability' - and though he fought mightily, he really did not have much of a chance. Today, in contrast, my friend's baby will be born and all expectations point towards the fact that he will live - not just for a day, as my baby did, but through all the days to come - the days that my baby, too, should have lived.

There is no doubt that the excitement of my friend and I expecting a baby at the same time has come to have a very painful, awkward, complicated flip side. Through no fault of her own, my friend has become the unfortunate donkey on which I pin the tail of my very profound anger and grief. Her very presence in my life, and the soon-to-be presence of her little baby, are unavoidable, physical reminders of my tragedy. She has what I do not, not because she wanted it more, or deserved it in some way that I did not, but because of the unfathomable logic of a universe that deals with the game of life and death as if all of its players are numbered cards, some of whom will land face up when the deck is scattered and some of whom chance says must inevitably land face down in the mud.

'Why me?' - the refrain of my life since my son's death just over three months ago - has this week turned instead to 'why her?' Why should her baby live if mine cannot? Why should she have the enviable gift of two healthy children and two uncomplicated pregnancies and my only experience of birth so quickly turn into, instead, into a death? I don't consciously hate my friend for her good fortune, and neither has she given me cause to. More than anyone she has recognised and tried to mitigate the pain that her pregnancy might have caused me over the last couple of months. She has been respectful, thoughtful, she has given me space and managed her own pain, fear and regret at my baby's passing so that I might never have to know or hear of it. She does not deserve the place she has taken in my imagination as victorious opponent instead of faithful friend. But there she stands, nonetheless, so far away from me in thought and feeling that it's hard to tell if the distance will ever, can ever be bridged.

I am awaiting, every minute, the message that will tell me her baby boy is here. I will be relieved, and I hope, happy for my friend that she will not have to suffer as I have. But I will howl and protest too, loudly and unapologetically. The sense of injustice I feel at my son's death has spurned too raw and festering a wound not to call forth such a primal, seething rage.

In my moments of fear and despair about this little boy's impending birth I've invite the dark-faced, winged goddess of Nemesis - of divine retribution - to visit upon me and restore equilibrium to my world; to better balance the scales of justice; to relieve me of my overwhelming indignation towards my oldest friend and her innocent baby; to re-distribute the cards of fortune so that neither she nor I must face each other in such regrettable opposition. But despite my cries Nemesis does not appear, as per her myth, to untangle the messy threads spun so unfairly by the fates. I am alone in my bargaining - there is not a single soul on earth who would trade me. My baby has died. This baby will take his place.

So I wait for news of his birth as if he were the last remaining germ of bubonic infection, set on killing us all so that he, instead, can live. And as I wait, I commit a thousand apologies to the wind with which he'll today come rolling in. I'm sorry, my friend, that you and your baby must, because of me, suffer so the loss of a friend, one who cannot be there for you as you celebrate your son's birth. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

* Note: A little while after writing this I heard news that baby Issac Lucas Gourlay-Hutchison was born at 8.24am weighing 7lb. 8oz. A healthy baby boy.

Kitten chaos

Sebastian has made himself well and truly at home. He knows every nook and cranny in the house and bounds around excitedly as if everything in his path is an especially designed object of prey. He has a bunch of toys that he loves - little mice, big mice, balls, pom poms - but he'll just as happy take something like a piece of screwed up paper and make it into a game all on his own. He has a distinct pattern of eat, play, sleep, which he cycles through during the day. When he's asleep, he's fast asleep. He has the most adorable habit of suckling in his sleep, like he must be dreaming of his mummy. It's hard to catch on video but it is truly the cutest thing you've ever seen.

I wouldn't say that he and Pepper are the best of friends yet, although Sebastian would dearly like them to be. Peppy is tolerating him really well most of the time, and will sit next to him giving him occasional licks, but he's just as likely to hiss, growl or take a swipe at his face if Sebastian really oversteps the mark - which he does all the time!

