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.

Never forget

I make tentative plans for a memorial service to honour my dead son. November 24th is his birthday, but he'll never turn one. Think about that, women who think your pregnancy and your baby is a 'sure thing'. Your baby might never turn one. It might never sleep in the imitation-antique cot you've bought. He might die long before he ever gets to benefit from the SIDS safe sleeping mattress. There are a thousand ways he could slip away from you. . .

That's what I want to tell those women. Sometimes I want to burst their bubble. The rage still seethes below the surface. I notice it, I acknowledge it, and I try not to judge it, just as I've been taught. Perhaps it is for the best that I feel forbidden from talking to the blessed pregnant ones, for I am their worst nightmare. I scare and confuse them. I am the 'other' that lurks in the background, neither part of the world of the parents or the non-parents, or the soon-to-be parents. I am no one and nowhere. Just as, as far as most people are concerned, my baby is. There is no place for us.

I plan a memorial, perhaps because I want to challenge that assumption. Our son was here, and don't you forget it. I think that's what will be on the front of the booklet. Perhaps with some exclamation marks for dramatic effect. Ha ha.

The chapel where we had his funeral was ugly. In retrospect I think it was so ugly. The last place I ever saw my son was in a suburban brick building that smelled of cheap carpet shampoo and furniture polish, where the noise of the shopping strip outside broke what should have been his eternal silence. What happened there was ugly; the screwing of a lid on top of my baby, a packing away tight as if he were off to a storage facility for babies who were superfluous to the world's needs. So I won't go back there.

I didn't notice how it looked at the time. Leslie and I were the walking wounded, shell-shocked, signing bits of paper and choosing baby coffins as if we ourselves were dead and had opened our eyes to find ourselves in hell. Right now I wish I had chosen a better place. Somewhere light and bright and more beautiful.

But that feels wrong too. A better place. What do I even mean by that? The place where you see your child for the last time ever perhaps should be ugly. There are no aesthetic touches that will make the fact that your child is dead any easier to bear, nor your grief any prettier. Still, my baby deserved nice things. He would have had so many in his lifetime. I appreciate beauty in all its forms. I would have made sure he was surrounded by it.

I want to hold this service in a church; somewhere somber, somewhere where life's biggest questions have been asked, and for some, answered. With the help of a dear friend, I find such a church in the Dandenong Ranges. It's an Anglican church, and we are so far from Anglican it is not funny. We are both atheists I think, but I am at least a lapsed Catholic. Leslie knows nothing of a Christian God nor any other. His is just garden-variety ignorance. Mine is just plain hypocrisy. I want your church but you can't force me to believe that God is in it. Pleasant customer I am!

I email the minister who sounds like a nice guy. He has email! How unexpected! He's a psychologist too, and interested in the meeting of science and religion. He wants to help, and seems not to have a problem that we are not religious. But he is bound by the rules of the Anglican church which say that all services occurring in the chapel must be Anglican rites. We would have to agree to a part religious service. That seems disingenuous and dishonest. I don't want those feelings attached to my innocent baby and his memory. We want honesty and openness, and a recognition that our child is dead and gone, not resurrected in some eternal life where we will one day discover him playing in an angelic field. Thinking of him as an angel in God's hands is just another way that people can tell themselves that it was 'meant to be' that he died. I won't let them shy away from the tragedy of our loss with that. No one's getting off with platitudes.

So, I ask around, to anyone who will listen. Where is a good place to hold a memorial service for a dead baby? And I finally get an answer, not an uncomfortable look! There's a chapel in Burwood. It used to be a church but has been taken over by one of the major funeral directors. It seems to have everything I want, and the woman I spoke to could not have been lovelier or more accommodating. I will go to see it this week, and to talk about what Max's service could involve. I feel excited. Yes, it's excitement I feel. How terribly, terribly inappropriate. I'm excited to plan his memorial as if it were his first birthday party. There are so many shades of wrong when your baby dies that you learn to sit with the uncomfortable collision of feelings you would have previously considered inappropriate for the situation.

The chapel

My child has died. I have to love him in unconventional ways like that. I will pour my devotion into a memorable little service. I whisper to him, 'don't worry, baby Max, mummy won't let anyone forget you'.

