To all you intuitive mothers out there (and mothers in the making/waiting)

Today, a book recommendation, something I don't do lightly.

This is an old post, dug up from my old blog - originally posted in March 2007 - when the LGBB was a mere 8 months old. Given that it is an age-old topic (new mother insecurity), I thought I'd repost here for any new mums out there, or those taking note for when their time comes. I do hope it reaches the screen of someone who needs to read this recommendation today. You're not on your own in this! x


Do you ever read something, like a book or an article, and think, "Hang on.... did I write this for myself and forget?" It's something so very inline with how you see things that it's as if your central nervous system has a spare body floating around that it uses to do things you could have done/said/written yourself. I do. Not often, but sometimes. Especially in written form, I get this quite a bit.

I have found the Mother *boom-tish* of all such books. I am only wishing I'd found it when the LGBB was about 7 weeks old and I was going through the motions with a fake smile plastered on my face. I was so worn down by sleep deprivation and had been hung upside down (or so it felt) for so long that to find my right way up seemed so impossible that I was quite happy to just hang there and wallow, thank you very much all the same, kind Sir.

I was so moved and my confidence in my own instincts so honoured as I read this book that I actually wrote and thanked the author. She's certainly taken the writer's claw out of my task - because I have been jotting things down as they come to me - it seems they're all here in this book. In plain English.

With a cherry on top.

It reminds me of one of my favourite, well-used Steve Martin lines (shit... was it Steve Martin? I can't remember! Noooooo! Damn you, baby braaaain! *shakes fist to heavens*): "That's just what I've been trying to tell these people", except in this case, "these people" is me. This book has somehow given me the confidence to trust what I already know. I am sure it would be the same for anyone who reads it. What a gift!

It's full of wisdom I've been trying to tell myself.

I have found Intuitive Mothering, for me personally, to be one of those nuggets that speaks to your core. That inner You whom you know, maybe very well but more often perhaps not so intimately - the authoress herself professes to not really know where the book came from and I find that fascinating as much as it is affirming that it comes from a divine and pure source, devoid of much of the ego you find in other books of its kind. I know exactly what she means because there have often been times where I will write something and go back and read it later, to find I feel like I'm reading it for the very first time. Ella's "Parallel Story" was written like that. In fact, both the stories about her that I wrote for her pages came from thin air (not to say they're not completely factual, it's just that I sat down, put my fingers to the keyboard, got up and went away and there they remain, unedited bar a few spelling errors, no reworking or the likes).

This book has given me the affirmation I really needed at a time I really needed it in order to stand taller and realise I don't need peripheral parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, friends, professionals... ANY outside source... to give me the proverbial pat on the back I thought I needed in order to make it the "right" or "correct" thing to do.

Mind you, the irony isn't lost on me that a book (in itself an "outside source") has led me to this conclusion!  Hmmm.....

I think the difference is that I feel far more empowered by seeing the book on the shelf (the slimmest paperback spine in amongst the other Parenting manuals, just leaping out and going "Pick ME! PICK MEEE!", having the follow-through to purchase it (I was on a "date" with Steve at the time and we'd just meandered in to a large bookstore and sauntered to our favourite sections - he Quantum something-or-other, me Parenting) and then realising what a pearler it actually is right from the first page.

It shines a truth. It speaks to my innermost mother instinct. Reminds me to trust what I feel is right, for me and the LGBB. It goes and sits and has a yarn with that real deep knowledge we all have that, without all the "assvice" and interference and uncertainty that builds up in you when you defer to others to tell you if you're heading in the right direction, you most certainly ARE doing exceptionally well for YOUR baby and everything is going right (despite what any general book or MCHN tries to tell you).

------------------

Just yesterday, I had a nightmare day: went for the LGBB's 8mth check. Was told I was sitting her too much and "that's why her legs are bent like a frog, if you keep doing it she'll have problems and need physio" and rah de rah de rah. It made sense, there were no "that doesn't sound right" alarms ringing in my head. I simply went "Ok" and began doing more tummy exercises with L from the time we got home. Don't think it's a coincidence that the poor kid had the most miserable afternoon - she cried and cried almost non-stop, big sorry-for-herself sobbing - and by the time she got to bed last night we were both exhausted. By the time I went to bed, I'd realised (again) that I'd allowed someone else to tell me what was best for my child. It resulted in an extremely uncomfortable day for both of us.

I always vow I'll never do it again, that I'll be more aware of it next time.... and I always slip! I'm not hard on myself for that, I am realistic about it and the fact that by my very nature, I aim to please/do right/do it well. But when I walk past that book on my end table, it snaps me back - the pendulum might get out of whack but if it swings back to centre, all is not lost.

I don't profess that the book has ALL the answers or that it is for everyone, merely it is a bloody useful tool now for me to dip into - full of reminders I could have written to myself, but so nice to see it in print, published, as if anything written in a book is fact and "right".... except this time, with this book, intuitively, I know that for me, it IS right. Because it speaks to my truth. The comforting thing about that is, if it has been written by someone else, and yet it is full of what my deeper wisdom would have written had I not buried her with fear, cynicism, loathing and the best of intentions, then surely it is going to also make someone else's soul squeal with delight.

So therefore, I feel it my duty to pass on to anyone who considers it might be something they'd like to have on their own shelf.

I give you...

Intuitive Mothering by Lyn MacPherson, published by newholland.com.au, ISBN 174110352-5, available in all good bookstores...


Some small favourite extracts:

"Things" are not important to your child, but you are. If you are happy and around and interacting with your child, that will mean more to them than anything you could ever buy them.


The better we look and the tidier our house is does not reflect how well we are coping. DING DING DING DING!!! This is the gold-star sentence for me. I was blinded by the lightbulb that went off in my head when I read it. I look around and see others' perfection. It's SO NOT perfection. It is the illusion of same. Key here for me is: don't waste energy on assuming what you're seeing (in others and how they cope) and then using those assumptions to fill in the rest of the picture. And don't be ashamed of your own dirty floors/toilet/shower! They won't always be dirty. They might be today, but what needs doing today (or tomorrow) might not be cleaning them! Do what you want to do, not what you think you should do (see the next paragraph!)

Confronting and releasing expectations: Make what we "should" do what we "want" to do.. or don't do it. Another barrier to tuning in to your child lies in expectations. They are everywhere, from mothers to friends to doctors - and especially the expectations you heap on yourself. The key to liberating yourself from expectations is to take the word "Should" out of your vocabulary. Every time you hear yourself thinking you "should" do something, ask "Is this really something I want to do? I it the right thing for me and my child?" If you are able to say "yes", that is great - it has now become your choice - not something done because it is expected. If your answer is "no", choose not to do it. (If I had remembered this yesterday, my Bullfrog-Legged baby and I would have had a much happier afternoon, wouldn't we! I didn't listen to my instincts until last night, and I couldn't wait until this morning to start a fresh new day with her when she got up for the day)


Be proud of your decisions and choices. If you feel the need to reassess one of your choices, do so for you, not for others. Avoid the bombardment of influences out there..... Throughout your journey with your child, just be who you are. Do not expect to feel anything, just let yourself feel. Let it all flow. Neither of you have ever done this before - it's a new relationship for you and your baby. Every woman is beautiful and unique. If we were all the same, life would be very boring. Every child is also beautiful and unique and every mother is beautifully equipped in her own unique way to understand, nurture and raise her children. See the beauty and the mystery of the discovery, and the true freedom brought about by feeling rather than thinking.


'Intuitive Mothering' is more than another baby care book. It is a warm and friendly tool for the new parent negotiating the maze of apparently conflicting, prescriptive advice about parenting styles and approaches - Dr Bronwyn Gould, Chair, National Assoc. for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.

A very nearly wasn't Happy Mothers Day dream

I have been reorganising my "past blogging life" into some order here in the last few days (did you see? There's a new page, check it out!). Deciding which ones I want to resurface, which ones I feel compelled to share (the useful ones) and which posts need to definitely stay hidden. The Too Hard Basket is getting full, I can tell you that much.

But in my reading travels, I came across the post where I had a dream that was, in hindsight, a premonition. See, we very nearly lost our LGBB during birth. I dreamed about it about six weeks before she was born, as eluded to in the post below.

Now... some of you reading may think, "Good grief, when is this chick ever going to let it all go, already?"

