Sunday, bloody Sunday

Easter Sunday and my waking thought today is, "That carpark was so familiar to me and now I don't visit it any more."

The hospital carpark. The one I knew like the back of my hand. The timing required to find a park in the rare as hens' teeth undercover spaces. The best tree shade in the vast lot. Where the ring road went and how it's better to cut through between buildings if you have a careful driver in front because it means they will go all the way around and you'll make it to the gate before they do. The distance to the entrances. All of them - the one to the lift and then the undercover breezeway, the one that most visitors use, the entries that are less commonly used except for the serious visitors - the long term ones like you.

I woke up gradually, after startling somewhat that this thought - out of any number I could have had - was the one my brain chose to lay out before me as dawn crept into our bedroom. What purpose could that thought have? Why have it if not to change a perspective, find some kernel in it that is useful to me (or better yet, someone else)? Do I have all the ingredients to make pancakes for breakfast this morning? Did any mice get the Easter eggs that were carelessly dropped by a less than stealthy Easter bunny last night as he hopped clumsily from the LGBB's bedroom and out the front door?

Thoughts are mercifully funny like that. They can change on a whim and distract you from yourself.

~ • ~

After my dog Pepper was cremated in February, her body was returned to us in the most exquisite carved heavy wooden box. Nailed shut. Tamper-proof. Amazing. So respectfully and tastefully done. These were animal lovers, they understood what it means to lose a beloved faithful pet. I could just tell. It was a stark and sobering contrast to what we were confronted by at the end of 2004.

See, when Steve finally plucked up the courage to collect Ellanor from the funeral parlour after almost ten months had passed - we just couldn't, could not face the scenario.... would you race down there do you think? I don't know, I still don't know what I would do and I've already done it! - he returned home with her ashes. In a plastic cannister.

A plastic cannister. Not unlike the kind you'd store your spaghetti in.

It was up to us, the parents, to transfer the contents of that unnatural vessel into a new place. Something we had to go out and choose and create for ourselves. A job I would neither recommend nor ever wish to do again. But on the other hand, an ultimately cathartic one.

We laid our daughter's remains to rest exactly one year to the day after she was born.

I've been awake for an hour now. And the longer I'm awake, surrounded by dusted bunny feet that I am just itching to vacuum off my otherwise clean floors, the more horrified I am becoming that a funeral parlour - just any old one, who KNOWS who they are? - were entrusted with the body of my firstborn child and returned her to me in a plastic container with a screw-top lid. Thanks for coming, so sad she couldn't make it. And yet, our dog is given the respect she deserves; someone who knows the profound importance of a long-time companion and gets that you want their remains treated with care and compassion made sure that they were.

It's harsh and it's hard. If it's hard to read, you can guarantee it's pretty difficult to reconcile with as the parent. These are the things that aren't considered. But sometimes it's just the little details that would make all the difference. You know?

That right there. That is why society has to collectively pull its socks up. Understand that these babies are people. Important. Equal to those of us who live. Sure, we've come a long way since the days of whisking a stillborn child from its mother and not allowing her to see him or her. But have we really done all we can?

This may be a privileged world we westerners live in, but it is the corner of the world we live in. If we can walk in to a shop and buy pretty much anything we desire, then we should also reserve the right to have our deceased loved ones - no matter what their size or age - treated with dignity and respect.

My daughter came home in a temporary jar. That's what my thoughts are stuck on today.

~ • ~

Please oh please, sweet mercy, let Lolly wake up soon.

BRING ON THE EASTER EGG HUNT.

I need to escape.

8 years on and finally: I'm OK today

The floating feeling for thirty-one days between the anniversaries of her birth and her death did not happen this year. For the first time, I was healed enough. Perhaps it was just that I was distracted enough. We'll be going gently today, Steve and I. We know what happened on this day, eight years ago. We were both there, after all. The weight of that tiny body will forever be felt in our arms.

The LGBB began school a week ago. If this day had not fallen on a weekend, I wonder if I would have had any time to notice the date at all.

