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.