But here's the thing: This is a reason to celebrate Mothers Day even more, to me. The young girl who is right at this moment being such a character with her Dad - I dreamed her death. We then very narrowly avoided experiencing her death mere weeks later in exactly the same circumstances. Now, if that is not cause for the greatest thanks every Mothers Day to be coming from ME.... I don't know what is.

This is a post close to my heart. Where I was given the chance to see our little Lolly properly, on an ultrasound, for the first time. And it possibly contains too much information about peeing on sticks. And an embarrassing Hall & Oates moment admission.


These Dreams Go On When I Close My Eyes...
(originally posted June 13th, 2006)


Every second of the night, I live another life.

Yeah, thanks Heart. God I loved that song.

But I digress. Before I even start.

I had the most godawful all-nighter of a dream last night. I don't want to go into it again, suffice to say it was about the baby and wasn't all peachy. Just deeply rooted subconscious fear stuff. Luckily I had an appointment this morning with Dr Luffley, so didn't have to wait too long before seeing that lovely little person on the ultrasound screen again.

And what a show I was given.

Instead of being that little blob, or the squirming arm and leg buds, or the lanky bundle of limbs, or the little ball of chub squeezing its own cheeks... where once I could see the whole length of a body, what I saw today was so amazing I can hardly describe it in words. I was greeted by a face that filled the entire screen. With a face as large as, well, life. Sucking a thumb. Then taking it out and rubbing both eyes with pudgy fists. I was gobsmacked. And Dr Luffley said "Isn't it so amazing, it's like watching them in a cot or something!"

It was exactly the antedote I had needed to clear out the remainder of the nasty feelings from the dream I couldn't shake. It was too much. During the Q&A portion of the visit (which despite what some may think hardly ever happens - I never really have questions), where I had a full list written out which Dr Luffley dutifully and respectfully ran through with me, I lost it and began to cry. It is all so surreal. I tear up again as I think, just a month ago even, I didn't dare be so bold as to assume this would come. This day where I was planning what I needed to do when Lolly gives a not-so-gentle rap on the door, I never honestly allowed myself to believe it'd come so I didn't think about it.

Being forced to make some necessary arrangements, such as work out what I do if I go into labour when Dr Luffley is still technically on leave and not "on call" but promised he'd come in for us if it happened before he was back consulting and delivering.... it's all a bit much. The last of my fears - and I will only divulge as much as to say it involves cords and the disasters I have heard about in the last two years in the new parallel world in which I reside with other parents - was alleviated today. My question was answered. I was reassured. And I feel like I've buckled in for the steepest part of the ride. The end bit, the big finale on the big dipper!

I returned to the waiting room and kept it together very admirably, while performing a urine test, the result strip over which not one but two women pored for a tad too long until they even called Dr Luffley over in between appointments - ewwww, don't get him to look at my wee-stick! - who came back to the reception window where I was waiting, to reassure me the result was fine. I have no idea why I had to give them a cup of my pee (which was like liquid gold because despite being busting, my bladder now holds about 2ml of liquid at any given time and takes forever to refill). I forget what they were testing. All I know is, whatever it was, I passed. The test as well as the pee.

On the way home, I called Steve. By the time I got out to the car, I just wanted a good cry to release all the tension. I had hoped to join him for lunch. His office is about 15 minutes due south from there. But no, I had forgotten he was in the city in training all day.... so I kept it together a bit longer while I told him Lolly's antics for the morning, got off the phone from him and then blubbered on the way home.

Here's where it gets funny. I only really started to cry when I heard Private Eye, by Hall & Oats, on the radio. I had cranked it up earlier, and then on came this old classic. I was immediately transported back to the age of 9 where I sat as a passenger in our combi van, surrounded by my two brothers and sister, mum and dad in the front. We were returning from a day trip to Warrnambool back to our camp site at Peterborough (the yearly summer holiday destination) and I was perfecting my singing. I had discovered that I could sing quietly without anyone else hearing, or so I thought, if I directed my voice into the window. I honestly thought I was the only one who could hear me. As I belted out Private Eye, once more with feeling. And then Man Eater. So earnestly that I believed I was in the film clip. I think I must have had a Hall & Oats obsession that summer.

Well, turns out, my older brother did hear. And told me huffily to shuddup. For anyone who has seen Napoleon Dynamite, when I saw this movie I thought someone had followed my older brother around to get ideas for the character. Right down to the sullen bottom lip, hair and 'tude. It's uncanny how similar they are, I could be looking at my brother back in the early 80's, it's just too funny.

I remembered that in an instant today, driving home. And I felt, I don't know... I guess I felt sad for that little girl. That she couldn't possibly have known then what would happen to her first baby - I was baby crazy, especially at the age of 9 (and every other year, I won't lie). It would have snuffed a light out in me forever, right there. All the intrigue and beauty and mystery of babies.

And then I laughed. I laughed at myself crying while belting out a very poor rendition of Private Eye once again 22 years later, this time with big fat tears rolling down my hormonally chubby cheeks and no one to shut me the hell up. How tragic, above all, that it was Hall and Freakin' Oats that got to me. Shit, don't tell anyone. I'm so embarrassed.

God. What a mess of a post this has been.

Starring a very young Jazz and an even younger LGBB

From April, 2007 (aged 9 months.... and 2 years - therefore, the dog should have known better, being the older of the two....)

The LGBB: See doggy. Point doggy. With my cruskit in my grip.
Jazz: She's got fooooooooooooooood!

The LGBB: Damn. Cruskit. Stuck. To. Hand.
Jazz: She's assumed the throw pozzy. Right, so if I sit, I'll get it. Fer sher.

The LGBB: *Struggling* Oh this bloody cruskit. Maybe if I use my ... other ... hand. Great, now they're both stuck to it. What a mess.
Jazz: She didn't throw it. She's messing with me. That's it, I'm standing to get closer, in case Pepper gets it.

The LGBB: Doggy, can you help me unstick this?
Jazz: Oh heck, I'll just eat it from your hand shall I? I know it's wrong, but it's oh so right *eyes glazing over*

Woe is the dog who is scolded for taking the food from a baby's hand
and gets caught by Mummy.

Old Mother Turtle

Hello, dear readers! It feels like it's been weeks since my last confessional post. I have begun cataloguing some really old posts from my old (hidden from the www now) blog. More on that in a later post sometime. For now, I wanted to share this one. I cannot quite believe it's been four years since I wrote this (below)... It honestly is so fresh in my mind that it feels like it was only last year, if that, that I got it down. This is a very pivotal post in the blossoming of my book.


Hope you like it.


More soon!

-- ~ --

14th June, 2007

I have no idea where this is going to end up but I need to log it in this timeline somehow.

I've been clearing a space each morning (energetically more than anything) to enable me to carry out work on this writing I'm doing. I go in with a ritual of shifting and clearing any incorrect energy so that I remain focused and responsible.

It's usually the same old subjects: myself, Steve and the LGBB, our home and belongings. They all get thrown in there when I do a clearing. The past few mornings when I've gone to do it, though, Ella's name has inched its way into my consciousness. One of those inclusions that just flowed so easily that I knew I wasn't forcing it in there. I've been hesitant to include her, wondering why or how on earth my doing a clearing could possibly pertain to her. I see her as a soul far wiser and more capable than me down here doing my bit.

But I think that's where I've gone astray. Perhaps just misguided or naive.

I included Ella in the process this morning and then got started on my work. An hour passed without feeling like even a minute had gone by, when I raised my head out of it again I realised I'd hand written four pages without stopping. Such is the way I write when I really need to, it's so much more constructive too when it comes to me like that.

Anyway, I started back on the computer for a brief moment before Ella's name popped into my head again. It wasn't "her", as such, not like old times - certainly no dialogue was exchanged - but I felt the need to talk to someone about it so I gave one of my intuitive friends a call.

What ensued was a "lightbulb moment" of a conversation. Just incredible. Once I had finished explaining that Ellanor seemed to be wanting to be included lately in my clearing and protection, my friend said, "Why ever would she not? She is a part of your family - yours, Steve's, Lolly's. You're her mother, you represent her connection to Mother Earth in this lifetime, of course she would come to you when she feels the need for some added protection." 

Hearing it in such simple, factual terms just made me crumble. I don't know why it took her to say it, after all, I have been struggling (it feels like) for so long to retain the title of "Ella's mum" to anybody who's still willing to hear me rant about it. And then, something so easy and flowing as a simple morning ritual is the thing to really bring it back into perspective for me.

Now I am clearer.