You are newer to my story than I. It has been seeping in to my core for eight years now. I am not new to it. You may be coping with your own recently started infant loss journey. It may seem unfathomable that today could be anything but intensely sad forever... I get that, completely. I previously couldn't have imagined the day of the anniversary of my firstborn's passing being less than horrid every year myself.

In any case, I do not wish to diminish the impact I have previously always felt on this day. But I cannot deny that there has been a lightening of my burden. I hope this is a comfort to you, rather than insulting.

I have done and written all I can, from every angle and every which way but crazy.... well, no, that's not true; I'm quite certain at a few points during the life of this blog I have written whilst under the influence of my own tormented insanity - a mother's insanity - and I make no apology for this maternal crazy-insane slant in some of my earlier posts. I am sure that Ellanor will continue to provide me exceptionally well-timed points of learning.

For today, however, I hope that each of you will take the time to welcome her fairytale life into your hearts by reading the story in the link below.

Can a baby's short life be seen as a fairytale? Can there be any meaning at all in a passing that is so tragically soon?

I think, yes. On both counts. It is truly breathtaking. The message is Universal, in a way it represents the profound meaning of all life. But if you are currently in the turmoil of this in your own life, then it must be you who decides.

Please do come back and leave a comment here if you are moved to do so.

Little Ella: The Story of an Earth Angel  

(grab the tissues and settle in! This is a short story, beautifully told with a very important message 

- written the week Ellanor passed away, by Susannah Brindle)

Dear Miss Ellanor

Hello, lovely girl.

I'm getting swept up in wistful thoughts again. Wishing you were here this week.

Your little sister and I are getting ready to make a sweet feast on your birthday. You would have turned eight this Friday. I know 8. I remember 8. I felt so old, so grown-up. So ready to take on the world. It felt like an important birthday to me. Seems like such a wholesome number.

I feel a bit cheated this year for the first time in several years. Perhaps because I can remember being 8. And that hope-filled eight year-old in me is confused by all the hurt and pain. I have to nurture her, too, you know. Break this to her very gently. The world hurts. But it is such a beautiful hurt.

Thank you, my darling soul mate, for teaching me that lesson as well.

The other day, I was distracted in the kitchen. Stirring something on the stove, thinking several things at once. Deep in concentration. Out of the corner of my eye, my little girl walked in from the next room and stood a short distance away, saying expectantly, "Mum...." I looked up and said "Yeah?", expecting to see Lolly. She wasn't there. No one was. I stared at the vacant spot, disappointed my head hadn't turned a split second sooner. Lolly was metres away, caught up in her Barbie website. She looked over at me when I spoke and asked me, "What, Mum?" "Oh... nothing," was all I could stammer.

It was you, wasn't it? Well, thanks for coming, anyway! It was so wonderful to glimpse you. It's been too long.

You're there. I know you're there. Here's our song again, just for us. You and me, sweet pea.

You gorgeous, soft, strong, delicate rose. You hold the whole world, the entire Universe, in your soul. I know you do.

I miss you, Boo. I truly do.

Love

Love

Love,

Your Earth-bound Mother x




To view more letters to Ellanor and anniversary posts, please click here and scroll down.

Study revisited: It's often just the little things

In order to extend beyond a stuck place, a plateau, I have to tell myself to get past the pattern of "this is what I do, this is what I know." Becoming unstuck is a process in itself.

One of the most genuine ways that I do this and stay true to who I am (whereby I remain closely linked to my own Source and guidance) is to honour my imagination. No matter how menial or basic my thoughts appear to me to be, when I bring conscious awareness into every moment of experiencing my every thought, I become so much more present in my day and in my own life.

No more putting down your imagination! How many of us have deeply contemplated our imagination lately? Respect your imagination and all it brings to you.