Please don't forget.

Please never forget.

A very busy week

 For someone who officially doesn't have very many commitments at this point in her life I sure as hell seem to have had a busy couple of weeks. I've barely been home this week. I've been visiting Britta in hospital the last few days as well as helping her mother make a photo book about the accident for Britta's little girl, which we finished yesterday morning. I cried making the book, realising how much this little person has to take in, and how much her little mind must be trying to make sense of. She's a smart cookie, though, just like her mother. She's wise. She'll be OK.

Britta has graduated from the hospital to the rehabilitation facility. She appears to have gone from strength to strength this week, which surprises no one who knows her, but still seems beyond anyone's expectations. It is her birthday today. There's going to be a small surprise gathering for her in the patients lounge at the new facility. Her internal injuries have stabilised and now begins the very long process of healing her muscles, nerves, and bones. It must be so disconcerting to be unable to move, to lose all of your independence, to be absolutely immobile. It's like the stuff of your nightmares. Right now the focus is on getting her settled and comfortable in the new facility. I think I'll take her some things to brighten up her room.

News of Britta's accident and injuries was obviously a very horrible end to last week/start of this week. But it hasn't all been doom and gloom. My dear Anika graduated from her PhD on Saturday, to much fanfare from those of us who love her and have been a part of her thesis journey. I could not have been more proud. She has worked so bloody hard on that thesis, with so much guts and determination. Talk about a woman on a mission - she definitely had one of those with that project.

Anika and Sasha after the ceremony

The only sadness of that day was realising that the tea we were served as part of our celebratory High Tea at the Park Hyatt was somewhat over brewed, and that the scones had a slightly offensive fruity glaze (that's an in joke). I did dearly wish that I was up there with Anika, both of us graduating together. But that was not to be. At least not yet. Maybe my turn will come. Maybe my thesis will be finished. Maybe not. Who's to say anything with any certainty any more?

By far the cutest thing of the day was Anika's little daughter, Sasha (my god-daughter) calling out 'that's my mummy!' when everyone was clapping her as she received her testamur on the stage. It reminded me that little children don't really 'get' that their parents are anything other than their own particular mummy or daddy all the time. We all hoped that Sasha would remember the day in years to come, though we also all professed that we couldn't remember much of ourselves at three-years-old, apart from stories we'd been told.

Because Anika was in Melbourne from her current home in Canberra for the graduation, we also enjoyed a little party for Sasha's third birthday, which fell the week before. It was rabbit themed, as she pretty much loves rabbits to the exclusion of all other things. She calls them 'hop-hops', which is too adorable for words, really. I bought her Little Ted from PlaySchool and she loved him.

Trying to get a photo of all three of us proved impossible!

The birthday girl

On the home front I don't have much to report. I owe the Australian Tax Office $35 after submitting my tax return. I'm thinking of asking them for a $1 a week payment plan on that! Given that Britta has been utilising everything our fabulous public health system has to offer I was actually glad to pay extra tax this year. If only all our tax dollars were being spent on such important things.

I'm thinking of planting about one million Camellia plants in my front yard in Max's memory. The one we planted for him in November is going so well that it's really given me faith that perhaps propagating Camellias is my calling. . . stranger things have happened. For someone who has not ever been interested in plants or nature, I find what I am about to say just as eery and weird as you might find it. Here I go, though: it's been a very good winter for Camellias in Melbourne. That's what anyone who knows anything about plants has been saying, so now, I'm saying it too! Oh, how things have changed. I don't know who I am anymore. Next thing I'll be wearing sensible shoes. . . oh, wait. . . that's already happened too!

Leslie is still looking for another job after being made redundant. I am still asking myself 'what now?', though I'm working on that with my psych by way of defining my personal values. More about that another time once I have a clear idea of what they are! We are still forging ahead on the 'get pregnant quick' scheme. But, as Phil Collins made very clear in the 80s, you can't hurry love, and by extension, fertilised embryos I guess. He also sang something about 'One more night', I think, so I guess we'll give that a try. He seems to have known what he was on about.