And the turtle connection? When I rang, my friend had been researching and meditating with Turtle, who had come to her first thing this morning. Her mother passed away (she too had experienced a neonatal loss some 60 years ago, back in a time when there was no such thing as expressing oneself on the largely accepting realm of the internet, or anything similar for that matter) and she was drawn to uncovering a bit more about Mother Earth and the mother connection today. My phone call came right in the middle of this work for her.

What I gleaned today is that Turtle, who lays her eggs in the sand, where they hatch and many not make it to the ocean as they fall prey to predators, never loses her threads of connection to all her babies.

And I blubbered. Hell yeah, I did when I heard that. Just beautiful.

Getting there. It's time.

Geez, these days I hardly get time to get my feathers all ruffled and the realisation comes *pouts* Where's the fun in that?

I am joking, of course.

It's time to fly the nest. I didn't see before that I am not seeing my family as individuals, not beholdent or responsible for insuring my safe passage through my life after experiencing death.

Wise friends are like beacons to me and I appreciate every singular (and collective) one of them (you).

After a build-up of incorrect energy delivered upon me (again) today when I least expected it, in very poor form I perpetuated its effects by purging/dumping, if you will. Like most things viewed in hindsight, I don't know if simply seeing my hurting words on screen and knowing they'd reach a sympathetic ear was what catalysed the enlightenment. But in one fell swoop, I've made another bounding leap in knitting the wound closed.

I can't expect anyone not living my life to fully realise what I feel. No matter how many times I explain or spell it out, it's not for anyone but me to solve the riddle that's been niggling at me. Everyone has their own life. They don't owe me anything. But... in the reverse, nor do I owe them. This was my sticking point thus far, I believe. I expected to be expected to deliver. Seeing as I can't these days, such is life with a gaping hole I will in some respects never fill, I was beating myself up all this time that I can't possibly hope to repay in kind (or otherwise) that which was granted me as I healed in the early days of Ella dying. What's ensued is a flogging of myself to explain myself to, most of all, my family. I don't think they expect it, but I did it anyway. They're all individuals. They are all different (ok, ok, for the Python fans I have to echo... "yes.... we ARE all different"). They are neither responsible nor answerable to me nor me to them.

It's time. I'm on my own now. I finally. FINALLY. Realised it. Not more than 10 minutes ago.

So... just tell me again?

Because sorry, I've forgotten. Just why exactly would we be expected to smoke the peace pipe with anyone who could not see past their own ruffled feathers to recognise someone in the throes of grief? And not only that, but rub salt in the wounds ever so subtlely by sending unnecessary anecdotes about blissful newborn antics mere months after I lost my own?

You know the type who appears all demure and attentive and giving? And all the while, you know damn well you're being played, specifically by the blatantly obvious messages you're being slipped when no one else is looking so they get to keep their noses clean, and regardless, you have no choice but to go along with it, for the sake of family peace?

I can attest with all certainty that, even had I not experienced the death of Ellanor, if someone I knew (family or otherwise) lost a child, I would give them the hugest break of all time. I just know I would. I know for a fact that others would too. I've seen people give me all the rein I needed (and those who didn't give that rein have cut themselves loose from our life) and I've heard enough stories now to know that there seems to be a mix of the two types: the ones who give you as much space as you need and cut you slack, at times gently guiding you back on track if you get a bit overly sensitive. No pointing out faults, just passive, peaceful giving-way until you get back to the path.

Why then, WHY, are they insistent on us putting "all of that" behind us? Chatting in passing about it the other night (as we are so over the subject and at peace with our decisions it's not worth rehashing specifics one more time), Steve and I could look back at the people we were and see plainly that all that was required was some more acceptance and allowance for our situation. We received neither... rather, we received only as much as some people could give. And that was nowhere near enough.

Now, 2 years after the fact, it seems there is still a need for meddling middle-players that they will put above anything else. That is, they would rather we come together and forgive all trespasses. At the expense of our feelings, recollections, pride, ongoing needs right now, whatever... I find it so ludicrous that I can't even look at them anymore.

I've had it up to *here* with hearing "Yes but some people are just not strong, they are just not able to cope with things like this" ... things like "this" being the death of our. Well, you know what? We had no real say either. It was sink or swim for us. Somehow, we swam. But when we were treading water for that first year or two, apart from not even being there, these people made it WORSE than it had to be.

And now you want me to WHAT??! Invite them to celebrate the first year of our second baby's life? Not in a million forevers, sorry.

The "get on with it" method and why it doesn't work

I'm writing a book. I didn't think it fitting to mention until I had accepted it myself. But it's fact now, I've started. And I've got around 20,000 words. I'm compiling bits and pieces from things I've written in the past three years and I'm trying to make it all work together now. It's hugely intense and emotional, gives me searing headaches sometimes when I read certain things and yet I can't deny the messages any longer. I had to get going on it. So last week, I did.

Not entirely off-topic, as I've been surrounding myself with all this over the weekend and it's put me in a funny (not ha-ha) place. I believe that being in a place of acceptance that all is as it is for a universal reason (the end-point of which no one knows until it goes sailing past and then another life lesson comes up, they're like waves) is the main key to the healing I've made over the death of Ellanor.

I was struck again last night by correspondence from a dear friend that had me thinking all night. She has inadvertently helped me realise where all my energy is going (not that it helps me curb the drain, that'll take some work): I have been hellbent on "fitting the mould". Seeing my words through her eyes - the sucker for punishment read my entire blog in one sitting yesterday, can you imagine? - really helped me bring it all back in again.

Quite coincidentally, yet perhaps not at all (the symmetry of universal process never ceases to excite and delight me), I was also trawling through my whole blog yesterday for a different reason. I was struck by not only how much more light-hearted yet deep my writing used to be *sob* but the positivity that innumerous people have thanked me for in the past was actually evident to me. I've not seen it before. It was a sombre realisation. It showed me in black and white just how far down I've come, if I could see it for myself and think of it as the "me" from before - strange then, that this has come at a time when I *should* be so much happier.

But therein lies the issue. And what a biggie it is.

I'm placing an ideal on myself subconsciously. It's one I've actually made mention of here and also to various people as the conversation arises in my life off-line. I'm going to Playgroup this morning, for instance. I could choose to let them in on where I am today (in a different headspace totally, surrounded by thoughts of Ellanor), I could vent a bit about how hard it is to try and juggle being Mum to two girls, one of whom is obviously not here; I could shut up about all of that and just focus on Lolly and get carried up by the day to days of all their lives; or I could just as easily not go, so avoiding the predicament altogether.

I say it's a predicament because I've done (and am living) the "get on with it" method, prescribed by family, friends and wider community alike. Why did I rush to get to this point though? Did I do it to reassure people I am capable, I was ok, I could do it all after I had Lolly? I recall telling various friends, relatives, health professionals, that I was NOT ok. When mention of Ella was made by me, I was moved along by and large (not by all, but when it comes from those you highly respect the opinion of, and you're feeling on the back foot, out of your depth, sleep deprived and very lost, hell yeah you use someone else's "trusted" judgment).

Yet, as this friend last night confirmed it is for her too, to live this way is to deny your lost child. And what would ANYONE who gave me the suggestion to move along know about that?? It's proven to me I still haven't quite got the balance right and maybe I never will. Days and weeks go by and I don't even notice that I haven't mentioned my dear cherub. I know on another level, though, that our connection is on a far more organic level. It's almost cellular. I don't always need to mention her or bring her into conversation now, as I used to (especially just after the LGBB made her entrance to the stage), because to do so and have conversations changed or be offered polite but very clear messages that I needed to "move on" and "let go" now that I had another daughter was actually more painful than the realisation that if I didn't say her name out loud, nobody would. Certainly they weren't mentioning (and don't mention) her to me. Here, right here in this blogspace, is about the sum total where consistently I've had only thoughtful, encouraging back-rubs from readers. That and a tiny online "mothers group" of my four non-blood related "sistas" *index and middle finger tap to heart* which has been my life blood for a couple of years now. I really have wound it right down, though, my expression of thoughts about Ellanor and the tough gig I've got keeping myself buoyant (no easy feat with an extra 20kg still to go, let me assure you) for Lolly day to day.

