Meanwhile, back at the Ranch....

This post has a point. A really important one. It's not lost on me that if I have come to the point of putting a disclaimer at the top because it's a really, really long wordy post, I ought to just shorten it instead of... writing more words in a pre-cursory warning-request note.


But then that wouldn't be me. I am Wordy. Kirrily Wordy Whatman. Deal.  And please read to the end, at least, of this post. It does have an important point. Not all about me this time....


When I was in Year 12, my best-best-best-of-the-best-bestie and I took Psychology together. Our teacher was the inimitable (well... that's not quite true, I used to do a cracking impersonation of her back in the day) Mrs McPherson. She would try and be all hip to the kids' jive and believe she was grabbing our attention. How did she do this? By attempting a good ol' bit of stereotypical reverse psychology - ironic, really.

If there was too much chatter amongst ourselves, she tried to regain our focus with a loudly interjected, "Meanwhile, back at the ranch...." from her position at the front of the classroom. She got our attention alright. We would smirk in her direction at the attempt as all lofty teens do. But damnit. It worked. Because it always stopped us in our tracks. Made us listen to what she had to say next, even if we were laughing at her only moments before.

I think about that teacher now and realise that the Mrs McPherson's of the world are the ones who stick their necks out to make change. Whether that change is on a world scale, or closer to home, or hey.... in a classroom of teenagers who just need to pull their heads in for two minutes so their teacher can hand out the course homework before the blessed bell goes.

So, without further ado, I want to direct you, dear reader, to focus your attention "back at the ranch" please.

Today, I have spent the most frustrating hours trying to make my new Wordpress site go live. Without complete control at the server side, at best this has been a stop-start affair. I am very keen to get it going, for several reasons.

Here they are, in no particular order:

1. At the recent Digital Parents conference (DPCON12) I committed myself to a long-held personal project. The stirrings of this began about twelve months ago, when I decided "I really need to make this happen."

And then I did that thing I do so well. I procrastinated the crap out of that idea and talked myself into all the reasons why it was a stupid dream.

But that all changed the moment Brenda Gaddi told me that for services rendered (ie. stacking piles of freebies into swag bags), I could slip my card in to the mix - effectively reaching approximately two hundred conference delegates and sponsor representatives. I gulped down hard on my nerves and dived in head-first. As each bag was handed out, my heart flipped. What were they going to do with that card? Bin it? Bother reading it first? Hand it on to someone who might want it? Store it away for future reference???

Here's the card they received:

2. It seems Sunny Side Up has received a few nominations for the latest big-deal Aussie Best Blogs competition. This is probably a good juncture to introduce you to the button I might plug a couple of times between now and May 9th (there are two streams to this competition if I understand correctly - the People's Choice vote and a panel-judged award).

You only get one chance to vote but can give the voting love to more than one blog. SO.... Look, it'd be great if you could use your voting power to check the box next to my little ol' blog title while you're in there. But I'm not expecting any great movement. Over 1,000 blogs have entered this year. I'm gasping in a sea of spectacular writing.

However, there is nothing that can take away the feeling of honour at receiving the recognition of nominations in the first place.

As an aside, I have never loved the word "multiple" more than when Rose from Sydney Writers' Centre used it to encourage me not to let a dicky website glitch turn me off completing the process. What's not to love about that, as a writer?!


Now.... this is where we come to the big stumbling block.

3. Deciding to ride the wave of this encouragement to make my blog the best it can possibly be, I worded Steve up and began to take the plunge into the world of WordPress.

Never before have I been so serious to move across. I have even bought the hosting this time. I have big plans. The biggest being, a dedicated stream to the stories of the babies in our families' past who never made it. There are SO MANY stories out there, layered by generations now. Women who still grieve, believing they have no right, no place to bring up their lost little loves.

Oh how I yearn to give them a place to have a mainstream voice.

WordPress is my go-to for that. I have it all set up. The pages are created! The categories are good to go. The import of this blog's posts is complete. It is all ready to be seen. But..... the server my new hosting is stored on has gone down over this weekend. Cue a slow-motion long-winded "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" escaping from me as I lunge forward at my computer.

Still no new WordPress version of Sunny Side Up. Will it affect the voting? Meh. It's out of my hands now and in the laps of the Internet Gods.



Never choosing to see obstacles in life as mere coincidences, this is where you guys come in. It's obvious to me that this is appropriate biding time. These stories, the ones buried by years of life, they are not easily extracted from the depths of minds and hearts. The soul searching and contemplation about whether or not the sharing of their family's (or baby/ies') story is a process that I realise will take some time.

In my contact with the few over-60's parents so far who have come forward from these older generations, the very idea that anyone would want to hear about their experience has been a surprise to these mothers whose children did not live. Just pause for a moment and contemplate that.... If you had a child about whom you were so pressed to tell someone, anyone, but you couldn't because you weren't allowed to for decades.... Sad doesn't begin to cover it.

While I'm stuck in this Blogger-WordPress-hosting hell, will you spread the word out there with me? That I am working hard to create the space for their stories to be told, shared, responded to in a supportive and uplifting online environment? That they can be shared anonymously if they wish?

I am starting to see that if it's just me on my own working one-on-one with those I contact - or who find the conference card and respond to me - this will be a very slow project. One I am prepared to stay with. But if any of you carry a similar passion to hear in the words of those women (and men) who have gone before us, I urge you to help me spread the word that they can submit their stories to Sunny Side Up - before these stories are lost back to the earth too, like my grandmother and so many others' grandmothers who have now passed on, leaving their younger generation relatives desperate to hear in their own words their feelings of the grief of losing their children.

It makes a difference. Believe me. It makes such a huge difference to hear it in the words of our forebears before it's too late. It causes me such distress to know that there are so many who think nobody cares or wants to listen because it happened so long ago.

If you can help, I am willing to post out some of the cards, anywhere in the world. Feel free to share this post, or retell in your own words and direct people to email or contact me via my blog, Twitter or Facebook. Everyone is different - I am happy to work in any way they are comfortable: interview style, written short story (maximum 1,000 words or spread over more than one post, etc., if it is longer), whatever they need.

If they have a compulsion from inside them, these mothers and fathers, then they deserve the space to say it.

So here it is. 

An open invitation to all older generation pregnancy, infertility, infant loss survivors: please feel free and safe to come forward.