I want to plan a gathering and service to honour Max's birthday in November. I've been day dreaming about it. I had this vision of John Farnham performing a song I'd written for Max on the day. Is that weird? I think it is, but it's probably not the weirdest thing I've had in my head over the last eight or so months. Perhaps I'll get my people to call his people. Isn't that how these things work? If anyone has any ideas for a venue I'll gladly take them. I want a lovely, small-medium room in Melbourne that has audio-visual equipment and is not super expensive to hire.

I've been managing quite a bit of anxiety of late. I thought that my all of my anxiety had gone away. Normally it manifests in me unable to leave the house, cancelling all engagements and social responsibilities, unable to use the phone or do anything much to help myself. I haven't had any of those feelings in a while now, so I assumed that some how I'd been miraculously cured. It turns out that anxiety is a clever son of a bitch though. Did you know that it can sometimes disguise itself as manic activity? A desire to be everywhere, to find out everything, to run around like a headless chook in service of some aim or another? That's what I've been doing. I thought I was just being productive, looking for answers as to what happened when I was pregnant; looking for answers as to what we might be able to differently next time, if there is a next time; planning project after project to do in Max's memory. . . the list goes on. My psychiatrist raised the point that it might be anxiety driving a lot of my current behaviour; a desire to mitigate risk and uncertainty. And she's right, you know. She's most often right. I can't trust any of my motivations or feelings anymore. I don't know what is a good idea and what is not. I don't know when I'm being sensible and when I'm being anxious. I don't know what is real. I feel completely ungrounded. And, no, I don't really like it.

Britta's rose

I saw my friend on Monday for the first time since her car accident and I've been back numerous times since. I was terrified on the way into the hospital the first time, not knowing what kind of scene I was about to be confronted with. Thankfully, my imagination always prepares me for such things by making sure I have the worst possible image in my head all the time, so that when I see something in reality it is not nearly as bad as it was in my mind. This was true again. Not that it was not distressing to see Britta so battered, but that I was very relieved to see that she still looked like herself and sounded like herself. She was still Britta, despite her injuries.

I was so happy that her little girl was there to visit. She was massaging Mummy's feet with some moisturiser with her chubby three-year-old hands and taking everything in her stride like the wise, thoughtful little girl she has always been. She told me all about the helicopter that had taken Mummy to get fixed up in the hospital and she was on the constant look out for sounds that the helicopter was about to take off again.

Britta is immobile. She can move her arms, but that's about it. Her legs are strapped into these mechanical socks that inflate and massage to prevent blot clots and she is in a brace so that she can only look straight ahead.

It is her birthday on today. She will be 33, and probably spending a lot of time wondering how the bloody hell she is going to get to 34, and what the next year will look like. I can relate to this. Traumas share certain characteristics, no matter the form in which they descend upon you.

Because I didn't know what to do, I planted Britta a rose.

Britta's Rose

I chose a rose because roses are the hardiest, most resilient plants I've come across. Remember my story of the rose that sprung out of nowhere in my front yard? That's what I wanted. A bloody-minded, determined rose. Roses come back season after season in Spring to bloom magnificently no matter how many times you've hacked into them and cut them back, and no matter how bitter the preceding winter has been to them. That would be Britta's flower.

I chose a red rose because red symbolises life force, the heart, love, and courage. Red is the colour of battle.

Leslie and I will care for this rose and watch it grow until such time as Britta is able to take it home with her. Then it will be in her garden; a sign of how far she has come.

I plan to take photos of Britta's rose every week so that she can see it's progress. Watch this space!

Not pregnant, not happy, not convinced that there's a reason to hope

Just how much we want to have another baby is impossible to put into words. We have been so ready to be parents for such a long time now. We were so bloody close. I can't get over that. I can't get over how my darling Max just slipped through my fingers. I can't believe that I ever was pregnant in the first place now. So much of what happened seems to belong in the realm of dreams, or more accurately, nightmares.

I didn't want to be an 'older' mum, but I will be, if indeed I do get the chance to bring home a living baby, which at this stage is from a certainty. But I didn't want to be the mother of a dead baby, either, so maybe I just don't get the things I want. That's how it seems. There's a lot of self-defeating emotions that go along with those thoughts that destroy any hope I might have that things will one day be different. It's hard to keep believing when you've had everything you previously believed in taken away from you. Yes, it's hard to hope in the absence of any evidence that the hope is not just an elaborate self-delusion.