We just went on holiday. Every single day, I was thinking of Ella. This outdoor balcony would have been an issue with a 3 year-old, getting the LGBB off to sleep would have been hard with Ella here too sleeping in the same room, what would she have been like - would she have been into all the drawers and cupboards, would we have had to pack far more frugally in order to take her favourite toys (answer: Yes, undoubtedly). I could go on and on, the wonders I had in my mind. I do it all the time. Often, when I'm not talking and sitting feeding Lolly, I will be thinking about Ella. Wondering about her like she's still on her travels, wondering how different our house would be, my relationship with Steve would be. Would we be happier now if we hadn't had the struggle we had with Ellanor?

Yet, still I don't want to see her death as a tragedy. Her not being here as a gaping empty hole in my life. To do that is to negate the time she spent here.

And what of the LGBB? How does how I am with all of this affect her? I never want her to feel she is living in the shadow of a baby, an older sister, who can do no wrong. I need to do right by her too. How do I properly compartmentalise my ongoing healing and growing and accepting that Ellanor is not here, how do I weave that into my life, our lives, now, all the while maintaining an honest balance? How do I do it and keep the impact on Lolly to a minimum? When do I even get the time to regularly take my thoughts and energy to a space where I can continue this healing?

Therein lies another pressure not familiar (thank God for them) to most other mothers. No Playground floor play talk would ever be able to touch on how you balance giving yourself a break about giving in some days to the immense yearning for a child you will never see change in those photos, while still trying to put on a happy face for the achingly gorgeous grizzle-bucket now asleep (finally, damn those goddamn teeth - about 8 of them I can feel coming all at once, oh my poor Lolly!). How do I manage sitting here reading the diary I kept each day while looking after her sister in the NICU, keeping myself together even though my head feels like it's exploding? And then I have to go in to her when she wakes but it's like trying to flip a switch in my brain: this is not Ella. This is another baby.

Oh that's right. This is the Bliss Bomb. This is a totally different, unique person. I know that. But because Ella will always be a baby when I physically put myself back in time to where I was with her in the physical, it's still difficult while Lolly is also a baby to separate the two girls.

Feel a tad nauseous. Better stop and regroup before my young charge takes charge and yells out.

Diary of an IVF whore

23.2.05
"...Now see here, journal, I don't want to see any miscarriage stories this year in this one! So much progress towards starting IVF - it's quite amazing to find myself in this position - so close to starting after so many, many months and years of waiting and heartbreak.
I had to terminate the pregnancy we had in December '04 (two months ago). It surprised me a little how relatively easy I found it to cope with.
And so, lying in Recovery, I made the decision: we are going to start using Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis with IVF to try and make our family now. I wish it hadn't resorted to this, but then how long do I continue to do this? To my mind and body?"

8.5.05 Mother's Day
"...Bought a bunch of flowers for myeslf yesterday. No one in the family has mentioned today to us at all. Don't know what else I was expecting.
I start sniffing Synarel tomorrow. I am soooooo excited. Really looking forward to seeing how well my body reacts."

11.5.05
"...I'm trying very hard and so far I've not mastered it properly, but I really need to concentrate on bringing in this baby's energy. We're so close now. I have to keep remembering what Steve has started saying: 'Don't look over there, or over there - just keep bringing in that baby.' I really do feel like it's just him and me this time. Funny that surrounded by practically zero family, only dr's/nurses at the IVF clinic and many strangers mostly via the net, we seem to feel really strong and focused. There's not much doubt, certainly not as much as when we were trying to conceive naturally."

24.5.05
"...Did my first injection last night. Weirrrrrrd!! But now I've done it once, I am sure I will be able to do them quite easily. It's funny, I'm not resentful or 'hating' this process or the drugs at all - it's a bit scary, yes, but it still feels like we're heading in a positive direction.
You are so longed for, little one! We want you here with us and would go to any length to get you here safely. I'm feeling very positive about the outcome of all this. I don't think we will be too disappointed. I fear saying that, in case something goes wrong and it all ends in a miscarriage again, or no pregnancy at all.... but I really don't think that will result.
No, I know this baby will be strong and fit and healthy. We are waiting for you. We are ready to catch you. Please don't hesitate."

27.5.05
"...I can't believe it's only a week from today until Egg Pick Up! These years of yearning and trying to conceive our family have been so long and at times painful, lonely, boring, difficult and filled with immense sorrow. That it could all be about to end is a bit incomprehensible. I mean, I was also sure that Ella was "the one", I could never have guessed it would all end up the way it has. So it's very hard to not have reservations. I'm having to let go an 'identity' of sorts.
I wasn't sure before, but now I've seen: You are NOT my mission or purpose in life, little one. Although I am more than willing to have you become part of our lives. xx"

31.5.05
"...Ok, whoa. Trying very, very hard to stay positive today. It's so very difficult to keep focused on you, my little one. You haven't made yourself known to me just yet. I have to keep trusting this process.
This morning I went for my first ultrasound to check how many follicles have been produced. There were 14. I know my eggies are good! It only takes on. One special little one. Come on! We'll always be here in the meantime, but hurry up already, will ya!"

5.6.05
"...Optimism being smashed to pieces here! 6 eggs retrieved from those 14 follicles. Only three have fertilised. We now have to wait all day today and right through tomorrow (biopsy day) to find out many have survived.
The chances of of one of those three being both normal AND living for 5 days and growing all the while is just so slim.
I can't bear it. By far, this is the worst, the most cruel wait I've ever encountered during our years trying to conceive.
To top everything off, that girl has completely done her top over something I vented publicly abouty her behaviour towards me (particularly at Ella's birthday "celebration" where they arrived with their child and didn't even come over to say hi). That and other things she's said or gestures she's made that I find totally inappropriate and insensitive.
I was asked by Steve not to confront her - I see now it's not for me to do that in an attempt to alter her behaviour and frankly, from her reaction, I doubt she would have cared about me if I'd put my heart on my sleeve and gone straight to her anyway, which would have crushed me even more - But I needed to get it out somehow. I was also unsure (as I am about just so many things) if what I was feeling was justified, that maybe I had it all wrong about her.
So I wrote it out, posted it and received pages of sympathetic feedback. I was able to put it all behind me after that acknowledgement/validation. Well, through her own snooping (which she has cleverly skirted), she has come across the post with all the comments now, 6 months later.
Great timing!
And once again, I am left doubting if I have this right in my head - this, however, is denying my feelings. She is simply livid at being called on her two-facedness. If she would just stop going around acting like a perfect saviour and generous person, and stop talking about the same people she's so "generous" towards behind their backs, perhaps she wouldn't be so confused about why I feel like this."

7.6.05
"...Well my goodness. One (at least) of those 3 little embies is normal. Not only normal but going strong.
This morning, when I woke up, I was just filled with dread waiting for "the call". Overnight, I had to get up at least 8 times with excruciating stomach cramps and rather violent trips to the toilet. I've lost 2kg in about 2 days, as this started on Sunday. I believe this is all manifesting from sheer terror. I wanted to feel so fit and healthy to welcome this emby aboard! But I feel quite wretched right now."

8.6.05
"...You're in, little fella! It still may all end in tears (have a blood test on 20/6) but I hope with everything i have in me that it will end in tears of happiness sometime in the first months of 2006. I feel so calm and peaceful, it feels quite surreal compared to the past five days of raw nerves."

22.6.05
"...Well, miracle emby did not stay. I started bleeding on Friday morning, unbelievable pain that went away after I passed a rather sizable clot. Lovely!
Spent the weekend recovering, accepting, gathering strength again. Steve seems to have taken it quite well, no tears from him and buckets from me.
I'm fine now though. Whatever 'fine' is...
We're not quite back at square one and that's a good feeling."

15.8.05
"...I'm currently well on my way through our second PGD cycle. This time, hardly anyone knows and those who do are in the dark about dates, timing, etc.
Interesting to observe that up until this past weekend, Ella was very prominent in my thoughts for over a week or two. I brought it up with Steve last Wednesday night and he said that, yes, he too had been thinking of her much more recently.
We revisited that yesterday and noted that our thoughts of our girl had died down again. Funny thing is - and I haven't really shared this because a) I'm still a tad unsure of whether my mind is playing tricks and getting in the way and b) I wouldn't know how to explain it out loud and still sound convincing - but anyway, I think I have vaguely sensed Ellanor again. There is a very, very slight sense of her around me. I'm unsure about it. I want desperately for it to be a 'sign'... yet I don't want it to be my conscious making stuff up."

24.8.05
"...Trying desperately not to be despondent about today's ultrasound results. Once again, I'm caught up in dates, numbers, measurements, instead of sitting back and trusting."