Remember, you do not have to prove or justify yourself to others; you only have to be true to what and who you are. As soon as I start concerning myself with how I sound to even just one "someone else", I have moved away from my centrepoint of being. I enter into another (or another's) realm and reality, which dishonours my own. In this manner, I am also able to be more respectful to another's truth (realm/reality) as I am truly honouring my own. Staying true to what and who I am is where I am strongest and living my best and most productive life. It's all good!

And breathe. Don't forget the breath! Conscious breathing connects us to all that ever has been from the beginning of life in all our universes.

Meditate on the base of the sternum. Here you are grounded in Earth reality and respectful stillness. A beautiful space to be. Sometimes, for me meditation is merely uninterrupted focused breathing. If I have ten minutes, I give myself that ten minutes.

This is the energy of Apple.

If you want to get really serious, place/visualise this mandala in your sternum area as you meditate

It's so basic I think we often forget to close the laptop and turn OFF the phone (not mute... turn the thing off!). But the respite these simple acts give back is well worth the effort.

If you ask me...

A little bit of give

I sat with the LGBB on the couch this morning while she watched one of her latest favourite movies...

Her secret love's no secret....
an-y-moooore

Opposite the couch is a wall where Ella's picture hangs. This one:

I sat gazing at it while the movie played.

Oh the Deadwood Stage is a-rollin' on over the plains

With the curtains flappin' and the driver slappin' the reins

Beautiful sky, a wonderful day

Whip crack-away, Whip crack-away, Whip crack-away!

I got lost in the photos and everything else in the room slipped into the shadows. Even Doris Day. It was just me and my girl. My first girl.

Before the movie was over, the LGBB came back into view. I shelved my precious stolen thoughts out to Ellanor and got back to chores at hand. Lunch was made, chortles were shared (Lolly loves the part where poor old Francis has to dress up like a girl because the hick townsmen were expecting a "real live woman".... if you don't understand, then you've missed out.... it's an old Hollywood musical thing).

Then she laid down again. "I'm tired," she said. She's been saying that all weekend. And just laying down wherever she is. This morning, she woke with a headache and it didn't leave all day. The trooper that she is, though, the LGBB didn't make much of it and didn't complain of it being sore. If I hadn't known any differently, she was just a tiny bit darker around the eyes (something that comes out in her naturally pale complexion whenever she's a bit under the weather) but that was about it.

I held true to my word on the promise of a craft session after lunch. What was going to be a rocket ship turned into the Love Boat. She decided it was a ship and I was commissioned to fit-out the peg passengers.

He's king of the world. He's also largely ignored by the other passengers.

The Party Ship. With the playboy, Cleopatra, a washed-up woman in red and
a ballerina attempting valiantly to keep her remaining thinning locks....

Not sure he should be looking at her like that,
especially when only in his Y-fronts.

But she only just made it to the playing part (she was itching to play with it while we were making it all together). No sooner had I lowered the boat to the floor for her maiden voyage than my girl grabbed a cushion and also lowered herself to the floor.

"I'm too tired, mummy," she said again. It was the first time my brow furrowed and I decided I didn't like something about all this. You know when you just have that moment? She still had her headache and I commanded her to our bed for a rest, where she slept for two hours.

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

In the midst of the sleep designed to relax and re-charge her, the LGBB woke screaming, terrified. I raced in, wondering if the pain had gotten worse. "What is it?" I asked calmly, rocking her. She was trembling. And hot. And scream-crying. Staring at the wall behind my head.

I got her out of the room and changed the scenery a bit. In the kitchen, rocking together in a chair, she managed to get out that "a man was dancing me too fast." What the? Her description made it sound like one of those awful dream sequence scenes in the movies where the fish-eye lens camera is being stared into by the maniacally laughing crazy-character as we, the audience/camera, gets spun around. I agreed with my sweaty little poppet that that would be a bit scary. "But it's all over now and it wasn't really real, was it?" No reply from her.

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

While all this was happening, I fielded a phone call on my mobile. A number I have seen as a missed call about half a dozen times in as many days. They never leave a message. This time, phone in hand, I was able to answer and solve the mystery.