We have been trying to get pregnant for three months now. For two of those three months I have experienced very convincing phantom pregnancies. You hear about these things but you don't know how real they can be. You don't know how your mind can trick your body into manifesting all types of signs and symptoms, from stinging nipples to fluttering baby kicks in your abdomen. My psychiatrist says I'm not going mad; that phantom pregnancy symptoms are very common in bereaved mothers, and in women who have desperate desires to be pregnant. You might not be going mad, but you sure as hell go through a number of significantly distressing states when you realise you can't trust your body, your intuition, or anything you think or feel, as all of them were telling you that you were pregnant and all of them were wrong.

I know that three months is not a very long time to try for a baby. I know that I'm doing an absolute disservice to couples who have been trying for years to conceive by complaining that I'm not pregnant after three measly cycles. But when you consider that each month that passes gets racked up as evidence in my brain that Max was a fluke, that he was my only chance at motherhood, and that the end of each cycle brings on a grief response as intense and distressing as if I've just lost him all over again, then three months begins to sound like a very long time after all.

I got pregnant with Max almost straight away. I couldn't believe it at the time. And now, of course, I just assume that this is how it should be, and that because it is taking longer there must be something Seriously Wrong. And, I know, that what I am going through right now is only the beginning of a long list of fears and uncertainties that I will have to face along my journey to bringing a baby home. This scares me. It scares me so much. I can only barely cope with the trying to conceive part - how many other steps will there be upon which I might falter?

The realisation that there are not necessarily better times ahead, but tougher times, is enough to send me scuttling off to bed, never to get up again.

I read a wonderful book last week: Elizabeth McCracken's An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination (thanks to Sally for recommending it, I got so much from it). Elizabeth's baby died. He was stillborn in the picturesque, romantic French countryside. I want to write more about this book in a separate post later on, but right now I want to talk about it's 'happy' ending. Elizabeth and her husband went on to have two living children after the death of their son. Of course those children were not a happy ending to their tragedy, as there is no such thing in those circumstances, but they were a different ending, and one that got them to the place they wanted to be despite their tragic beginnings. They are parents to living, breathing children. It doesn't make what happened to their son OK, but does it make it even the slightest bit better? Even by a little bit? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I want to know. I want to have the chance to find out.

Every story I've read about dead or dying babies has ended with the grieving parents conceiving again and bringing home the baby. I know from reading blogs that this is, so sadly, not always the case. But the stories with the 'happy' endings are the ones getting published and mailed well-meaningly to desperately grieving parents in the days after their baby's death as a way of reminding them to hope, to remember that everything always works out alright in the end.

But it bloody well doesn't always work out in the end, does it? I hope and I pray, though I have no deity to pray to, that we are able to have another baby. But there's a chance we will not. There's always the chance that we will not. And I can't mitigate those feelings of despair that we'll always be the poor couple whose tragedy is being talked about over brunch in between mouthfuls of organic eggs by smug families with disgustingly expensive prams. I hate smug families, but at the same time I want the chance to be smug and happy. I feel like a very unattractive, tantrum-throwing toddler: when is it my turn? What about me?

Well, what about me? I don't want to turn into one of those conception nazis that is decreeing on a military schedule when it is time to get down to business. I don't want to spend all month sitting at home doing nothing but obsessing over why I'm not pregnant yet, which is pretty much what my life currently entails. That level of stress can't be good for conception, but HOW CAN I NOT BE STRESSED?

I consulted with my GP. She is so compassionate and so understanding. She knows this must be hard, but she assures us that three months is nothing. None of the tests I had after Max died showed that there'd be a reason why I could not get pregnant again. But how can I believe them? Everyone was wrong about everything! They could have just as easily been wrong about this.

I want to control this situation. Oh, yes I do. I have learned to sit with a great deal of uncertainty over the last eight and a half months. It's been hard, but I am learning. But I see uncertainty in every single direction I look right now and I'm finding it really hard to accept that. Surely there's only so much uncertainty that you can be expected to manage at once? Ah, but that's not true either. There's no such thing as a 'fair' amount of anything. Shit comes to you whether you can cope with it or not.