28.8.05
"...And here I am again, waiting for Egg Pick Up tomorrow. I'm neither excited nor anxious, happy or sad. I feel completely exhausted and somewhat defeated already, to be perfectly honest. Part of my tiredness comes from the drugs, yes... but mostly I really do just feel so exhausted about my 'existence'. That we came so close last ycle but didn't get pregnant, that people around me either continue to fall pregnant easily or have their precious next pregnancy again after miscarrying or losing their own baby.
There is a real sense that so many are moving on (although of course I realise many aren't) and I feel left behind. I surprise myself that I am genuinely ecstatic for so many of the girls I am on this journey with (on EB), when they fall pregnant after their own perseverence. And I am equally distraught if any of them miscarry (which happens all too often).
But I seriously rue my role becoming one of inactive supporter - I wouldn't be so gracious if my own chances got to the point of being futile.

6.9.05
"...Well, it worked. It's happened and I am sitting here again waiting for next week's blood test to confirm whether the embryo transferred last Friday has implanted. Oh, will you grace us with your presence this time, I wonder!?
I have pregnancy symptoms already - bloated, on-off nausea, tender breasts, discomfort around waistline - all caused solely by the Crinone gel which does a bloody good job of mimicking a pregnancy.
So much of my married/adult life has been taken up with shit like this! I say to myself and others, so often, "I'm so SICK of wanting a baby who won't come", "I'm giving up", "I'm not doing THIS anymore"... And here I still am. Writing the same goddamn thoughts and hopes every time I put pen to paper in here. SHITS ME!!!!!"

20.10.05 (first day of period in the cycle Lolly was conceived)
"...It wasn't just the Crinone gel. I did get pregnant with that last little miracle. We knew and were elated for approximately two days before the bleeding started. I'm uplifted and relieved that we have definitely closed the IVF option door.
We always agreed on only trying 3 times but we feel, after achieving our aim (to "get pregnant") on our second attempt and having it end in miscarriage anyway after all that effort to ensure it's a healthy emby, that we have tried this and know that perhaps one day if we kept trying, it would work.
But we're not prepared to keep endlessly trying with PGD/IVF. If anything, that kind of seems more hopeless to me."

12.12.05
"...Who thought we'd get another pregnancy in before the end of the year? I am roughly 6 weeks pregnant and holding out hope that it's a keeper, conceived naturally. Hanging out very anxiously, whilst getting very tired and sick, until next scan next week. God, here's hoping we have another healthy miracle in there."

19.4.06
"...Well, we sure DO have a healthy, naturally conceived absolute miracle on our hands here! "Lolly" is currently barrelling towards his/her July 28th due date. I love you already.
I hope you can trust me and go easy on me! You, your dad and me... we'll be the tightest team. I admire you already for this mammoth task you've taken on. I mean, I know we will see you right and love and nurture you so well - but coming in as you have done, after losing our first daughter, and all these other miscarriages... well I think it's a big task to take on. But I'm so glad it was YOU who chose it.
I can already kind of get the feeling of you. You're much like your direct and unflappable Dad. Not at all 'fragile' or delicate - like I felt with Ella. She herself was strong, but I always had a rather 'fragile' feeling when pregnant with her. Not with you, though! I do believe you're as strong as an ox and having a ball already. You bring us joy."

13.6.06
"...Little Lolly, I was so scared today. Had a yucky dream that stayed with me. Luckily I had an appointment with (Dr Luffley) and I got to see you again on the screen.
Your whole face filled the monitor and you sucked your thumb, then rubbed your eyes. I could hardly believe what I was seeing!
We are ready for you!
I look forward to meeting you every day now. We love you so much already and cannot wait to include you in our daily lives.
I watched your Dad as he slept the other morning and cried silently. With joy, with a bit of melancholy, with the knowledge that you and I are about to make him so happy. I want to watch him be a dad. It was cut so short with Ella. And I look forward as much to seeing you as I do to seeing him hold you and kiss you, bath you and dress you and whisper to you as you sleep.
Come safely, lovely one."

These dreams go on when I close my eyes...

Every second of the night, I live another life.

Yeah, thanks Heart. God I loved that song.

But I digress. Before I even start.

I had the most godawful all-nighter of a dream last night. I don't want to go into it again, suffice to say it was about the baby and wasn't all peachy. Just deeply rooted subconscious fear stuff. Luckily I had an appointment this morning with Dr Luffley, so didn't have to wait too long before seeing that lovely little person on the ultrasound screen again.

And what a show I was given.

Instead of being that little blob, or the squirming arm and leg buds, or the lanky bundle of limbs, or the little ball of chub squeezing its own cheeks... where once I could see the whole length of a body, what I saw today was so amazing I can hardly describe it in words. I was greeted by a face that filled the entire screen. With a face as large as, well, life. Sucking a thumb. Then taking it out and rubbing both eyes with pudgy fists. I was gobsmacked. And Dr Luffley said "Isn't it so amazing, it's like watching them in a cot or something!"

It was exactly the antedote I had needed to clear out the remainder of the nasty feelings from the dream I couldn't shake. It was too much. During the Q&A portion of the visit (which despite what some may think hardly ever happens - I never really have questions), where I had a full list written out which Dr Luffley dutifully and respectfully ran through with me, I lost it and began to cry. It is all so surreal. I tear up again as I think, just a month ago even, I didn't dare be so bold as to assume this would come. This day where I was planning what I needed to do when Lolly gives a not-so-gentle rap on the door, I never honestly allowed myself to believe it'd come so I didn't think about it.

Being forced to make some necessary arrangements, such as work out what I do if I go into labour when Dr Luffley is still technically on leave and not "on call" but promised he'd come in for us if it happened before he was back consulting and delivering.... it's all a bit much. The last of my fears - and I will only divulge as much as to say it involves cords and the disasters I have heard about in the last two years in the new parallel world in which I reside with other parents - was alleviated today. My question was answered. I was reassured. And I feel like I've buckled in for the steepest part of the ride. The end bit, the big finale on the big dipper!

I returned to the waiting room and kept it together very admirably, while performing a urine test, the result strip over which not one but two women pored for a tad too long until they even called Dr Luffley over in between appointments - ewwww, don't get him to look at my wee-stick! - who came back to the reception window where I was waiting, to reassure me the result was fine. I have no idea why I had to give them a cup of my pee (which was like liquid gold because despite being busting, my bladder now holds about 2ml of liquid at any given time and takes forever to refill). I forget what they were testing. All I know is, whatever it was, I passed. The test as well as the pee.

On the way home, I called Steve. By the time I got out to the car, I just wanted a good cry to release all the tension. I had hoped to join him for lunch. His office is about 15 minutes due south from there. But no, I had forgotten he was in the city in training all day.... so I kept it together a bit longer while I told him Lolly's antics for the morning, got off the phone from him and then blubbered on the way home.

Here's where it gets funny. I only really started to cry when I heard Private Eye, by Hall & Oats, on the radio. I had cranked it up earlier, and then on came this old classic. I was immediately transported back to the age of 9 where I sat as a passenger in our combi van, surrounded by my two brothers and sister, mum and dad in the front. We were returning from a day trip to Warrnambool back to our camp site at Peterborough (the yearly summer holiday destination) and I was perfecting my singing. I had discovered that I could sing quietly without anyone else hearing, or so I thought, if I directed my voice into the window. I honestly thought I was the only one who could hear me. As I belted out Private Eye, once more with feeling. And then Man Eater. So earnestly that I believed I was in the film clip. I think I must have had a Hall & Oats obsession that summer.

Well, turns out, my older brother did hear. And told me huffily to shuddup. For anyone who has seen Napoleon Dynamite, when I saw this movie I thought someone had followed my older brother around to get ideas for the character. Right down to the sullen bottom lip, hair and 'tude. It's uncanny how similar they are, I could be looking at my brother back in the early 80's, it's just too funny.

I remembered that in an instant today, driving home. And I felt, I don't know... I guess I felt sad for that little girl. That she couldn't possibly have known then what would happen to her first baby - I was baby crazy, especially at the age of 9 (and every other year, I won't lie). It would have snuffed a light out in me forever, right there. All the intrigue and beauty and mystery of babies.

And then I laughed. I laughed at myself crying while belting out a very poor rendition of Private Eye once again 22 years later, this time with big fat tears rolling down my hormonally chubby cheeks and no one to shut me the hell up. How tragic, above all, that it was Hall and Freakin' Oats that got to me. Shit, don't tell anyone. I'm so embarrassed.