Now, I have a ranch to get back to..... She's requesting dinner.

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.

Girl Meets Dog(s): The very first introduction

As with all things regarding Pepper - who might very easily have been a "dangerous dog" due to her breed/instinctive nature - we were very careful and methodical with her introduction to our new arrival.

I have mentioned previously the irony of my sometimes one and only saviour in a years-long strive for children being not the most ideal choice for family pet where young children might be concerned. It didn't mean we were ever going to give her away - give up on her - when our only surviving child finally came along. In fact, it meant we could finally complete our family (in a strange mixed-species kind of way).

I am having a really difficult night of it. Could be the end of an emotional week. Could be the fact that Steve inadvertently slipped that he was going to go and "feed the dogs"..... before looking at me with a pained, apologetic look. But I lost it. I was sitting on the LGBB's bed at the time and just let go the tears.

I miss her still. Dreadfully. The more old (young, prime) photos and video footage I see, the more I yearn. It is right this way, though. She lived a very long, full life. She was a dog to top all dogs - no, not yours! of course - and no matter if we rescued another fifty dogs, we will never find another Pepper.

How freaking lucky was I, to find her? I will appreciate that girl for the rest of my days.

Here she is, being introduced to our daughter (aged about four months, is my guess) for the first time. Note how she is all about me, regardless of the new "thing" that she knew was taking all our time and attention away. Loyal, always loyal, to her masters. Putting herself at the end of the line, where any well-serving, dutiful dog should go.

And then there's Jazz. Gorgeous in her own way, but so happy-go-lucky that it kind of makes me want to slap it out of her some days. It always did. Where Pepper had the weight of the world - the weight of my reality, really - on her shoulders, Jazz had only the buoyant promise of New Life on hers. Like the yin-yang of life itself. I do so love and cherish them both. But my heart will forever be with Pepper. She was like a saviour to me.

Today, I don't mind saying..... I am really, really feeling her absence and feel misunderstood by everyone. She always "got" me (mostly 'cause she couldn't talk and stuff up! Don't you love how dogs do that for you? Just give and never take? Sweet relief)

If it wasn't for the nights

Okay, while you read this, you've gotta do something for me. It might go against every grain of sensibility in you. But... will you make an exception? And play the following clip?

The short of it is, this is just about my most favourite ABBA song. It's one of their best. I could listen to it every day and not get sick of it. But then... I was a MASSIVE fan back in the day!

Go on... hit play... if you're not tapping some part of your body or trying to sing the chorus by the end, well.... it's lost on you (and let's never speak of my adoration of ABBA again, in that case):

The long of it is, at the moment it's kinda bloody true! See, I'm going really well - I haven't cried for Pepper in days now, it's been a week and a bit since I helped her go to sleep on our kitchen floor.

Thing is, though, even though I saw that big ol' needle going in and held her head on my hands and reassured her to her death, I have been haunted by dreams that the drug didn't work and that she is actually still alive.

Three times now I have dreamed very real dreams where I have to decide whether to call the vets and tell them it didn't work or just shrug and say, "Well... we tried, Pep, looks like you're here until you really want to go."

They are absolute torture! Last night, during the dream, I actually told myself she was really dead. The needle had actually worked. I hope it signals the end of them. I don't know what it means, I haven't analysed them and I'm not asking or expecting you to, gentle reader. But man! I am nearly at the point of putting my fists on my hips and asking the wise Universe.... What gives?!




"If It Wasn't For The Nights"

I got appointments, work I have to do
Keeping me so busy all the day through
They're the things that keep me from thinking of you
Ohhh baby, I miss you so, I know I'm never gonna make it
Oh, I'm so restless, I don't care what I say
And I lose my temper ten times a day
Still it's even worse when the night's on its way
It's bad, oh, so bad

Somehow I'd be doing alright if it wasn't for the nights
(If it wasn't for the nights I think that I could make it)
I'd have courage left to fight if it wasn't for the nights
(If it wasn't for the nights I think that I could take it)
How I fear the time when shadows start to fall
Sitting here alone and staring at the wall
Even I could see a light if it wasn't for the nights
(Even I could see a light I think that I could make it)
Somehow I'd be doing alright if it wasn't for the nights
(If it wasn't for the nights I think that I could take it)

No one to turn to, you know how it is
I was not prepared for something like this
Now I see them clearly, the things that I miss
Ohhh baby, I feel so bad, I know I'm never gonna make it
I got my business to help me through the day
People I must write to, bills I must pay
But everything's so different when night's on its way
It's bad, oh, so bad

Somehow I'd be doing alright if it wasn't for the nights
(If it wasn't for the nights I think that I could make it)
I'd have courage left to fight if it wasn't for the nights
(If it wasn't for the nights I think that I could take it)
How I fear the time when shadows start to fall
Sitting here alone and staring at the wall
Even I could see a light if it wasn't for the nights
(Even I could see a light I think that I could make it)
Guess my future would look bright if it wasn't for the nights
(If it wasn't for the nights I think that I could make it)

If it wasn't for the nights
(If it wasn't for the nights I think that I could take it)
if it wasn't for the nights
(If it wasn't for the nights I think that I could make it)

Even I could see a light if it wasn't for the nights
(Even I could see a light I think that I could make it)
Guess my future would look bright if it wasn't for the nights
(If it wasn't for the nights I think that I could take it)

If it wasn't for the nights
(If it wasn't for the nights I think that I could make it)
If it wasn't for the nights
(If it wasn't for the nights I think that I could take it)

Even I could see a light if it wasn't for the nights
(Even I could see a light I think that I could make it)
Guess my future would look bright if it wasn't for the nights

The Irony

“Oh, Pep,” I said with a sigh, placing a hand on her head. Pepper looked up at me dolefully. She was getting old, this girl of mine. I could see the greying around her eyes and down her long snout. I hadn’t looked at her closely for some months, distracted as I was. Yet here she had still been, ready and attentive and by my side at a moment’s notice. All I had to do was look at her and she knew, like an old friend, when I needed her. Pepper, our quietly unassuming one-time stray who had firmly and appreciatively asserted a place for herself in our little family, had brought me through so many times when I felt like I had no one to lean on. The love and devotion of this dog had been unwavering throughout my trials, all without uttering a word to me. If only more humans could be like dogs, I mused. All she had ever given me was loving, silent support.