Peppy pretending that Sebastian really doesn't exist

We were very excited the other day to witness them playing a little game together, though - the first time that Pepper has really played with his new little brother. They have a tunnel which is just about Sebastian's favourite thing in the world. Peppy used to love it when he was a baby too. They chased each other through it, and then Pepper hid in there and was teasing kitty with his paws from one end of it. It was very cute. 

Sebastian is bringing much joy to our hearts. He is such a loving, affectionate little boy. He's warm and cuddly and he purrs like a machine. It's very relaxing having him on your lap.

Sebastian snuggled on my lap

It's not so relaxing to be trying to do something on the computer when you have a kitten around. He insists on being on top of the keyboard or chasing your fingers around it. It is really frustrating after a while and he won't give up!

Catching up on his online reading

Sebastian is also quite a silly cat and is very entertaining at times. The most memorable of his crazy endeavours is when he fell into the toilet - while I was sitting on it! He cannot stand to not be on your lap if you are sitting down. I was preventing him from jumping up onto my lap while I was on the toilet so he instead went around the back of me and jumped up behind me, quickly falling into the gap! It was simultaneously hilarious and very disturbing! Here he is being funny whilst asleep:

And here is Pepper taking refuge from Sebastian from up high in his tower!

Sebastian is not without his problems, as we've discovered! We are having real trouble with him wanting to eat Pepper's food, and with Pepper consequently exacting payback and wanting to eat Sebastian's food. This is problematic because Pepper is on a special diet for his stomach issues. Kitten food is high in fat and this is very bad for Pepper and will make him sick. It's also a problem because if Sebastian does not eat his own kitten food he will not grow up big and strong! Kitten food has lots of extra nutrients for growing babies and he really needs to not be eating grown up boy food!

The bigger problem at the moment is Sebastian's inappropriate toileting habits. It is starting to get beyond a joke and we are not amused! He knows how to use the litter tray, and will do so 8 times out of 10. At least once a day, though, he will go to the toilet in his bed, on his blankets, or even worse, on our bed. We have had to wash one doona four times now, and dry clean another. We've taken to locking him out of our room completely but this is clearly not a long term solution. I just wish I knew what the problem was! I've emailed the breeder twice now but she has suspiciously not replied. I've never had this problem with a kitten before - usually they are so fastidiously clean and tidy about that kind of stuff!

We also had both cats at the vet last week as we suspected that Sebastian had brought ringworm into the house! Leslie developed ringworm on his arm the very same week that Sebastian arrived. We couldn't believe our bad luck. The vet was unable to find any visible signs of ringworm on either cat, though, so we still aren't entirely sure if it came from Sebastian or if Leslie caught it coincidentally from somewhere in the environment. At any rate, I had to spend almost an entire day cleaning the house and disinfecting every surface, and washing all our bedding and clothes with an anti fungal wash. The house was gleaming by the end of it, but it was really exhausting! So far we have not seen a recurrence of the dreaded thing, so I hope that the fungal disease has been well and truly banished!

Despite his few little problems, Sebastian is a very helpful little boy. Here is a final picture of him helping Leslie to find his passport!

This time last year

This time last year I was living my dream on the French Riviera. Well, maybe not quite my dream, but as close as I will probably ever get. My ideal would be living there amongst the literary heavyweights of the early twentieth century. Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Somerset Maugham, Dorothy Parker, Evelyn Waugh - all of them escaped to the Côte d'Azur for one reason or another, spurred by favourable exchange rates, the climate, and just because it was a very fashionable thing to do. All I could muster was two weeks in the place that had so long before captured my imagination. I was to spend my mornings studying French at the Alliance Française de Nice and my afternoons wandering around in the stunning, plentiful Spring sunshine.

la port de Nice

Nice is no longer, I suspect, what it used to be. The Promenade des Anglais (known by locals at 'la prom') is predictably touristy, but not overly so at this time of the year. I was in Nice for just long enough to get to the point where I felt at home - so comfortable that I could have seriously contemplated staying permanently! The Nicoise (if that's what they're called?) are quite friendly, and I became well known at my local boulangerie each morning (and assisted politely when my French faltered!) I had a favourite supermarket and I'd even been asked on a date (remembering Leslie was at this time reliving his own bachelor days in Italy!)