I've told Leslie to keep a close eye on my activities. I've often laughed uproariously at women professing to consult crystals and spiritual healers to aid conception. But I'm one step away from becoming them, I tell you. Who am I to say that their magic doesn't work? I don't know anything anymore, remember? People get desperate when they are searching for answers that can't be found. I don't want to be the lady wearing rose quartz and moonstone in her bra. I want to be the one who gets pregnant this month despite all her fears to the contrary. The one who can sit back and say 'what was I ever worried about?' and laugh, smugly.

I want the wind to change.

I want another chance.

I'll do it better this time, I promise. I won't let this one get away.

I won't let another baby get away.

Just give me a chance.

A dear friend, an horrific accident

Perhaps the hardest lesson I have had to learn this last year is that uncertainty is our constant companion in life. Given that this is a universal fact, no one is more surprised than I am to find that it took me 33 years to figure this out. I always thought I had some measure of control over the things that happened to me. If I was a good girl, if I studied hard, if I made good decisions, if I look after myself, I could avert those dangers that happen to 'other' people. I don't need to tell any of the readers of this blog how fatally wrong; how stupidly naive I was. But this is either an extremely hard realisation to accept, or I am a very slow learner, as despite everything I now know about randomness and chance and uncertainty, I was still struck dumb with shock and disbelief, not to mention fear and profound sorrow, when I received a phone call last night from the mother of a dear friend to say that something terrible had happened to my friend and her little three-year-old girl.

My friend and her little girl were involved in an horrific car accident almost two weeks ago. It appears that her car was T-Boned on a section of straight road by a driver overtaking her at speed in a massive 4WD BMW, complete with bullbars. Britta's extended family, who came across the scene when she failed to turn up to a family outing, were met with the most unimaginable horror as the emergency services tried to free the girls from their wreck of a car and airlift them to the city's main trauma hospital to be stabilised, assessed, and treated.

Thank God, her little girl's life was saved by virtue of the fact she was strapped into a very high quality child seat which protected her from much of the impact from the accident. She suffered a nasty gash to the head, bruising, and was showered with glass, but otherwise, remarkably, OK.

My friend did not fare so well. She has extensive injuries and did not regain consciousness or the ability to breathe on her own for several days, during which time so many things hung in the balance due to the sheer number and severity of her injuries. She has survived, thank God she has survived, but her injuries are too many and too horrific to mention. She is immobile, faces a long, heartbreakingly difficult future in rehabilitation, and does not have her little daughter at her side when they need each other most. She has only recently began rebuilding her life after a traumatic marriage breakup whereby her ex-partner has sought to make her life a living hell. That ex-partner has assumed full custody of this little girl and it is doing his best to prevent contact between them, and it seems at this stage that there is nothing she or her family can do about it.

I shook and cried for a long time during, and after, speaking to her mother. I am not on Facebook anymore, so I had missed the communications her family had made to try and let everyone know when it had first happened. How could this be happening? How could it have happened, and how had I remained blissfully unaware of what had befallen one of my dearest friends? She didn't deserve it! She has already been through so much! She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time! I am still reeling. I am still processing. I am still in shock that tragedy can befall the undeserving, even though I have first-hand knowledge that it does.

My first instinct was to drop the phone and rush to the hospital to see her, but I knew I had to wait until I could process the information so that my visit could be all about her, her welfare and her recovery, and not about my sadness and shock at what had happened to her. I plan to visit on Monday. I want to give her everything I have. But I don't know what I do have. I don't know what will help. I don't know what to do, what to say, when there is nothing I can do or say to make this better. I can only hold her hand, as she has held mine on so many occasions when I have needed it. But it feels like not enough. It isn't enough.

I will tell her that I love her. That she is the most determined, resilient person I know. She is, by far. I will tell her that I am with her for the long haul, no matter how many weeks and months and years that becomes. Because all we need to know in order to survive is that we are not alone, isn't it? That someone will bear witness to our suffering. That we won't be forgotten. That we won't be left behind.