"Hello there, it's Lou here from Heart Kids..." and Lou proceeded to launch into a typical telemarketing "we need you and your dosh" speech.

Now, this is where I normally huff and puff and wait to say loudly but firmly, "No thank you, we give to our chosen charities already but best of luck... *click*"  But Heart Kids is something close to my heart. Today, especially, when I was already feeling so drawn to Ellanor and with my heightened mama-care reflexes towards Lolly, it seemed fitting that I should receive the call.

Lou - well, Heart Kids - did well for himself. I came away $50 lighter and have a jumbo-sized beach towel coming my way within "seven working days". I find it no strange coincidence that on the preschool fundraiser shopping tour I went to last weekend, I carried around a beach towel for the LGBB (she doesn't have one and we're taking a beach holiday soon) and ended up putting it back on the shelf, not making the purchase. Just this morning, I cursed myself for my decision not to buy the towel. I sighed that I'd have to go to a shop and probably buy one at full price.

Now I know why I didn't buy it. Tricky, clever Universe.

I gave today. It was such a small thing, really. Ultimately, I know that no money in the world is going to help some causes if it is ordained to go "that way" - look at our girl, in the best medical care - but I will always extend my circle of thoughtful care and consideration to those families going through the toughest trial of their lives with precious children with sick hearts. Every time I look at my girl's beach towel.

Do you give to charity? Do you have a blanket "sorry, no" rule for telemarketers? Or does it depend on the day?

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

Update: Tonight, the LGBB is much better. After a bath,  a sausage in bread with a good serve of fresh steamed vegies for dinner and a play with her cherished Love Boat with Daddy, she is tucked up happily in bed. But not before storytime. Steve came back and reported that he decided to himself that he would read her something they had not read for a long while. He started looking on the shelves for the book silently and then heard the LGBB in the background say, "Oh, Dad, it's in here." He turned around and Lolly opened up a bedside table drawer and pulled out the very book he had been looking for.

He blames me for passing it on. I say to him once again... no harm, no foul. But it's going to make teenage years interesting I think.

Be your own Light source

The other night, in my jumble of thoughts that had been piled one atop the other until I could start to sort through them - much like a pile of clean clothes that waits to be folded until you absolutely MUST move them because you need the laundry basket - I remembered a single line from one of the latter chapters of my book.

The first part of the chapter (unedited, okay, just if you're reading and you're "in the field" and you want to take potshots *disclaimer over*) is below. But the poignant line that kept repeating in my head as I grabbed that much-needed alone time in the shower was:

Be your own Light source.

I can't be more profound than that. Perhaps it will speak to you if you read the following, but I am damned if I can string together a coherent sentence in my mind now to more properly or completely explain myself.... Gimme a break. I've just farewelled Cyclone Family (I love them, I gnash my teeth over them - the children - I wonder why my daughter MUST copy the naughty antics and lose herself in her cousins instead of being her beautiful self, while they are here. I mourn, deeply, the fact that I will not see my sister in-law again for another two years when they leave... But now, at least I can think for the first time in two weeks and have some precious sweet Me Time)

For now, I want to ask you:  Do you know how to be your own Light Source?

AUGUST

In August, I had a really profound dream. I was, of course, still coming back down to Earth after the euphoria of giving birth to our girl, as well as becoming familiar with the floating nothingness of learning how to live without her - and yet, with her, for she was both eternally in my life and not present.

At first, the dream didn't seem like much. But it was terrifying, bathing me in a cold sweat. One of those dreams that really grips you. One that you come out of, realising, by the sensations in your body, that you've had adrenaline coursing through you and when you connect it was because of the dream you just had, it kind of freaks you out a little bit more. Years later, I can still remember the fear and dread I felt, long after I woke up.

In the dream, I was somewhere outside, in pitch darkness. My eyes were wide as saucers, trying to adjust to the lack of light. Eventually, I was able to see a little way in front of me.