How the locals get from one end of la prom to the other

At this time last year our lives were filled with such promise and so many exciting plans for the future. We knew we wanted to try for a baby when we got back to Melbourne, and were really aware that it might therefore be a long time before we had the opportunity to travel or see the world in that same carefree capacity again. For two weeks I pretended I was living another life - that I belonged in Nice, and on some days, that I never had to come back!

In a beautiful gothic cathedral by the seaside, the Basilique-Cathédrale Sainte-Marie et Sainte-Réparate de Nice, I lit a candle for the little soul I hoped would become my baby, wishing him or her health, happiness and a speedy journey. I could not have known how soon after that my long-awaited child's flame would go out. My baby was surely never meant for the dark, only for the glorious light! When and where did my wish, my dream, get tangled up with such a cruel destiny? Who deigned to grant my heart's desire and then snatch it away?

Baroque magnificence nestled by the seaside

Inside the Cathedral

The candle I lit for my much-wanted baby to
show him/her the way to my heart

When I look at my photos of Nice I see somebody I used to know. I don't, any longer, see me. I was not a mother then. I did not know grief. I was under the mistaken impression that I had finally come into the happiness and love that I deserved, and I was of the naive belief that there might be more to come.

Happily soaking up the sun by the pebbly seaside

I was so afraid when we left home for two months that something awful would happen to my loved ones while I was so far away. I never once considered that something more awful than I could ever have dreamed up for them would end up happening to me so soon after our return.

My darling Max is everywhere in my memories of this trip - the thought of him, the dream of becoming his mother. No wonder I look so happy.

In March 2011, on the trip of a lifetime, I contemplated the future. In March 2012 I contemplate it again, but with such different, indescribable emotions. 2012 is an empty year for me. I feel absence everywhere. It's in the expected places - the ache in my arms, for example - but in unexpected places too - the expression on my face, my aspirations. any plans I may have had for my future have been robbed of their meaning and possibility. I grieve for those things too - for the promise of a life of substance instead of the empty pleasures, which I feel will be the only kind I ever experience from now on.

One day I will go back to the Cathédrale Sainte-Marie and light a brighter, longer-burning candle to light the way back to me for my baby. I will find him there as easily as I will find him anywhere, for that is where the thought of him began. I hope my baby is resting in the light of his mother's hopeful smile there; that he knows nothing of the pain and heaviness of my heartbreak at his passing.

Contemplating life near the choppy waters of the Mediterranean Sea

Things-I-Love-Thursday: Breakfast

It was really hard for me to think of something positive for 'Things-I-Love-Thursday' this week as I've had a few days of feeling really down and more than a bit broken. One thing that continues to bring me joy, though, even if it is only fleeting, is going out for breakfast with one or more of my favourite people. I do so every single Saturday with Kate. Any other opportunity I get to go out for brekkie during the week with friends I usually jump at. I often go on my own, too. I almost love that just as much, being, as I am, quite a fan of my own company! In fact, I think it's well known by now that going out for brekkie is kind of the only social event I'll agree to in advance because I know that I'll always feel like going when the day comes and won't be scrambling for an excuse to get out of it.

I cannot remember when my ritual of taking breakfast seriously, and publicly, began. I know it must be at least as long ago as I met Kate, as I know we've always done it together, but I think it might actually have begun with Anika, probably at Animal Orchestra. Though, come to think of it, this doesn't make much sense because before Sasha came along it was very unusual to see Anika out in the daylight before midday! We could only have lunched, or on a good day, brunched! Does anyone remember where this thing I'm claiming as my own tradition started?! I really should get my facts right! I do know that I've always been a keen breakfaster. I've never been able to leave the house without eating, and I have to eat almost immediately when I wake up or I feel sick - even when I'm not pregnant!