Please, if you can, keep Britta in your thoughts as she faces her difficult journey ahead. I don't know what difference it can make, but it certainly can't hurt. Heartfelt friends are irreplaceable. Those soul connections we forge with people of like minds, and like hearts, are what make our lives worth living, in so many ways.

A better day

I'm having a really good day today. I consider this newsworthy, hence this blog post. Some of the terrible sadness and hopelessness I felt throughout this week has lifted and I am thankful for the respite. At the risk of providing way too much information, I got my period today and I almost immediately felt the tension I'd been holding for days lift. How about that, huh? I've been learning about the connections between hormones, moods and energy and motivation levels with my psychiatrist. Obviously, most of the distress I feel is related to grief, and to the fact that my baby died. She has a theory, however, that I manage that grief very differently at varying points throughout my cycle, and that this has also been true during times when she has treated me for depression. It's hard to make any firm conclusions, as grief itself is cyclical and unpredictable, but I suppose it would be handy to notice a pattern so that I might be able to better plan for the times when it becomes too tough to be in the world. There's so much about our bodies we don't understand. So many complex interplays between biology, experience, and temperament.

I'm reading a very interesting book at the moment on something a bit related. It's called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain. The book explores how the traits of sensitivity and seriousness have come to be considered undesirable in the modern age. Cain explains how we've come to live in an age where extroversion has become the cultural ideal, and she explores the profound consequences that this 'culture of personality' has had on what we all deem valuable and desirable. She looks at the introvert/extrovert divide from a range of really interesting perspectives, for example, showing how the brain chemistry of introverts and extroverts differs. Probably the only people who'll be interested in this book are fellow introverts, but hey, I know more than my fair share of those, so perhaps this recommendation will go far and wide! I'm planning on writing a more detailed review of the book when I've finished reading it. I'm fascinated by my own psychology. I'm not sure what this says about me (analysis forthcoming!) but I love reflecting on this kind of stuff, and thinking about who I am, and I guess, why I am.

********

I planted more plants today. I'm obsessed with all the living things. Maybe because they respond to my tender care with ever flourishing signs of unmistakeable activity. Perhaps because plants live and grow in the way that Max should have, but will not. Or is it that I need a constant reminder that the season will change again; that from out of the midst of my sorrow, even in the unlikeliest time and place, some entirely other way of being can, and just might bloom? Whatever reason, I've become a frequent shopper at the nursery, where I wander around for an hour at a time looking, I'm sure, like some sad, lost lady, who doesn't know what to do with herself. Max is everywhere for me, all of the time, and I suppose plants allow me to leave memories or mentions of him everywhere, too, so that reality matches up with my inner experience. The things I grow for Max mark his place; they map out some territory for him. They are, in short, something I can give to him and for him.

I planted some seeds of a flower called Heartsease, which is a sentiment I hope will grow as they do. It is a flower that is said to help heal a broken heart. I've just found out that it is also called the 'love-in-idleness', which is the same flower whose juice, when administered by Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, makes Titania fall in love with the first creature she sees upon awakening, which turns out to a craftsman in the forest who has a head like a donkey! Obviously very powerful stuff! I'm not feeling super confident about this one as I've never planted anything straight from seeds before, but I followed the instructions and sowed them 5mm deep and placed them in a spot where they'll be protected from the hot afternoon sun. Apparently I can expect to see seedlings within 14-21 days from now, so set your watches, people. Let the Heartsease fairy come to me. Let it come to us all.

I have this wonderful idea that from the special plants I grow for Max - that represent longing, and remembrance, and healing - I can eventually take cuttings, which I could give to people for their own gardens, so that those sentiments flourish everywhere, for everyone who has lost a baby. Isn't that a lovely idea? It's something I would really like to do in the future.

I also planted something special for Kitty. He now has some cat mint seedlings germinating in the front garden. He took a keen interest in the planting (as he does in everything) and I think he'll be beside himself when he discovers that sniffing the plants makes him feel all happy and funny. Kitty certainly does not need any more madness than he has already been genetically blessed with, but you know, we all need a little something occasionally to get by. Interestingly, I've tried to grow cat mint for Peppy before but he has never shown an interest in it. Always the sensible boy, my Peppy. He is such a responsible big brother.