I was in a forest. A forest of dead, bare, white-barked trees standing grey against the pitch darkness of the night. It looked as though a fire had gone through and razed all the vegetation, everything seemed to be covered in white ash. It was beautiful, almost lunar in its appearance – if the moon’s surface bore dead trees, that is.  

In the distance, I saw something flicker. It was the flash of a wild animal’s eyes glinting off a light source. A rising sense of fear sent goosebumps right up my back and into my scalp. The animal was hunched over in a prowling, purposeful stance, coming towards me and fixing its steadfast, hungry intent on me as it padded closer, hunting me like I was its prey. I backed up and found myself standing alongside one of the trees. Clambering up the trunk, I tried to get as high off the ground as I could. I was petrified but I didn't know what of, exactly. The dark, the predatory animal, the silence. All of it. I was hyperventilating and panicking by now. This was not what I had bargained for, this dream, when I had gone to bed that night asking for a message or visit from Ellanor (something I had grown used to doing, for I learned to look out for her or her words in my dream state). And then I saw the animal. 

Wow, it's beautiful but it looks spooked, I thought. It looks menacing and out for my blood, why is it hunting me so fiercely? What is it? I was instantly informed, somehow, that it was an ocelot. Its staring eyes never left mine as it came closer and closer, really getting low to the ground now. And then it leapt towards me.

I was up the tree with nowhere else to go. The ocelot sank its sharp, feline claws into my right thigh. And I screamed. The pain was searing and instant, a sting that lingered for some time after I woke up. When I did force myself awake, there was a silent scream still in my lungs and I breathed out the air I had been holding onto.

I still felt shaken, hunted, although I was now in the relative safety of the darkness of our bedroom, feeling more and more present in the room, Steve sleeping peacefully at my side. When I made myself think back over the events of the dream, I suddenly realised I had been the light source. I made a promise to myself to seek out the animal wisdom teachings of the ocelot, for I had been getting used to seeing these sorts of things – dreams and other seemingly odd or out of place messages – as signposts to my further learning, becoming guided by the rhythms of these instances that were unfolding for me in my life more and more, instead of shying away from them. Once upon a time, before knowing Ellanor, these were the sorts of things that I would wave off, not even willing to consider them as anything other than random occurrences in my daily life (or dream state).

It took me four years before I finally got around to looking up the ocelot totem, even though I was still wondering from time to time during those years what it had been trying to say to me that night. What I uncovered helped to retrospectively patch another part of the quilt of my healing at that time in my life, for I had also been on the precipice of growing into the more aware, more open, more willing person I was to become.

“Animal Totem: The Ocelot

Comfortable in the high trees and in water, Ocelot can show you how to adapt to whatever environment you find yourself and how to look at your surroundings from on high. Ocelot also shows you how to regenerate through solitude and quiet meditation. Because they live in both land and water, they have a connection with both the physical and spiritual world and the ability to be in two places at once. Use Ocelot as your meditation guide to connect to the spirit world.”  

Putting aside what was obvious to me - that the appearance of the ocelot in my dream, and now finding this particular totem’s wording, was a confirmation of connecting with Ella in the world she had so briefly left to come here – I found the dream so much more profound, now that the years had passed, as if it had happened back then in order for me to bookmark it, somehow, and provide me with this affirming proof so far down the path I had been on. I was the Light source, a point not lost on me, now I look back on it. It gave me some confirmation, at least, that I had been on the 'right track', even back then when I honestly thought I might shrivel up and be forgotten if I did not diligently stay the course in my connection to my own truth. 

"If they can't get it through to you while you're awake, they'll do it when you're asleep!" Jen had once told me, laughing at my wide eyes. How right she was.

My life was much different around the time of the visit from the ocelot. I was looking at things from a higher perspective more often by then – from my soul's perspective, or my higher consciousness – for that was where I was learning to forgive myself and my actions, give myself and others a break, find my own solace and, most important to my survival, have a safe place in which to regenerate and fill up my reserves, sometimes daily. For this was my new way of being; Steve and I were living a life pummelled by insecurities now, without all our previous social masks and various obligatories to cushion us. We were dealing with our sorrow, learning how to incorporate our lost child in our lives with meaning and joy, whilst continually having to replenish enough strength to weather whatever the next day and its trespasses were going to bring. I was supposed to learn to accept these shortcomings, delivered by the people around us, even though some were clearly not accepting me in my newfound state.