Anyway, what's not to love about breakfast? It is the meal du jour of the twenty-first century. I can say without a doubt that Melbourne does breakfast better than anywhere I've been in the world. I've searched around some of the major cities in Europe, as well as in Hobart and Canberra, for breakfasting establishments that meet high standards in the serving of tea and toast and I've found none that even come close. There's something about Melbourne's cafe culture, yes. That's been said before. But there's also something about Melbourne in the early mornings which is even better. You can get to any cafe, in any direction, in 20 minutes flat at 9am on a Saturday. Owning the road is a thrilling way to start the weekend, and I find the altered pace of the early mornings really soothing and comforting. It's even better during the week when you settle in at your favourite table by the window and watch all the poor corporate workers scurry off to work in their fluroescent-lighted offices. There's no doubt that your day - no matter how bad - is going to be a hell of a lot better than theirs, and it's hard not to smile at your own good fortune. This, indeed, is the life!

Perhaps the best thing about going out for breakfast as a meal, as opposed to lunch or dinner, is the comforting absence of fucktards. The most annoying people in the world don't seem to surface until around 11am, so there's a concrete window in which you can pretend the world is only ever full of quiet, reflective, novel-reading introverts who have no reason not to get up early because they weren't out partying in a converted warehouse the night before. Even the mothers with small children don't seem to be able to make it out of the house before mid-morning so I also don't have to contend with public breastfeeders and misbehaved toddlers before I've been adequately caffeinated.

I love being up early and going out for breakfast because it makes me feel like I'm in charge of, and have seized, the coming day. I almost feel like I'm sneaking up on it, which is immensely satisfying when you are a person who often finds the world overwhelming and anxiety-producing. I get a chance to warm up to what the day has in store for me when I'm out and about in it nice and early. It's a recipe for relaxation. I'm usually at my brightest in the mornings - my mood is definitely at its peak. Waitresses are friendlier as they've not yet been run off their feet, and everyone seems kinder. It's almost as if we treat each other more gently knowing that we are all in that rather vulnerable state of waking up and coming to life again. This is the magic we partake in, we breakfasters.

For me, the food side of things is by far besides the point when it comes to my breakfast outings. I make no exaggeration when I say that I think I've had the same thing for breakfast on most days of my entire life. I always have toast with vegemite and I always have tea. Sometimes, when I go out with Leslie, I might have something like scrambled eggs, but it's a rarity. Actually, no one I know even really needs a menu anymore. Kate will always have fruit toast, Leslie will always have eggs (and bacon, except when he's on a diet like he currently is) and Anika will always have something along the lines of sticky date pudding with icecream or a brownie. She does, shall we say, think outside the box of traditional breakfast fare.

Far more important than food is the ambience of the breakfasting location. I've searched high and low, all over the city, to find the right combination of design, mood, music and clientele. More often that not when we try a new cafe we're disappointed in some way that it falls short of the places we truly love. So many seem to start out with such promise but fail to follow through with the 'heart' that makes an establishment a really warm, nice place to be. Rather than go into a list of places I don't really like, in keeping with the theme of this post I will provide a list of the top ten breakfasting establishments that I love. Here they are in no particular order.