Simon's Cat (our favourite cartoon series) aptly pictures
how Kitty might look when his new flower is in full bloom!

While I was out there, and because it is a glorious Spring-like day, I also took the plunge and pruned Max's rose. I had done a significant amount of YouTube research, and I think I had the technique sorted out, but it still felt so counter-intuitive to hack away at a beautiful, growing plant. I guess we shall see in the Spring if it recovers from my bout of Edward Scissorhands-ing. . . stay tuned for that!

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A happy day. A productive day. A hopeful day. But still my baby never far from my mind. I love you, Max. You are in everything I do. You are in everything I am.

Annual Memorial Service: An Invitation

I received a letter in the mail from the hospital where Max was born this week. They have a distinctive logo on all of their envelopes, and all my insides went to jelly when I saw it in the letter box. That pink logo used to represent good news; appointments, scans, hospital booking information, all of which I was regularly sent when Max was still alive and full of life's potential. This time I didn't know what they wanted. What could they possibly have to offer me now?

I was saddened, but also heartened, to find that it was an invitation to the hospital's annual memorial service to honour the babies who have died. I knew immediately that I wanted to go. I'm connected to that place, for better and for worse. I never want to go back there, and yet I want to go back there every day. It's where Max lived all of his life, and where I half expect to find him again in the nursery waiting for me.

I'd like to invite friends and family to the service, to remember Max, and all of the other babies who did not make it out of those hospital doors alive.

When: Wednesday 22 August 2012 at 6.15pm
Where: The Royal Women's Hospital, Conference Room A, Ground Level, Cnr Grattan St & Flemington Road, Parkville.

I need to RSVP to the hospital by next Friday 10th August, so please let me know if you would like to come. You would all be more than welcome to join with us. Please leave a comment below if you plan on coming, or email me with your RSVP: beginningofallthings@gmail.com

In the garden

Max's plants are thriving. I may not have been able to keep him alive, but I'm doing a damn good job of keeping the plants that I'm growing in his memory alive. It's no consolation. I don't need to even say that. But looking at the plants, and tending to them, really does make me feel better. It's the wonder I feel at all the living things. I look at living things as if they are a rare novelty these days since my usual thoughts are so often death-side.

Yesterday was not a good day for me. I couldn't manage much, but I did what I could. And what I could do, I decided, was some gardening. It was crazily foggy in Melbourne yesterday morning. This winter has been so strange with fog and frost like I've never seen before in this city. I tell you this just to illustrate the fact that it wasn't a very friendly morning for gardening. Does that give me extra points for getting outside in it anyway? I think yes!

Those of you who know me in real life know how much I love tea. Tea, tea, tea. Can't get enough of it or its paraphernalia. For those who don't know me in real life, here's a tip: I really, really love tea! My favourite brew is an English Breakfast, or a Twining's Traditional Afternoon, but I've recently begun a caffeine deprivation program. Not because I'm a sadist (though maybe I am) but because we are trying for another baby and I want to reduce every possible, conceivable (pardon the pun) risk associated with poor pregnancy outcomes that I can. This includes caffeinated beverages, of which I am now only imbibing one per day.

I know I can't really throw the trying-to-have-another-baby thing in there and then just change the topic. The truth is I can only bare to mention it in passing at the moment, as if it were not really a big deal, as I've become so superstitious that I'm sure saying the words out loud will rob me of the possibility of it coming true, or something insane like that. But of course it's a big deal, and yes, I have much more to say, and hope, and fear about it. I just can't do it right now while I'm in this terribly sad, hopeless state of mind. So instead I make this post about tea, and why I found myself out in the misty fog planting peppermint and spearmint seedlings.

Apparently anyone can grow mint. I've been told it practically grows itself. It's got such a hold on life that you need to contain it in a pot or else it will take over your entire garden, colonising the earth with its leafy progeny. I spent about two hours at the nursery choosing the right pots. I've made major life decisions in less time than it took to choose a faux-terracotta plant receptacle. I didn't know what size or shape. Self watering or the kind that needs a person to water it? How is there even such a thing as a self watering plant pot? Should the scientists and engineers who came up with that for Yates not be working on much more important, pressing world issues?