I deduced that a great many overwhelming and emotional episodes of life—where people didn’t need more words or opinions or advice or any sort of support other than a simple, unassuming presence, an ear to lend and some gentle displays of affection—would be much better dealt with if our supporters embodied the devoted loyalty of dogs in those moments.

How could it be that my furry friend had given me far more than most people during these past years, while never having spoken a word? This was something that I did not allow to go unnoticed. Pepper had taught me much about being loyal to myself as well. And now, I was about to inflict a huge change on my “doggy child”, introduce someone else for her to accommodate as she naturally slipped down a rung in the hierarchy of our pack.

- An unedited extract from "Into The Bliss: Having & Holding Ellanor", by K.A. Whatman

If only more humans could be like dogs, I mused. 

All she had ever given me was loving, silent support.

This moment of the book was from 2006. It was the day I went in to hospital to have the LGBB. In fact, it was only about an hour before we left.

I realise, retrospectively, that Pepper was attached to the Me who was pre-LGBB. She was never meant to last this long. I looked out the window at her over a year ago and heard, in a flash, "She forgot to die." I hung onto the statement for it was like a bolt out of the clear blue. And it was true. I honestly believed from that day forward that this dog had sort of .... well, just simply forgotten to slip away. Her To Do list was quite short in the end. I think much of it was forgotten. But one thing she never ever forgot was, "Look for my Master."

That'd be me.

It seems to me that everything that came to pass during 2004-2006 went exactly as it should. She supported me through my greatest trial. She saw me through the next full (and to date, second only successful) pregnancy. She carried my lonely heart through three more pregnancies in between the two girls. She was by my side for every one of those pregnancies and their varying outcomes.

Sometime not too long ago, I put to rest my desire for three children. We had borne two. We now had just one with us. My desire for more had waned and given over to the acceptance that I have all I need (and am meant to have) now.

That was supposed to be it.

She wasn't supposed to stick around for anything much of the LGBB's life. I'm sure of it. She stayed for me. And she forgot to go. I had to tell her to go. I will write a post one day about that, for it is - quite simply - profound what happened last Thursday and she deserves the honour of her passing to be a separate entry.

By the time she went, she was Lolly's "favourite". She had also enabled our daughter to witness what it is to care for an ailing, aged animal. Sure, I lost my temper sometimes over it - it was very stressful managing her in the final year, especially - but ultimately, what Lolly has been gifted with is the opportunity to understand the profound importance of ALL life. Even that which is often deemed at a brief glance to be unworthy/wasted time, resources and reserves.

The irony is, Pepper was always terrible with people. Children and men, specifically. Women she was fine with. So I had to watch her like a hawk for her entire life with us. That's a long seventeen years of scrupulous herding, shielding, fencing-off, instruction, training. And tolerance.

There was no WAY, in her younger years, we could ever keep her and have a child. I've never said that in writing before. I guess I've never had to. Because it simply didn't happen. The two realities never overlapped. By the time Lolly was born, Pepper was already losing her grip. She wasn't as fast or responsive. She was dropping catches. She was easier to manage, we could slip more things past her unnoticed. And I also knew her inside and out by then.

So there it is. The dog who could've possibly been cast as the sinister villain (okay, granted, she'd never have been in one scene) in an even more awkward telemovie remake of Evil Angels was actually my saviour during the period where I was trying to bring a child into existence. And even after Lolly was born, for the first two years at least, as Steve and I see snippets of home movies this week while we catalogue them to preserve her memory and her prominent place in our lives, she remained duty-bound to me. In one scene, Steve is playing with a 12-month-old Lolly on the patio outside. I am behind the video, walking through the house to the door. And there is Pepper. Sitting guard at the door, waiting for me, minding the entrance to the house, casting an eye over the scene before her but still on duty. For me.

I knew she was loyal when she was on her game. I just forgot for such a long time because these last few years she'd been so slow. Perhaps I took her for granted.

Ah, death. The great equalizer, huh?

Spare me

In classic Me fashion, I am going to say (rather ambiguously) that I'm sorry but... I make no apology for feeling the loss of my dear friend deeply and fully. I suppose you only get a real sense of how much this dog did for me when you read my book. I promise one day more than a handful of you will have that opportunity! *pumping fatigued unconvincing fist to the sky*

Writing my way through this is the only healthy way for me to honour the devotion she showed me. It's what I do and it's what she did. And it seems it did not go unnoticed all this time by my family. The outpouring of condolences from them, the tears, the fondness in their recollections of her as a "lovely old lady", the happy stories of being held captive to play ball with a dog who could fetch and return far longer than anyone ever wanted to play with her have helped to round out the significance Steve and I have always felt about her place in our home.

To me, my dog was always home.

We rescued her from a shelter just two years after Steve and I moved in together. I was 20, Steve was 23, the day we went and chose her out of those 35 other full cages. Steve will turn 40 in April and I will be 37 this year. At our wedding 13 years ago, Rusty (his cat) and Pepper were immortalized by the Best Man in the speeches. Everybody knew who they were. Pep got about with us like "one of the buddies" and anyone who came over had to acknowledge the dog. If I didn't mention her and they otherwise didn't take any notice of her, Pepper would make sure of it at some point.

From the moment she let go of her last breath last Thursday, my mind has been flooded with all of those wonderful, rich memories of my faithful dog.

I am keeping my head above water quite well now. The past three days have seen me break down at least every hour. Today is better. I am distracting my tired brain with some excellent comedy podcasts and also Tina Fey's "Bossypants" audio book - awesomely funny! - because every song is too sad and leaves too much room for my mind to wander back to Pepper. No, I'll do it this way. With distract and deflect tactics.

Her life was my joy. I want to be happy when I remember what she gave me.

This will not be the last post on the subject. And again, while on the one hand I'm sorry for that if you a) don't particularly care for dogs or b) am already rather tired of my bleating on the subject, on the other hand I say.... it's a big wide web out there with a zillion other blogs. I won't be offended in the slightest if you can't read mine for the time being.

But like all other times since starting this space, I turn here to express myself and connect with like souls.

I have to do this.

For now, I'll leave you with an absolutely delightful video I found on the weekend whilst cataloguing every digital photo we ever took of her. Oh yes... a slideshow is a must. And it's in the works but might be slow coming to fruition, as much as my heart and energy permits me to work on it.


What an honour it was to have her in my life.