1. Miss Marie - Three cups of tea in one really decent-sized pot, butter that's soft enough to spread (can't underestimate the annoyance that butter straight from the fridge causes!), the decor is to die for. Everything is just perfectly right. Regular staff that are friendly, efficient and good looking - the trifecta! It's also the only decent place within a 5km radius of Heidelberg Heights. It is definitely my new local!
2. Dench - This North Fitzroy institution is our regular haunt - where we go when we can't think of anywhere else we feel like going, or when our mood is sensitive and we can't bear to be disappointed with our breakfast. Dench is predictable, in a good day. You know that if the old owner guy takes your order your coffee will not arrive (he takes orders but never places them), you know if you order toast that you'll two slices of white sourdough and one of multigrain. I can never get through the third slice, but it's nice that they are not stingy. Dench's only downfall is that it is very popular and can be very busy, even in the early mornings.
3. North Island - North Island is conveniently right next door to Dench. It caters for people that don't really want a full meal as it doesn't have a big kitchen so you can only get pre-prepared food and also, toast, of course. It is very small and intimate, and used to be our favourite, except for some reason I decided that it never feels private enough in there; that everyone else is privy to your conversations. There is a really nice courtyard out the back though, which is lovely in the summer. The other refreshing thing about North Island is that they refuse to serve any other kind of milk than full cream. They don't tolerate the yippies here! The one downfall of North Island is that our favourite waitress, Angie, disappeared off the face of the earth and is no longer there to welcome us on a Saturday morning.
4. Animal Orchestra - What can I say about this place where I have spent probably more hours of my life than anywhere else except my own home? Well, I can say that it has gone dramatically downhill since it changed owners a few years back, but I can also say that I'm welcomed there as a regular - I don't even have to place an order as they know exactly what to bring me when I arrive. This is very comforting and very refreshing! The food is nothing much here, but it's the nicest place to go for a drink anywhere near Melbourne Uni. It's cosy, small, and eclectically decorated. They also don't seem to mind if you hog a table for like hours writing your assignments or theses, even when they are busy. There are power points, free wifi, and good music. But there is a significant dearth of heating in the winter. If you go, you have to be prepared to rug up and fall victim to the biting breeze that flows through from one end of the cafe to the other. The folk at Animal Orchestra don't mind if you cry there or if you turn up every single day with a bag full of books and a computer that makes it look like you're there to stay. The tea is plentiful, and the toast is perhaps the best in Melbourne - this is where tea and toast began! It is also where you will run into everyone you know.
5. Auction Rooms - This one is a bit fancy - the place you take visitors or friends you don't see very often. It is in very trendy North Melbourne, and the chances are you will be the worst dressed and ugliest person there. The clientele seem both rich and creative, which doesn't make much sense. I don't know how they afford to live in local terraces when they're all sculptors and web designers. It's nice for something different.
6. Apte - Before I discovered some better places in the northern suburbs, Apte used to be king. I think their popularity has kind of gone to their head, though. Their serving sizes have shrunk dramatically and the staff are very vague and not super attentive. It also gets really noisy inside as the acoustics are not great. The best thing about Apte is the outdoor courtyard. It truly is lovely, even though it is beside a main road. There are a lot of so-called 'mums and bubs' at Apte, so that's a good enough reason to stay away sometimes. Still, its an old favourite, and I still have a soft spot for it, though I don't go there very much anymore. 
7. Penny Farthing - One of my new favourites, in Northcote. Penny Farthing boasts the hottest looking hipster staff in all of Melbourne, many dressed immaculately in vintage costumes with fancy quiffs in their hair and all. You get a timer with your tea here - they want to make sure that brew is perfectly, well, brewed. It's also really small, and best if you go when there's not many other people around. It's quiet, they're always playing The Beatles, and it is just a nice place to be.
8. Porgie and Mr Jones - This is the place to go to if you're in the Hawthorn/Armadale area. The customers are undeniably richer and fancier on this side of town. Designer clothes, immaculate grooming, lots and lots of blonde hair. Porgie and Mr Jones otherwise has a lot going for it. You can eat a beautiful croissant with Bonne Maman jam and the tea pots are very cute, though a bit on the small side. There's a good mix of communal and private tables, and everything feels very civilised. There's not much else in the area, so it gives you a good excuse to sit for hours and hours and read your book.
9. Red Door Corner Store - This is also a place I don't go much anymore, but which I have fond memories of. The memories aren't always good ones as the staff used to be so hopeless here that their incompetence would have us in absolute fits of laughter. I think they have improved of late, though. This place is decked out beautifully - it's hard to think of a cafe whose interior I like more. It's also lovely to sit outside on the quiet street front in the sun. 
10. Three Bags Full - This cafe in Abbotsford is owned by the people who used to own Apte, and they sure know how to run a cafe. Everything is awesome about Three Bags Full, except that it's almost impossible to get a table on the weekends. This place is Busy, with a capital B.