God. What a mess of a post this has been.

Nothing music can't fix

The wheels fell off my little red wagon yesterday.

With the wise words of some friends I am still overwhelmed at being blessed to have, a phone call to Dad and some playing with Pepper and Jazz, I felt much better by the time Steve came home.

Issues surrounding the inability of people in my life to just leave me be, to have these moments without having to justify why. Of assuming that my growing Lollybelly does not signal the end of my grief.... but rather, in some bizarre respects, enhances or spotlights it.

I am so exhausted from trying to point these things out to too many people who should know how to support us better, but who don't. I'm tired of excusing them when they're so seemingly intent on not letting me go at my own pace. Steve and I discussed last night that I'm allowing the actions of so few overshadow the good, decent, easy relationships we have with so many more. Our dinner guests on Saturday night, for a perfect example. Wonderful and easy to be around. At the end of the night when we'd all dispersed to different areas of the house to chill out, one of them leaned in to me and in a rare moment of seriousness (because he's a blessed dag) enquired "Now.... are we going to need to watch out for you, all hormones and jokes aside?" I nearly collapsed on him there and then and said "Take it all away now! In a tip truck. Please!" Instead, composed, I thanked him profusely and said "Yes please, all three of us." It's such a relief to know that, as he and his wife said, we don't have to do or explain anything. We simply have to see them. They'll take care of the rest. I know that. And it's such a relief, I can't even explain how much.

Back to yesterday, though, I was also starting to feel gripped from the inside out with fear that something may well go wrong this time too, which has been pointed out to me on several occasions is the fear of "all expectant mothers". But, see, it's that last little three letter word which widens the chasm between me (and grieving mothers like me) and other expectant mothers - not "all" of us at all.

That little word... "too"... it changes everything.
It means as well.
It means what if something happens this time AS WELL.
And it hurts to have it said to me that I am going through what any other mother goes through.

I'm not trying to be precious here. I'm stating a fact, how I feel. It's akin to when I was told that "all mothers are sad on their child's first birthday, particularly their first child." Erm.... except I didn't think I needed to point out to this person the blatantly obvious fact that, uh, my child wasn't here for her first birthday. It was so hurtful to be so invalidated by that one flippant, off-the-cuff remark and I found it very difficult to find something within myself to forgive the person for being so way off the mark.

After talking to Dad, I felt much better. Dad's a very logical man. He's a Doctor of Civil Engineering, a title which means little to me in terms of understanding what he does but makes me burst with pride that he's someone who's made a huge dint in his industry and is known in his field worldwide. Not necessarily liked by all, but respected for his intelligence and ability to put forth a point nonetheless. I inherited from him my deep sense of moral justice. Unfortunately, I also inherited from the other side of the family a crazy self-victimisation technique. I like to call it chatterbox brain.

My chatterbox brain just would not SHUT UP yesterday until Dad rationalised away my proclamations. He didn't patronise, he never once said I was being unreasonable or silly. Quite the contrary, he masterfully Jedi-mind-tricked me to calmness and laughter by agreeing with me and saying lots of "yes of courses" and "mmm I can't imagines" in the most tender tone. And he talked me through what we DO know: that by now with all the monitoring I've been having, an unbalanced translocation of mystery is off the cards - 99.5% certainty of that - the heart makeup appears to be perfect, growth rates are above par...... and that all these other things I'm conjuring up that "could" happen, well, as he said "Why would you want to add in more risk factors when you've dodged the ones that are most likely for you?"

He's right. It was as if I dropped the heavy cloak I'd been struggling to keep up round my shoulders. I immediately felt lighter. And cried huge sobs of relief that I have these intelligent people in my life to carry me this last little part.

So I celebrate this morning with a good dose of loud iTunes random plays from our extensive and diverse mix. I just finished I Go To Rio and am now rawkin' to Trick Me by Kelis. Is that wrong? Oh, next we have Everyone Deserves Music by dear young Michael Franti. Gotta go. Jig to dance.

A memory like a smack in the kisser

Look at this photo I just came across. This is really, really difficult for me to see. To see the obvious pain I was in. 


I recall I almost felt good this day. A little bit of 'normal me', a bit more feeling coming back in. Steve took this about two months after Ella died. I distinctly remember he was trying to get me to smile. 


I honestly thought I was... maybe in mouth muscles only.

If you were ever wondering, this is the watery eyed, weary smile you get if you're a lost mummy. Look after her. Even if it is you, yourself.

Ellanor - 2nd birthday post

Happy birthday, you gorgeous guiding light.

In my thank you's to you, I forgot to thank you for waiting til I'd showered and straightened this thick mane of mine before breaking your waters. I felt very fresh!

You're beautiful. A beautiful soul, so sure and peaceful! Have you finished yet? Is your mission complete? You've been such a force in our lives and your coming catalysed so much for so many, even now 2 years on, that I couldn't possibly recount.

I know you're off up to something because I don't hear from you anymore. Not since September last year, when I felt you RIGHT by me in the middle of the night when I woke to feel the strange sensation of that IVF pregnancy leaving me. You were right there, you know I know you were! Smiling. I'm not sure if you give me strength or just confirm the strength I have in me. I'd like to think it's the latter, because I wouldn't want to rely on you. But, wow, you've continued to open me up to some amazing things. I think the secret is to remain open isn't it, my girl?

I like to think of you as off somewhere, like a young adult who's gone travelling after leaving home. I can imagine you elsewhere in the world, the daughter who is so busy living she never calls home. But the distance and the inability to contact each other doesn't mean we're not connected does it? You chose us, we really are so blessed. We kissed goodbye two years ago but it was also one massive hello. It truly was. You're eternal. You proved to me that we are all eternal, and if we have the ability (because I think you must be a special powerful soul to be so loud!) and yet others still living have the ability to hear us, we sure can live on. I firmly believe that, having shared this experience with you.

I feel very very privileged to claim you. But you're not just mine. I knew that the moment I met you - you were here for everyone, not just us. My God. If only I'd known what that really meant..... lucky I didn't or I would've lost my nerve well before you left again. I never saw you as a baby, I still look at your pictures and don't really see a baby because I know you deeper than that, and I found it difficult to say you were "my baby". You were always Ella in conversations with nurses and doctors. It was uncanny the respect I felt for you, I didn't expect that. And just when I was starting to see you as more vulnerable, you left. It is very beautiful to me.

My darling, I do miss having you here so terribly much it still hurts. But only on this special day do I feel the sorrow. You know we still have work to do, and living, so you're happy in your place and I'm so glad you're there.

Love you more than any keys on a keyboard or words from my mouth could ever express. Just continue to feel it and reciprocate whenever you like.

Pucker up, Buttercup

Why am I sooooo offended by the news today that Brad and Angelina (we're on first-name basis) are expecting???

Is it the fact that it just doesn't seem that long ago that doing the shopping was a covert operation for them so no one could see them together?

Is it the fact that the resultant child will have ridiculously plump lips with all those combined genes?

Is it because I am feeling for poor old Jennifer Aniston? As much as you can feel for someone you've never and will never meet and who has more expendable income than she knows what to do with wisely.

Is it because they already HAVE everything?

Why is it when you see a celebrity couple who's announced they're pregnant (is it possible for a couple to be pregnant? I've always giggled at people who say "we're pregnant" - surely it's just the woman who is, but that could be just me), if you've ever struggled to conceive yourself, you think "Oh heck even THEY'RE having a baby now" and want to wipe the smiles off their faces? I go through phases where I can't pick up a magazine for a lazy checkout flick because I am sick do death of seeing happy happy joy joy stories about these deliriously giddy new mums. It's a bit overdone don't you think? It's like those publishers just think that's all we want to hear and see! So sad to think that these women (cos they mostly are in these positions) don't consider their fellow women, the ones who are suffering infertility. How is a woman who can't get or maintain a pregnancy supposed to feel safe picking up a New Idea to inanely flick through the glossy gossip? She can't! It's impossible.