Anyway, here they are, plopped in some potting mix and watered straight from our rain tank. Grow, minties, grow. I want fresh tea in the spring,  to drink for the baby I desperately hope will come in the spring. Be my magical elixir. I'm counting on you.

The beginnings of my new herb garden

Peppermint...mmm

Straggly spearmint. . . I think I did a mediocre job of planting this guy

Gone where I cannot follow

“I have lived with you and loved you, and now you are gone. Gone where I cannot follow, until I have finished all of my days.”
― Victoria Hanley

I recite this quote repeatedly, each time trying out varied tones of anger, disbelief, distress. Try it, won't you? See for yourself its thousand different inflections.

The first time around it is desperate and breathless, trailing off at the end in a murmured ellipsis, the final thought of an eternity without your beloved just hanging into space where there is nothing more to come, nothing more against which to fight.

It has something of the bitter and reproachful, too. It's indignant and confrontational in tone. 'I loved you!' it roars. 'AND NOW YOU ARE GONE!' It shouts and wails in protest: 'how can you do this to me? How dare you go where I cannot follow!

Then, suddenly, it's meek again. It is questioning and confused. 'Now you are gone?', it asks, as if trying to make sense of the unfathomable. 'Where are you? How long will it be until I can see you again?' It is quietly resigned, if not accepting. 'Oh. Now you are gone. You're gone now.'

I feel Max's absence so painfully, so achingly today. It's as if no time has passed at all; as if someone had only moments ago taken him from me; as if I can still feel the weight and warmth of him in my arms. I rub my fingertips together, the fleshy soft parts which which I transferred kisses to his tiny, clammy lips, trying to get a sense of if they can still recall what his tender skin felt like. They can't. They don't. I have a moment of mad regret that I ever washed my hands after they had anointed him with all of my mother love. How could I have been so careless? How could I have let him. . . all traces of him. . . go?

Every part of me stings with longing for my poor dead baby. It stings, it bites, it burns. All of this a silent undercurrent as I go about doing whatever it is that people do after their only child is gone, and with him all hope of. . . well, hope itself.

In the quiet, in the stillness, in the intractable absence with which I am overcome, I realise for the hundredth time that I have none of the clothes he wore to bury my face in and weep. I was so confused that day. I did not ask to have them given to me. I own not a single thing he touched. How can this be? How can any of this be?

I have the same revelations over and over again. I had a baby once. I grew him and nurtured him and loved him and then they took him away from me. They touched him, they picked him up, and then they burned him to pieces and flung back at me in a box what was left.

Sometimes I blame them - the people whose job it was to prise him from my grasp. Perhaps he was not dead at all. 'Did you ever think of that?' I shout at myself. Perhaps they stole him away and made him so. Maybe he just needed a warm bath. I should have given him a warm bath. Maybe he just needed his mummy to help him wake up. I should never have left him with those strangers. What kind of mother am I? What if he'd just needed ten more minutes to prise himself from his baby slumber? What if he opened his eyes after I left and no one noticed? How can I ever know for sure?

My baby. My baby. The days are so long, so sad, so cold without my baby.

And I want all of the things, the stuff, the collectibles. I want the hospital cot and the sheet they laid him upon. I want the room where he was born roped off and preserved exactly as it was that day, blood and tears and all. It's all his. It's all mine. I want it all back. I want that day again. Even if he has to die. Even if I have to leave him. I want to live it again, and again and again. I would do it better next time, I know I would. I would not forget so many things. Eight months ago I didn't know how to have a dead baby. Now I do. Let me do it better. I'm pleading. Whoever or whatever you are that led me here, won't you at least let me have that?

All of my worldly connections with my baby have been severed like gangrene limbs, and like missing limbs those connections send out phantom signals suggesting that their missing part is still there, only just out of reach. If only I could get to him I could pull him back, bring him home, lay him down, and love him. I just want to love him. Oh, please, let me have him, and hold him and love him.

Thinking of, wishing on, pining over, longing for my little baby, Max, who is gone where I cannot follow, no matter the ways I try.