The following footage is typical Pepper. The slight "I wanna say something but I won't" huff. The doleful expression. The paw on me in thanks for me saying "good girl".... even though I wasn't talking to her this time. We were in the part-regretful, part-trying-to-be-firm transition phase of shuffling her off her top spot - she had to make room for the LGBB. I am doing a separate post on that soon, because it is a huge thing for the loyal animals of a long-term TTC'er (TTC=Trying To Conceive) to step aside.

In this video, you can hear me (embarrassingly using baby-talk with the dog) trying to break it to Pep that I won't always be talking to her any more when there are no other adult humans around....

oh and p.s. if you were wondering, "Reenie" as in Pepperini, was her nickname - she had several, but this one stuck (even Lol called her Reenie).

Music and laughter through searing pain: My familiar dose of medicine

It's the song that has been playing over and over in my head. The little earworm since I called the vet this morning to call them out to see Pepper this afternoon at home. It's a song I haven't heard in I don't know how many years and bears no importance or relevance in my life.

Until now.

And I realise, with an amused smile, that this is SO Pepper. The chorus could have been written by her. If... y'know... she had opposable thumbs.

So as we sit here waiting for her time to go, she and I, please have a listen to "our song" and smile with me:

If You Leave Me Can I Come Too?

If you leave me, can I come too? 

We can always stay

But if you leave me, can I come too? 

And if you go, can I come too?

"Can I go now?" Helping my old girl stand down

The day that would never come.

There's come a time when I've realised something I hadn't seen before. I always professed I wanted Pepper to end her days by herself. Naturally. My hope was for her to have a dignified end but that if pain was making living too hard, I'd cross that bridge when I came to it. 

I'm walking on the bridge now. And I have a big juicy bone enticing my old faithful girl to follow me.

I did not even see, before yesterday, that she won't go until I lead her. She is too obedient. She is too apologetic. Look at that photo up there. That is the doleful look she has always had. The grateful look. The care-taking "may I help you?" look. To this day, stumbling and disoriented as she is now, she waits to be ushered inside (or out) and never assumes to go anywhere we haven't directed her. Why would she not look for my guidance now? Jazz is another story. A different energy altogether. She barges her way past all of us, whacking Pep in the face with that kangaroo-strength tail of hers. She waits for no one and has to be reminded of the correct etiquette (she knows it, she just takes liberties all the time). 

Pepper wouldn't dare. She's not even going to die without being given permission.

Before yesterday, I thought it would be wrong somehow of me to snuff Pepper's lights out. But she seems to have reached a point where she needs me. Needs help to stand down. An insightful Facebook friend I've known for a number of years suggested the poignant timing of this turn of events for our old girl. On the back of my last post where I mused that I really felt "okay" now.... here she is, turning up beside me to hang her lead on the hook and hand in her badge collar. 

Forcing my hand.

Willing me to choose.

Now we are deciding on burial spots in the backyard and whether we'll opt for a call-out from the vet or if I will take her on one final car ride.

I have been torn by this for so long. But now it's no turning back. There will be no more false alarms for dear Pepper. Remember that rather embarrassing time two years ago when I thought her number was up but she had just gorged herself on dog food? That was an embarrassing laugh (only with hindsight, I hastily add). I don't want her to be in pain. A trip to the vet this morning confirmed she has lost most of the feeling in one back leg, the other is not too crash hot. Her front legs are barely holding her weight and she has lost so much muscle tone that her lower back is now compromised. The way she falls (hard) and the increased frequency of her slips mean that I just cannot allow her to go on any longer.

And I realised, not more than three hours ago, that it is only appropriate that it is me who has to be with her. She and I. The two of us. Alone. Together. We spent so many days this way over the past seventeen years. I would literally burst outside to find her if I had become overwhelmed by my grief during the long days when Steve was at work. I'd call Pep - she was never far away - and she would sit with me, whine alongside me as I would sob and sob and sob. She'd slip a paw up into my hand and rest her head on me. Always.

[As an aside, how the hell Steve coped going to work through that, I will never know. If anyone, wants some assistance with understanding from a male's perspective, I encourage them to seek out this excellent blog for fathers.] 

Pepper hasn't been able to do what she instinctively has always done. It's been about a year since she was able to properly balance her weight so she could give me a paw. I wanted to nurse her through her geriatric months, which have turned into years. But now I see what I didn't see before.

I need to relieve her of her duties to me. It's okay for her to go. I've told her many times over, at first when I didn't really even believe it. But there is a profoundness in having to do this for her as well. It is right this way, I've come to accept it quite quickly. It makes sense to me that a dog so fiercely brave and loyal will never lay down and snuff out. As it is today, she senses something is up - I have had to sit beside her and MAKE her lie down to rest. She has been trying to stand beside me since we returned from the vets.

They are no fools, these animals who sacrifice their lives for us. I'd like to think I am about to receive one hell of a guardian angel when she slips peacefully across the void. It makes it only ever so slightly less painful to hope.

And hey.... just an update - look at this: we did it, she's leaving after seventeen years - that one was a super-important post about my girl. So. I can officially say I really have lived with Pepper for as many years as I lived with my mother! I rest my case.

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.

Remembered into being

Ellanor was borne into being long after she became a thought. I had introduced her to my closest confidantes before I got pregnant. She included herself in our lives before she was born. She touched down here for the most fleeting of days - 31 to be very exact - and then tripped back off again. Leaving me to gather together all the memories she had left me with, so I could lean on them. Desperately at first. Despairingly, longingly. But always fondly. Even the hard memories. And then I got stuck into sharing them, mostly here on this blog (and my old one). The more I did, the more I discovered that she remained vital in not just my life but the lives of others.


Later in 2004, I had not a clue, not a whisper of a dare of a hope that I might ever feel like opening my eyes for one more day on this Earth, let alone wonder if any more children were to be our fate. It's just lucky for us that it was. That I never continued my thought process to my eventual untimely end (and how to do it).


It's a tricky thing.


She had to leave. I had to stay. But I know why now. 

Miss Lolly, a month after she burst my heart open even wider

The most endearing face in my world, 2008

Even when she makes more work for me, she is still my Heaven - 2011

For if she had not, the world would not have been able to welcome the shining light that is Ellanor's little sister. Like revolving doors, the two girls slipped past each other. Never destined to meet in the flesh.