Towards the end of August, I wrote in my journal:

I am a psycho

Now I’m totally depressed and low, I give up. Don’t even know why I am writing.

I can’t do “this” anymore, whatever “this” is. I don’t want to say I want to stop trying to get pregnant, but I think I have to. I’d say it’s for my sanity, but if I stop trying, I haven’t got any other focus, really, so how can that be good for me?

I’m exhausted. I just completely give up.

So tired of all this shit.

I just wish I wasn’t here.

I don’t feel, at the present moment, that there is anything that really brings me true joy anymore.

Not Steve. Not Pepper. Not friends or family. Nothing previously in this journal. I feel like a fake. And maybe I am.

I can’t stand this life. I hate where I am. And I am stuck here.

Just living.

And I don’t know what for.

 

Diary entry, 25th August, 2004

I recall that this was one of, if not the, lowest days I have ever had in my life. If I was truly going to end my life, it would surely have been on that day. But, once again, something gradually bailed me out over the ensuing hours. As acceptance of my continuing living, breathing, physical self set in, the tears flowed. I did not want to feel stuck here, on Earth. This was not the death sentence I was meant to subject myself to, not in Ellanor’s name. I briefly noted the turning point of coming out of destitution into decisiveness. There did not seem anything more to say:

Spent the rest of the 25th and most of yesterday inconsolably sobbing.

I have given up on being pregnant, of ever having children, anyway – something (someone?) in me keeps telling me it’s not giving up. It’s letting go, with acceptance.

Just as I did when Ella needed to go.

Diary entry, 27th August, 2004

Soon after I made this entry, Steve and I agreed that we had to confront the acceptance of facing a childless life together. It was so difficult to call it that, because we knew we had already given life to a child, yet here we were, having to consider ourselves possibly now destined to be “childless” anyway. We had connected very soundly with an amazing little baby with a huge soul and a set of challenging physical hurdles that meant she would leave us all too soon. It was, therefore, painfully difficult to say to each other, “Well, maybe that was it. Perhaps Ella was all we were ever meant to know.”

Don't wait for permission. Breathe out, it's okay to let go what you've been holding onto. You are adaptable, no matter what. Don't forget your Soul's perspective. You can be your OWN Light source. It is, after all, within you.

Have a good weekend. I'll be back properly next week!

They walk among us

Those people with the nasty M-word in their history.

Years ago, this blog used to struggle with the minefield that was being pregnant (again.... again) after neonatal loss. At the time, I was indignant. I held on to my feelings about it all while I made every effort to safely get through (and by "safely", I also include every reader of my words).

You see, over time, I have been silenced. I did this to myself. Putting my neck out to speak up for the "club" I belong to - a complicated one - used to attract ire from time to time. Once upon a time, at the height of my "aloneness", the less I felt heard, the more I yelled into the cyber-void. It became a vicious circle. Passing through that phase, I was fortunate to come to a place where I could step outside of myself and my situation and consider others, no matter what their standing or their misfortune (or lack of). I cared enough for myself, too, and the shattered person I was, to strive for this understanding.

This, I believe, is called compassion. 

com•pas•sion –noun

1. A feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

I learned and I practiced and I was diligent in seeking a way that was less and ever less offensive to anyone who happened across my words. It took time, it took years. And it took a conscious, concerted effort on my part to be responsible for my own words. I had to face the fact that although I justified my ranting writing as "my blogspace, I'll do what I like with it", I would be doing myself a great disservice if I did not grow from each and every post I chose to publish - if I did not acknowledge that my words had the potential to change someone's day or thinking, then I was acting terribly irresponsibly. I took my blog very seriously as I practiced. I still do.

My book has been written under the same protective, careful umbrella.