Don't get me wrong, I can see right through the paper-thin ideals of these publications that seem to think that all women who read them are taking a 10 minute coffee break from the vacuuming and ironing and getting husband's dinner ready, before she reapplies her makeup and fixes a bow in her hair and smoothes her apron so she can look refreshed to greet her shirt and tie-wearing dear husband at the door and take his briefcase for him. Of course women want to read nothing more than "I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life. My family is now complete with the arrival of Wilhelm Jake Cruise Wahkeen Bodiddly III". They're so see-through! The stories so similar! All they have to do is change the photos - which are also the same: celeb mum lying across pristine white bedspread with perfect, clean baby, both looking at camera. Or throwing baby up in the air, wide-pan shot so we can suitably ogle the star's sterile-clean, everything-in-its-place living room.

It's so unreal. Puts so much subliminal pressure on so many women to live up to that kind of ideal and feel unworthy if they don't.

Mags cheer me up somedays. They fill some sort of fluff-quota in me that I sometimes seek. I'll admit right now that I don't read them for the articles. It is all about the visual for me. But geez, I dunno, these prego star stories are just wearing so thin. Buzz off, Bec and Lley-Lley, please stop flaunting and go enjoy your baby in privacy. Tom and Kate? We-hell, I'll leave that right there.

And now Brad and Angelina? The impossibly wonderful, charity-giving, adoptive mega-uber-stupour-superstars now pregnant?

Please somebody make it stop.

The harder they fall

I'm trying not to work myself up too much today.

Today is the last time I can formally say that I had my daughter "last year". It just becomes so hard to explain to people who ask if I have any children, and this will add to that difficulty. At least at the moment it's pretty much nipped in the bud with "yes, we had a little girl last January" (one poor fellow actually made a quip along the lines of "ho ho, you said 'had', I hope you still have her ho, ho..." - that conversation didn't end well) and then when they ask how old I can say "she died when she was 4 weeks old". Cue hasty downcast looks and very strong "Fuck why did I have to casually ask this woman if she has kids" vibes.

It feels like the more the years wear on, the more insignificant the loss of "only a four week old" will become. Ho, just believe me, there ARE such people out there who are flippant about these things. Tender and touching in the first months, but as time speeds by, the sympathies and delicate words are more fleeting. It's like the sentiments match our resilience - and now, well our resilience is heightened of course, because how could you live for two years and go out in the world and function if you were still as raw as the week in which you saw your husband hold his child while she took her last breath? It shouldn't make any difference, that we are forever moving further away from the event, but it just does.

So yeah. Feel flat. Feel deflated. Feel unwell (go, Jubjub, you good thing, go). On this night last year, we spent the most gut-wrenching, angst-ridden time. Standing watching the fireworks from our backyard - we live in what we call the Fireworks Capital of the World because from our vantage point we see at least a half a dozen displays on the skyline during the night - I cried and cried and cried more tears to the stars. I was in so much pain and there was nothing anyone could have done to comfort me. Steve was here but he too was pained by experiencing leaving our little girl behind, all alone in 2004 with only us to try and keep her memory alive. To make her coming worth it. It seemed such a huge task at the time. But I think we've achieved finding her a place in the world, to a far greater extent than even I envisaged, and in her own right, Ella has made her mark all by herself. We are merely the conduits for that massive soul's purpose to be made known. And my God, am I so grateful she picked us.

I cried also with fear of starting 2005 with the unknown: IVF. I was full of hope and cocky beginner's optimism that, surely, given my track record for getting up the duff, this IVF gig would be a breeze. It was as breezy as I could make it, let's put it that way, and we won't die wondering whether we shoulda, coulda, woulda. But it didn't end up being the Holy Grail for us, obviously.

I cried that I was drinking. I got wasted last New Years Eve. I figured I could, given that we had had to terminate another little girl via a d&c only the week before, so why the hell shouldn't I.

I cried that Ella's first birthday was only two short weeks away, and that "this time last year, in 2003" I had been sooooooo oblivious and happy, rubbing her through my belly and telling her, "We made it to 28 weeks, Boo! Now, you can come out anytime from now on. But not until you're ready." I think I was too convincing - how obedient she was. And friggen impatient. Just like her mum. We must've just been dying to meet each other, is all.

So this year, I won't say I won't cry. In fact, the tears are already hot and stinging, the little bastards. They're just waiting til darkness falls. I'll focus on the good things: I can't drink this year. My belly is growing. I have an unidentified growing foetus in my loins (who as yet, still has not made him or herself known to me, despite my occasional "knock-knock, anyone there"s...). I can celebrate the close of another year with my healthy, happy husband. I can enjoy watching Pepper howl at the firework cracks - oh how she's a scaredy-dog - and I can dream, for now, that this baby will be "the" one and perhaps only who gets lucky and comes to live with two of the most patient, accepting and tolerant people I can think of.

Doctor's orders

Doctor Steve, that is.

This morning on our walk, we were discussing why my boozies might have decided to start uncontrollably increasing already. And how alarmed I am that I've just hit 5 weeks so where the hell will I put them in 30 weeks time??! Crikey moses.

We came to the conclusion that, because I have been losing the pregnancies at around 6 weeks, and Dr Eversodreamy (the Ob) told me last week that 'spontaneous' miscarriages actually begin several days or even weeks before you start to bleed, I must be only just pregnant when we find out. That something in the embryo's genetic information is either just SO stuffed up that it hasn't got all the information it needs to grown any further and doesn't implant properly, or that my blood clotting factor has possibly prevented a few of these from implanting properly (or a combination of both these things). Which is why, most of the time, my body doesn't change in those first 6-ish weeks. Last year, with the bub in November that lasted for 9 weeks, I bloated up like a blow fish very early on. Like I am now. Attractive! But it stayed in, is my point.

So. What did Dr Steve order? He ordered me to sing to this baby every day to make its heart start soon. And keep going. His prescription was, specifically, "I want you to sing Motley Crue"
*cue a worried look from me*
"Yes, I want you to sing Kickstart My Heart. Every day. And make particular mention of the part that goes 'hope it never stops'."

Ok, yeah, Dr Steve. Will do! *donning bandanna*

*quietly* OH! *cringeing* YEAH! *smashing air guitar* Kickstart my heart hope it never stops.......

Hi. I'm Kirrily. And I'm a serial POASer

(POAS = To "pee on a stick", or do a home pregnancy test...)

Hindsight is a wonderful thing:  This is the first evidence of Lolly's existence. Who knew?

It's darker today, isn't it? Tell me it is. Soothe the beast.

It actually took every ounce of strength to not catch my FMU in a cup yesterday so I could use my last test today..... Just stare at it with me will you? I'm going on the theory here that if more people know that I am harbouring a cling-on..... then surely it will keep clinging AND be normal. Big ask, I know. But that's me theory.

So please... humour me. Stare at it like you would a Magic Eye picture and breathe an awe-filled "Wooooo!" at its very darkness today. Still not bad considering I'm not due for a visit from the aunty til tomorrow and I got this from drinking half a litre of water after FMU (that's "first morning urine" to you and me, Russ). It almost makes me want to start getting excited and let a little optimism creep in. Hope I can do. Hope I have by the bucket load. The others take time.

Thank God I have no more tests in the house.

This is going to become a supremely boring blog if all I do is hop from foot to foot dipping sticks into laundry powder scoops of pee. It's just so novel to see that line though! I think I'm a double line hog. I've had 10 of 'em now. Maybe I should take up knitting.

People only do their best

I have to believe this, otherwise I just don't know how I could comprehend some people/situations, including my own.

I would assume that others have this view too. But perhaps not.

Perhaps it's difficult to walk a mile in someone's shoes. Perhaps I am talking from the dysfunctional stance of having had a childhood of emotional and mental abuse, scarred as I am by a mother who "knew no better and was only doing the very best she knew how." I had to trust, I had to just believe it would be better once I made it on my own, went my way, but constantly the learning was there in me: be forever obliged to do right by people, reserve your judgement of others, to each their own, take people at face value and don't guess where they're "at".

I am still like that. And yet now I struggle. I struggle because so many things seem so fucking futile since losing Ella. I mean, for God's sake, a client on the phone yesterday telling me they're concerned the colours on the last run of brochures doesn't "quite" match the new ones. And I just want to scream "IS IT SO IMPORTANT that your blues aren't identical when I haven't got my baby with me?"

But of course I can't. Not in the real world, oh no. You're not allowed to inflict such displays of selfishness on others when you're the parent of a deceased baby. It's all about making those in your presence comfortable. And it is completely tiring to live like this, knowing that people don't want to know, don't want to talk about, your child. So I turn here, to somewhere I used to deem relatively controlled, sort of private, bar the fleeting visits from browsers who haven't a clue who I am and couldn't give a toss.