But those memories I hold in my soft mother heart are Lolly's. They are there for her to wade in, explore, develop for herself. Memories that did not bring Ellanor into being but that ensure she has no beginning or end here on Earth, as it is wherever she goes now. She is the one who is free. She is the one who had the vision to come. And to go. How can I ultimately be anything but impressed by that sheer will? I am frankly in awe of her.


As long as we keep remembering. Their existence will continue to flourish.

In dedication to all the babies who are being cradled 

in the memories of their families this festive season. 

Peace be with you all. 

Together, we will never let them fade.

No one is to blame

I saw a mother get verbally abused by her son today. Absolutely slammed. Loud, unedited, out in the street down by the hospital.

I was with my daughter. We had just been on a phenomenal walk together. So enjoyable was it that she had just finished hugging me tight when I squatted down next to her to see if she was ready to keep going (she wasn't. Daddy played Knight In Silver Shining Armour and collected us fifteen minutes later...)

Awesome view from the top

That fifteen minutes was spent waiting for our steed as an unwitting audience to this pained family's airing of demon laundry.

He was a nice looking man of at least late twenties. Bare footed, angry, hoarse voice. He laid into his mother and young adult sister as they walked back to her car. Unfortunately for us, they followed our trajectory to the park where we were going to meet Dad.

The LGBB was largely unperturbed but this was angry, angry stuff being shrieked and it seemed the further away we tried to walk, the more it followed us. I wasn't upset at them for doing this so publicly. I wasn't frustrated or felt any opinion forming in me. But I was simply gutted for all of them as individuals and a tiny part of me wanted to go and ask quietly if they were all okay (they clearly weren't and it would have been grossly out of line of me). So I did all I could do. I spoke to my child simply but frankly and honestly about it when she started asking me what was going on.

I told her, "Lol, sometimes people who are really hurting inside yell at people they really love. I think sometimes they don't even mean it but they just can't stop even if they want to."

"Why?" she asked me.

"I don't know. Maybe because they feel like nobody's listening..." I pulled myself up from saying anything further. It's one thing to be compassionate and feel empathy for others but I know it's not anyone's business to carry forward any assumptions about any situation. Not even the other side of their own sometimes!

I've been the yeller in my recent adult years. I've more often in my life been the one being yelled at venomously, though. It was par for the course in my childhood home. I know yelling is always masking something else. Sometimes it's so hard to get to that you yourself can't even identify with it. Verbal abuse can leave scars that cannot be seen. But it is possible to recover from it, whether the yeller or the recipient.

The anger continued. The son began using the most painful, horrible language. Lolly was safely in her own world by this stage, upwind of the situation, singing and swinging in the playground and recovering from her mammoth walk. I was upset and humbled by the events going on behind me on the other side of the football oval we were adjacent to. I felt so sad for all three of them. It seems he'd been ordered to go to Rehab. His sister was hurting deeply and saying "What about me?" The mum was at a loss. It was awful, simply awful.

Here I had just spent a great afternoon with my child, who I now wanted to hold so tightly..... I stood staring down at her soft toys that I had been ordered to bounce on a bouncy-animal and I wondered if the mother in my line of sight with the two adult children had ever imagined in her wildest dreams that the son who had a favourite toy he took everywhere - even on long walks and to the park - would ever wish her so much ill. Whether she ever imagined a day where he would be so pained and gripped by some drug that perhaps used to be a drug of choice but was now creating such a sucking black hole in his life that he would wish himself dead. Scream things at her that I could hear he didn't want to say but did want to say, all at the same time.

The unspoken cries for help transcended what these three were actually saying (shrieking) at each other. Each of them was like a wounded animal and it had gone beyond the point of any of them being able to hold it in. Doesn't only love really get us to that point? It was a real shame to hear what they couldn't. Something had broken down so much that this family was at a crisis point.

What I came away with, for I haven't stopped thinking about them since, was the wish for them that they continue - if nothing else - to hope. I really struggle with the generalisations and judgements that get brought out by observers when violence is brought up. Violence comes in so many forms and disguises. I'm not about to excuse anything. I have seen violence, heard violence, felt violence (all directed towards me and most often by beloved blood ties). But I do feel the need to resist the temptation to draw parallels just because what it looks like on the surface is a case of a user abusing his long-suffering family. And perhaps you will do that or go even further, just with the brief picture I've painted here.

Now, I hesitate here because I know I have absolutely NO experience with this kind of human condition - addiction. However, I do have experience with loss of all - and I mean ALL - hope, faith and trust. I do know what it's like to give up. Give over to the blackness that creeps up and chokes.  I don't know what ultimately prevented me from allowing myself to completely surrender to it and succumb. But I also know that at my turning point, when I found myself still alive, I was left with a glimpse of the flipside of that lowest ever point. And all I saw there was hope. Well, me and hope. Like never before, I got the analogy of having had the power the whole time to get myself out of it.... but I had to go through an entire journey to realise it.

Sound familiar?

This man and his mother and sister - and who knows how many others - were all caught up in the tacky tangled mess of relationship to each other. The thing had taken on a life of its own, you could almost see the "other" thing that was central to them all. It wasn't the man. It wasn't even his addiction. It was something other.... I don't know what to call it because I didn't properly look in. I already felt intrusive enough. But it was a really big illustration to me that we (humans, I mean, generally speaking) so often are so quick to make claims and definitive statements and lines in the sand. 

What if there was just the hope for change? And each time the scenarios played out in our heads, whatever they may be (he'll just lapse again, she'll just hurt me again, I'll just lose the only thing I ever truly loved again), they were instead replaced with the hope that something was going to be different this time?

Okay. Shoot me down, tell me all the ways you don't want this to work and that I am naive. And I'll send you some more hope. For the next millennia worth of "next times" if I have to. Because I need hope.

The opposite is what'll eventually erode and eat at you from the inside out.

Fostering the Big Questions - moving on from the last ones

Today was filled with the kind of curly questions only a child can ask. And again - just as last time -  I was compelled to answer as truthfully as I could.*

It's like that when she looks me straight in the eye and squares her jaw; there is no getting around it any other way than honestly. The sort of tactful, metered honesty that shields from the gritty details yet doesn't shy away from the facts.