When I was heavily pregnant with Miss Lolly and grappling with being swallowed in the huge leveller that is Parenthood, I was confused by "the others" (parents) and their flippant attitudes towards what I was really facing. I felt very alone in a big, cold world. I became blinkered to the plights of so many millions, spread across all countries of the globe, battling their own hardships, because mine was all I could see in that instant.

My situation was equal to the girl who got the awful botch hair cut and colour. For her, as for me, she could not possibly see any silver lining and writhed and wrote her way through her situation. (This is a made-up situation, please take careful note! It's just to draw comparison...) It took me a while to accept this, but I did come to a point where I could see that even in lives that were seemingly so fine and perfect, there was struggle and strife. Whether admitted to or not. And that was how I came to my own personal peace with the situation I found myself in. In some respects, I was no worse off than the girl with the bad dye-job because, in our respective situations, we were currently in the worst circumstances we could ever be in.

So why is it that being told I have written something "depressing" grates on me so? Why do I find it almost disrespectful of someone to tell me, bold-faced, that they would not read my story because it's just too sad? Granted, there are only a few individuals who have said this to me over the years and while they are grossly outweighed by people itching to read it, I admit I'm affronted.

I have already lived with being "too hard to talk to" or deal with. I realised years ago that it was very difficult for some to be my friend (because of my history). I would like to think I have grown exponentially since thinking that about myself, while also not allowing my skin to grow too thick at the same time. It's been a tricky thing to balance.

I understand, I truly do, that it is not a book for everyone. And of course, to each their own - no arguments there. However, I think I have finally figured it out (why this sticks with me so much). 

However, there is a proper, compassionate way to deliver such an opinion to a person about their own life. If you must tell me my story depresses you and you don't want to know it/read it, please at least be apologetic about it! Or.... hey.... just don't tell me. Um, or, I know: Don't read anything I write! Pretend I don't exist, perhaps that would work better for you. For when you say that to me, you are saying it to EVERY parent who has lost a child and I find that so cold and callous and short-sighted, dismissing all the tiny little personal victories that go with moving through this most awful life event. Managing to get out of bed in those early weeks is a feat beyond imagining, let me tell you. That's just to name one achievement you are dismissing (it's so basic it would be easy for one to overlook it as important) when you wipe off our stories as too sad or depressing to warrant your attention.

Have a serious think about this, if you will:

How would you honestly feel if your life/ your story was belittled to such a pin-point that it was merely cast aside as "too depressing"? The life you have lived, the one that has saved you from yourself, inspired you beyond belief, reached and touched many and become a pillar of positivity to YOU because you lived and survived it...  To be told, without any sort of apology or tact, that your life depresses someone would put you on the back foot, no? Saying this reduces all the good, hard work I feel I have (had no choice to have) done.

The only thing that is "depressing" about it, to me, is the ignorance that miscarriage/child loss is written off so quickly as just so negative that there can surely be no positives out of it. 

THIS is why I write this blog. 

To keep myself reminded, and to inform, that there is far more to pregnancy loss than the loss itself. There ARE positives to come out of them - sure, they sometimes have to be sought (and even hunted down sometimes!), but they are there. 

I must thank those who think my story is too depressing (but who, intriguingly, still choose to read my blog) because it gives me renewed resilience to keep advocating for a huge collective consciousness - the bereaved who are mourning their unmaterialised child/ren - that have the lid put on their trials. 

Is it any wonder, really, that so many women choose to move on without more thought to what actually happened to them when they are faced with such dismissive attitudes by society? Often by other women, no less?

We walk alongside people every day who have all sorts of hardships, the depths of which we have no idea. The immensity of what some are coping with will often bely their quips, their smiles and friendliness. But it doesn't mean they are not doing an admirable job of carrying it all. 

Please... have a little heart. Consider your words and how you are delivering them on others (no matter what the justifications you can give for them). Remember your compassionate self. 

A sad story can still be uplifting, enriching and optimistic.

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.

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.

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.

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.