And so I have made a few wrong turns, as all good people do, and I've ended up here. In a place where I am equally gagged and adored by people. How utterly bizarre!

You'd be forgiven for thinking I'm bored. I'm not. I am dreadfully taken up by work commitments, especially of late, and yet still nagging at me is the thought that I ought to be bouncing a bouncinette with one foot or warming a bottle - or prepping a boob, ok ok, for any BFA zealots - and quite frankly, WHERE I HAVE BEEN AND WHERE I HAVE COME FROM the vast majority of happeners across this space I have set up here have not and will not EVER be.

I am on a different plane now (or planet, some may argue, and you'd be forgiven for thinking that, sure). I am on a very new, separate road. It has massive opportunities for giving, seeing, healing, more than I ever had before Ella. And yet, it is such a devastatingly lonely place. I see the things people do in a far different light - and I do believe I am judging more harshly than I ever have in my life. The reason is this: I never before saw the butterfly effect of people actions/words/way of living and interacting with each other and Mother Nature. I see it now. In my own personal headspace, I am not letting people off as lightly as I used to. And I think it is shocking and scaring people who have known me for so long. Get to know me again, the new me now, and they will see someone with so much more depth than before. But all they see are these blips on the radar here and there, because they don't really want to look. Are they scared? Scared of how much I have changed, of how I am somewhere they'll never be?

It's a curse and a blessing, this suitcase of gifts my daughter has left me. I liken it to my version of other mothers' attempts to "learn as you go" with your baby/toddler/school child - how often have you thought you were doing it all wrong where your young charges are concerned? Imagine trying to figure it all out with the obvious lack of that child in your life! And then judge me again. There are a very few around me, who can't stand back and see the big picture, who may feel she should've taken her luggage with her and not entrusted it to me. But to be a trailblazer, I guess I have to start trusting that all this shit that's happening now is still going to pass. And good things do come to those who wait. I guess it's the choice of closing the lid and saying "Nah, thanks anyway, but I don't want to grow or change, I'd much rather wallow in my grief and never appear normal again". I've chosen to get in and rummage around and wow, the things I am finding in there are scary and confronting - but godammit, I am trying everything on to see if it fits.

What the HELL gives someone the right to think it is ok to invade, invade, invade every last bit of solace and comfort that I have? What? Do you want me to break? Look in my eyes, darling, you will see the mended canvass of a million pieces that have been put back together. You are not going to shatter me. Because nothing ever could again. Not after losing my girl. May you sleep soundly in your sheltered little fantasy.

"namaste"

When a good coffee experience goes bad

The other day I was visiting my "friend" Gloria (me and Gloria Jean, we're on first name basis) and my mind started to wander as I waited for my coffee.

It had been a perfectly normal morning, took the pup to "school", came home, did some pottering in the garden, chatted with Steve, all the usual stuff. A typical weekend day. My mood was good, chipper.

I'm setting the scene for you like this to try and convey what it's like, when it strikes, out of the blue. That instant nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach. I see a thousand prams go past me, a hundred pregnant women. I catch the eye of countless children. And it really IS ok, mostly, for me these days. As was the case waiting in line as my mind wandered.

There was nothing in particular that triggered the thought process I had, standing there. It was as quick as a flash, actually, remembering how I'd been standing there that day in January this year. Ella's birthday, the 13th. Steve had taken the day off work. We had both been going to scatter her ashes at the park where we held her memorial the week after she died, last February. And as I opened the front door that morning, Steve had frozen, the cold hard cliche funeral parlour bag complete with stork taking flight against a misty background, the canister containing our daughter's remains inside. He stood stock still and uttered simply, "I can't do it. She's too little! I can't..." We had agreed in the weeks leading up to her birthday that this is what we'd do. I alternately felt a pang of fear, frustration and agreeance - I was torn again. It had felt like the right decision to me, but now that I heard Steve say it out loud.... yes, how could we let her go?! Forever?

We stood at the front door in mid step, big hot tears rolling slowly down our cheeks. I can still feel them. I can still remember the indecision, the discussion that no parents should have to have with each other. At any rate, I mentioned, I wanted her put to rest by the end of her birthday so we had til midnight that night. I felt very strongly that another year could not pass with my daughter inside a plastic container in my buffet in the dining room. Holy fuck.

So we decided to go to our local shopping centre, to a very favourite shop of mine (Beacon Cove, if you know it) which I love to browse occasionally. It's full of very lovely dark wood furnishings, oriental-themed decor, artificial blossom on sticks, you know the usual... I look around in there but never really look carefully at every item, I think I just like going in there to imagine myself with the money to decorate my home with all their things. I think I've made about 3 purchases there in as many years - their prices are a tad exy.


As soon as we walked in, we gravitated to a shelf. Neither of us really knew what we were looking for, but Steve saw it first. It was a rectangular-shaped cube, with three sides with spaces for a photo and a hinged lid, also with an inset for a photo. Inside, a beautiful set of lift-out photo sleeves, each with their own wooden spine, allowed for 120 photos in total. It was like its very own complete little filing system. And we thought it was breathtaking for our purpose. There was enough clearance beneath the photo sleeves to create a false bottom, into which we planned to spread Ella's ashes.


And it all turned out perfectly. On the day when we should have had our little cherub with us, balloons, streamers, high-fives for each other on surviving the first year of parenthood, a cake... instead we were purchasing the monument in which we were going to entomb our little one. Joy!

Around the corner from Beacon Cove is Gloria Jean's. Steve hates coffee, can't even walk past the place without getting an instant headache. But he insisted on that day that I should "go visit your friend" for a comfort beverage. The girl behind the counter, on seeing my glassy eyes, gave me an extra free stamp on my loyalty card.... a simple gesture that rendered me blubbering at her kindness. "You look like you need a double free one", she said. Funny the things that set me off crying these days. I really am quite hopeless.

So. Back to the present. Standing again in the same shop, buying the same old fave (skinny mocha truffle, in case you're shouting me next time *wink*), my thoughts had turned to wondering what Steve and I would do for Ella's "second" birthday. I can't believe it's coming up. Again, now, as I type, I feel the familiar stomach-churning nausea and the pounding heart in my chest at the sheer unfairness of it all, that hopefully, maybe, this year my tummy will be growing with a new bub (as it should have been on her first birthday, had we not had to stop the pregnancy that would have been well into the second trimester as we remembered Ella earlier this year). I thought, amidst the noise of the coffee machines and the loud chatter of the patrons, 'I suppose Steve will make a ritual of taking the day of work on the 13th of January each year, how could he not' and I wondered what we, as a couple and until we welcome new little people into it, would do to commemorate the day together.

And then, as I was pondering all this, I surprised myself by feeling the familiar hot sting of tears. They filled my eyes until gravity forced them down my face. I'm very used to crying in public now and think nothing of it. There is no way to control showing the emotion, not when it cuts so deeply into your daily thoughts so suddenly and unexpectedly. Right there, 20+ months on, here I was uncontrollably having a 'moment' close to the memory of my girl. It happens so rarely now, I allow myself to be consumed by it wherever I am. Usually it's at home. But when I'm out, pah, so be it.

And then I heard it. Faintly at first, so faint I thought I was just imagining it up for good effect. But straining my hearing a bit more, I distinctly caught the tune and heard the words. They were playing our song. Ella's and my song. I sang it to her every day when she was still in my womb and it was the only thing that settled her in those times when she was restless in the NICU. It was Dream A Little Dream. How ironic the words seemed to me after I had met her, the tune I'd been happily singing because I loved the song... and now I was comforting her with them and they seemed so goddamn fitting it tore (still tears) my heart out to hear them. But still I sang. I sang and sang and sang it to her because I could see, the nurses and Steve could see too, that it settled her beautifully.

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"
Birds singing in the sycamore tree
Dream a little dream of me

Say "Night-ie night" and kiss me
Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me
While I'm alone and blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me

Stars fading but I linger on, dear
Still craving your kiss
I'm longing to linger till dawn, dear
Just saying this

Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
But in your dreams whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me

I know it was coincidence, even though this particular Gloria's outlet normally played some sort of modern rubbish (ooh showing my age) that was indiscernible and certainly not familiar; I know it must have been coincidence that the strains of this particular song came filtering through all the loud noise around me right at that very moment when I was thinking of Ellanor and felt so close to her and the time we spent together.


It must have been, mustn't it? Do you believe?