"What happened straight after I was born?" she asks me.
"Straight after?.... Well... your Dad and I brought you home and fed you and looked after you." I smile at her, remembering fondly.
"Yes, I know," she frowns, looking a trifle frustrated, "but what happened before that?"
She's getting her before's and after's mixed up at the moment. It's a stage.
"Before when?"
"Before, when Ella was born." 
I don't quite know what she's trying to decipher with her line of questioning so I can't guide my answers toward anything that will succinctly nip it in the bud for her. So we continue with the short answers-short questions.
"You want to know what happened just before Ella was born?" She nods.
"Well... when Ella was born, she was very little. I stayed in the hospital with her for a few days but then I had to come home. And when I did, she stayed in the hospital." 
She pouts sadly. I am certain I see a little look of sympathy in the way she tilts her head and makes a slight grimace. 
"But every day," I assure her, "I would wake up early and drive to the hospital and feed her my milk and talk to her and her nurses until it got dark and late at night. Then your Dad would drive from work and come and sit with me and we would look at Ella and talk to her together. She was a very lovely little baby."
My other very lovely little baby is sitting across the room from me, a range of emotions moving across her face now. I can't gauge if it's compassion for us or a sense of loss for herself, mixed in with a good dose of "I feel I've missed out on something you were all doing when I wasn't here". I daresay it's all of that. Then I realise she is trying to pinpoint where Ellanor is again. She does this, searching for her sister, a few times a year. I invite the conversations openly.... but they are still heart-searingly difficult.
"But... why did you leave her at the hostible?" she asks, her large blue-green eyes suddenly looking heavier, her little brow furrowing.
"Because she died, darlin', we had to."
Stated simply, just like that, it sounds callous and cold and hard-hearted. I know what she's thinking. I'm thinking it too now as we look at each other and the distance between us, across the rug and the arm of the couch to where she's leaning seems somehow suddenly further. If her father and I could leave our baby somewhere to be handled by goodness knows who, what's to stop us taking leave of our senses and doing it to her? I feel wretched for a turn, before my logical mind catches up and keeps me moving along before I get too morbid. That would not help either of us.
"Who has her now?"
"Nobody. She's not at the hospital any more."
"What kind of hostible did you leave her in?"
"A people hospital. Where doctors and nurses help sick people. You know, Lol, you wouldn't be here if Ella was."
"Yes, I know that," she answers me with a tone beyond her five short years. And she frowns again slightly, a pained, longing look on her face. She really does get that, I marvel to myself. "But why can't I see her? I want to see her." Ah. Getting it and living it are two completely different things, though, and it is this knowledge - that my child has been forced to remain permanently separated by her living from a sister she yearns for deeply - that really clutches at my mother heart.
"I know you do." Matter of fact. It's the only way. We agree it's shitful without saying any more.
"How did she get to Pixie Hollow?" she asks, changing tack slightly and mercifully saving me from the always uncomfortable "Well, why didn't any doctors and nurses save my sister" challenges.
This is the moment my heart swells to bursting. The Pixie Hollow explanation is something that Ellanor's sensitive little sister came up with quite on her own one day earlier this year out of the blue while we were driving. She told me that day decidedly that Tinkerbell and the fairies had taken Ella to live "on another planet because I think.... Yeah! That's where Pixie Hollow is!"
I hasten to quantify here that the LGBB is also very partial to the unabridged J.M. Barrie book, Peter Pan - the whole Lost Boys in Neverland premise fascinated our Lolly. What's more, I believe that Pixie Hollow (perhaps more due to the gorgeous name rather than the Disney-fied slant on "fairies" and, indeed, Tinkerbell herself) and Neverland are a mash-up of one and the same place in her imagination.
"You know what? That I don't know," I tell her honestly.

Our talk peters out at this point and I am left with a vacant but equally full feeling for the rest of the day. When we catch up a few hours later, Lolly is sitting playing on her bed with various tiny bits and pieces of some monstrosity that look like bottom-of-foot attractors if ever I saw them. Jagged and pointy bits everywhere.

She hands me a green glass-looking rubbed stone. "Is this a wishing stone?" she asks.
"I think it might (as) well be!" I exclaim.
"I've been making lots of wishes and they're going to come true," Lolly says nodding and glancing around her room before she launches into what I think is going to be her long list. But she only tells me one wish.
"I want a baby brother. And another sister." Again with the direct gaze and the square-set jaw. My goodness, but her eyes are beautiful. I'm distracted by them when I should be thinking of an answer. Fast.
"Wouldn't that be wonderful, to have both." I smile at her.
"Then I can have someone to play with," she says earnestly. Honestly. My loins don't feel any sort of stirring whatsoever, regardless of wishing desperately my only child was not an only child. We tried. Honest to goodness, her father and I tried.
"You know, though, babies take a long time once they're born to be able to play. Look at your cousin Blake. He's pretty little still, isn't he?"
She's unwavering. Her eyes look into me - through me - and I can kind of see she's not all here. I wait, watching her face, until she finally answers.
"I think they're not babies. Maybe they're older than me." 
Despite myself, I raise my eyebrows and nod in agreement. Yes, that's right. Perhaps they are.

I completely forgot until today that I have been tossing up foster parenting with Steve for some years now. It comes up once every year or so, since we said goodbye to Ellanor, but it never felt "right" to go ahead with it.

Perhaps? Maybe now? Lolly seems to know more about it than I. We shall see. If nothing else, I trust the Universe will advise, devise and deliver all in its exceptionally good, right time.



* (Just as an aside, that last Big Questions post is a really important read if you are dealing with them yourself - or trying to find a way through them with your surviving young, inquisitive children and wonder how the heck to start... also, take a deep breath in and just go with your best instinct! ;-)

Smile... no matter how awkward you feel.

12wbt: Reflections of Accountability - One Month In

This is by no stretch a sponsored post or a review. This is just my usual tell-all spill which I tend to do periodically if you'll be so kind as to bear witness to my latest discovery about myself. Shall we?




I just want to start by saying if it seems to you like every second person is talking about this 12 week body transformation (12wbt) thing, it's because it is astoundingly good! In my very humble opinion. And with the proof of 18 stubborn centimeters already lost from my frame. So far. At every turn, there seems to be a ready-reckoner by way of a timely video message from Michelle herself that speaks right to the gnawing age-old habits just lurking in the background waiting to pounce on me like some big meanie and say "A-HA, knew you couldn't hack the hard work. Here... have a chip or 100." I've dabbled in forcing a bit of "old food" (sugary stuff) down in this past month - with little detriment to my overall progress so far, I might add, but not doing myself any favours - because I figure, I am going to encounter some of these falling off the wagon times and this 12 weeks I am viewing as my testing ground. The control is the food. Rather, the lure of the unhealthy choice stuff. You know what I've discovered? I've lost the taste for it. The enjoyment is all but gone! I had half a melting moment two weeks ago as a "reward"....... It was the best thing I could have done because I knew straight away that it was no treat. The "treat" would have been a glass of water and my favourite salad when I got home. Huge lesson for me. Huge.

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

Accountability and Application. I often mistake "accountability" for "responsibility". Somewhere along the line, I also fooled myself into believing that "knowledge" was near enough to "application" to be considered as good as the same thing.

With the shedding of my weight and the re-toning of my once-fit body, I am re-familiarising myself with my shapely arms, my strong thighs, my muscly powerful shoulders. I have the incentive of a finely crafted online weight loss and fitness program to thank for getting me back into the swing of it. The psychology behind my lack of effort to resume caring for myself is a little trickier, though, than handing over my credit card number to purchase the three-month package.

Thing is, I blamed my body for a long time. I thought I had stopped, but I have come to accept accountability for continuing to reward or punish my appearance depending on how I was feeling on the inside. Basically... it's a mental thing.

For six years - the better part of last decade, the 2000's - when nothing else in my life was going to plan I would hit the weights with my personal trainer. I might not have been able to carry a child, but I could put my body through its paces. Feel the burn, feel alive even if I could not nurture a life.

Pretty soon, I was blaming my exercise on my miscarriages. So I added yoga to my regime. No fewer than two early pregnancy failures happened directly after attending a yoga class. I'm not sure if you've ever experienced something like this, but for me it was the fastest way to make me not repeat what I had just been doing in the previous 1-24 hours of finding that first tell-tale spot on my pants. The very technique I had taken up to create some space and inner peace in my busy "work until I am successful creating a family" life became a source of fear as well.

In reality - and I have since become quite the well-read and practical expert on miscarriage - I know now that the pregnancies were failing days, possibly a week and sometimes more, before I was ever alerted. Nothing I was doing was causing them. Even with the knowledge of our specific male genetic factor, my blame game number on myself continued until Lolly came along. And then some.

Those years between 2000 and 2006 were an endurance marathon I'm not sure I would have signed up for if I had known what was to be held within them for me. I may have had a great recovery time from a flat-out boxing session with my trainer - something I recall being proud of at the time - but I could not chase away the niggling self-torment that by keeping fit, I was somehow ruining my chances of becoming a mother. Although I was reassured at every turn by my trainers and my health care providers, the armchair experts on the home front were wary of all my exercise. They were concerned and confused, even, as to why I would spend money on going to a studio to work out. "Have a baby! Carry that around all day, that'll give you muscles!" Yes. Someone actually said that to me. Someone who should have known better, as my recurrent (by that stage) miscarriages were not unknown to them.

Little by little, my weight crept up. The more I eased off the training, terrified as I edged towards the age of thirty that my fertility might also begin to decline if one of these babies wouldn't stay to satiate my mono-focused need to have a child, the more I justified my "eat treats" with a sense of self-punishing self-nurture. Both. At the same time. I deserved to be kind to myself, my internal voice would coo. I also deserved to punish my body, my sabotaging voice would claim equal rights. Both trains of thought ended in the bowl of ice cream or the bag of chocolate bullets.

Once Steve and I had done our two rounds of IVF in 2005 my body was so bruised from the 2004 birth and death of Ellanor and then the further two miscarriages the same year that, by rights, I should never have been ready or able to carry the LGBB to full term in 2006.

But I did. And I added 31 kilo's to my already solid frame in the process.

I really, and I mean really, paid my body in what I thought was kind. Food=Comfort=Nurture to me. For so very long. Like so many people.

So then I found myself with the baby we had yearned for (and lost) on so many occasions. But I was consumed by my sense of duty to my new role as Mother that all care and concern for my fitness - if not my health - went sailing out the window. Most devastating of all to me was the deeply distressing fact that I was so disgusted with the sight of myself in photos or video that I have scarce little photos of myself with my only surviving daughter. I was too ashamed that I now appeared so much huger than I felt.

And somewhere along the line these past five years, it just became the norm. The huge flab of skin on my tummy that looked like a second "rear end" out front.... the arms that tone so naturally quickly, all the definition in my waist that I worked so hard to get. All of it, so far gone that it felt like another person's body I just had on loan for a while there in my twenties.

When we moved to our new home in 2007, Lolly was almost two. I determined to walk all the streets of our charming new community, so rich was it in opportunities to really huff and puff and get fit and see some cracking scenery while I was at it. But I've never done anything of the sort. Sure, I have justified my inaction with plenty of seated work. I have finished writing a book (amongst many other computer-related projects), for gawd's sake. You can't do that standing. But, see, there was no balance. And definitely no accountability.

Now, my day generally begins with a 6am start and the dog is raring to go before I can grab my cap off the hall stand hook. I adore the old familiar surge that courses through my entire body. Without any of the toxins that I was ingesting the night before, my body can quite easily rise at this time and get me where I need to go. I can walk and par-jog 5km's these days, up some mountain goat-like hills and back down some equally mean ones in the space of that one precious hour before heading home to greet my five year-old for the day.

I have come to realise that my mind was holding me back. My self-reward/self-punishment cycle had to stop. My body has actually done me so proud. Always. It responds scientifically, if only I would get out of my own way and just fuel it correctly. In the first month of this 12-Week Body Transformation, already I have seen the visible evidence that I was not too far gone to even bother trying after all. I am a self-starter, just like I always thought I was. I can do this. And I must. For I have kept myself out of too many photos with (and now for) my baby for too long. Heck, I'm not even so afraid to vlog any more because I'm making peace slowly with my appearance (compare the latest one to the first deer-in-headlights one I did a few short months ago!).

From now on, my accountability to myself is going to remain front and centre. It isn't enough that everything in Michelle Bridges' 12wbt program is pretty much all familiar to me. It matters not one tiny skerrick if I don't apply it. That was what I was missing. Hmmm... pretty crucial point!

I have welcomed myself to my New Life proper now. With the invaluable assistance of the thinking largely being done for me, the final layers of my healing are being shed so willingly. I find I have no emotional ties to what I've been holding onto.

If you are looking for something to catch you out on all your fall-back methods of justification - the things that keep you caught in your own cycle of self-destruction disguised as self-soothing or similar - this program will blow you out of the water if you are truly ready to let it all go and give over to the responsible, accountable way you could be living your life.

And if you hadn't already gathered, I can't recommend the Michelle Bridges 12WBT program strongly enough! She had me at Pre-Season Week 1 and it's been a cathartic journey ever since. So give it a go. I'd love to hear from you if you decide to.

Every year the same

"We're pregnant! Due in September, she's six weeks along already," my brother saw fit to tell me and Steve when Ella was about a week old.

It was lovely news. Just wonderful for my brother and dear sister in-law. I felt a familiar pang but brushed it off - I didn't have to feel that envy now! We finally had a baby of our very own after four failed attempts.

Of course, little did we all know but three weeks later there would be tragedy beyond any measure in our family when our own daughter, Ellanor, died suddenly before ever making it home.

Now, of course, each year on this day in September our focus is on our beautiful, sweet niece as she celebrates her birthday. She is a classic of a kid, sharp as a tack, quick-witted, cheeky, all those things that make her deliciously unique. She will also forever remind me of the age our daughter would have been turning - seven this year - and it is this connection that both tugs at my heart and brings a wide smile to my face at the same time. The cousin she would have loved who lived and died before she herself drew breath.

How do we possibly instill in these boisterous, life-full children the bittersweetness of their very existence? We don't. Of course, we don't. But I, Ella's mother, can hold that thought. Perhaps when my nieces are adults, with or without babes of their own, they might want to learn more. For now, the presence of Ellanor's name in our family, her pictures on our walls, her name on our lips occasionally, are enough sign-posts for them to be used to the very tricky concept of the death of a cousin. So young, before they met. One day, if it's ordained, I will be so happy and proud (of my nieces and of my daughter) to have that chat with them.

We are reminded in ever more subtle ways of our lost baby daughter, Steve and I, on days like these where it would be considered unnecessary or impolite or otherwise self-focused of us to mention what the day means to us.

Instead, I mention it here, where my family may look but is not likely to. Where it might strike a cord of familiarity in those who are my peers - other bereaved parents, at varying points (weeks, months, years) in their own journey of life without one of their precious children. Where it is more useful a moment shared, both for me and perhaps just one reader going through something similar.

So, whomever you are, I tip my cap at you in solidarity and just want to say, I get it. Get me?

Cousins

10 ways you can help a bereaved person

You cannot "fix" it but you can:

  1 say "I'm here for you" and be there
  2 show you care
  3 offer practical support
  4 don't take anger personally
  5 be patient - allow silences
  6 listen and accept strong emotions
  7 don't say you know or understand unless you really do
  8 avoid platitudes: it's God's will, etc.
  9 allow them to talk of their loved one, and speak their name
10 take care of yourself know your limits

I really appreciate this particular list for its open-endedness, which invites thoughtful interpretation to act within what feels appropriate for you and the bereaved person in your life.

Grief and bereavement comes in different forms, wearing different faces. I think deep down, even when it might appear the person before you doesn't know this, we do all know this. Sometimes we forget, is all. There are so many emotions from all sides when a death occurs.

That is why I am always on the look-out for a good dot-point list. There are many, scores of them, online. But where are they when you need them? And where are the good ones?? I want to add my list of top 10 to the throng, as it is one that resonates with me. It is not a list I made up, but one I came across last week in a waiting room. It is from The Compassionate Friends, an organisation that brings together mutual support and self-help models for those whose son or daughter has died (at any age).

As with any group or support organisation, it's not for everyone but it could just be for you. In my time, I have availed myself of the services (quietly, usually via online means and searching as I strived to heal) of the most widely known grief support services in Australia - SIDS & Kids, SANDS, Bonnie Babes (now the Small Miracles Foundation) and most often, I found myself visiting various websites of The Compassionate Friends: A world wide family supporting bereaved parents and siblings.

You can find out more about TCF by visiting their Victorian-based website or Freecall 1800 641 091. They offer 24 hour grief support within Australia, with support contacts in each state.
They are also in the UK and USA.

Ellanor & Me - 2004
Her fragile, beautifully delicate little fingers hurt my heart

The elephant in the womb: Why I'm glad I'm not an elephant

In July, 2006, I looked like this:

A very early capture of our little Photobomber, Jazz, refining her art

My ribs being positioned where they are (right on top of my hips with nary a centimetre between bone structures), there is nowhere to go but out, baby! So the LGBB was hovering out over nothing. A bit like walking the Eureka Skydeck88, I imagine. I only know what it was like from the building's perspective: damn uncomfortable and actually painful (I tried not to complain at the time, grateful as I was, but man.... my body was not happy and I had to increasingly manage the unexpected pain as I got bigger).

Around the time the photo above was taken, I mused the following to Steve (lifted from my old, now private, blog). He had no end of these sorts of musings thrown at him and, thankfully - or not - I recorded them on my blog as they happened. He's a funny guy. Most of the time. This time, I wanted to stab him. But I couldn't move.

Please excuse me, but there's an expletive involved:

Me: Imagine being a pregnant elephant. And gestating for two years. WITH AN ELEPHANT.

He: *daring to speak after thinking a moment* Hey... imagine if YOU were pregnant for two years. With.... an elephant.

*****respectful pause*****

Me: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.


I had forgotten all about this until tonight when I heard on the news that Melbourne Zoo's Asian elephant, Num-Oi, is expecting her first calf. Already four months along, it is considered very early and there is a risk of miscarriage, as with any, and I felt a pang of hope mixed with trepidation. I don't know why.

Then the news presenter said the expected due date was sometime in January..... 2013.

January 2013!?!

And of course, me being me, I got to thinking how utterly, utterly stressful that would be for an elephant if it had lost its first calf in infancy. They remember, you know. Don't they? Elephants, I mean. What the hell would go through an elephant mother's mind, I wonder. Waiting and gestating that, er... little 100kg precious bubba.

The day we took the LGBB to the zoo last year, I admit to shedding a happy tear seeing this gorgeous little three-month-old healthy girl:

Baby Mali on a family outing in April 2010:

"Are we THERE yet?"

I am SO glad I am not an elephant. Respect to the mamas. Major respect.