Shitmas

Yet another year rolling to a close next week and I find myself devoid of Shitmas "cheer" completely this time around.

Think I am just spent, energy wise, and being jolly ('tis the season, I'm told) is just not up there on my list of must-do's.

Don't get me wrong, I am very happy about the pending move. I'm delighted that Steve, the LGBB and I get to spend our first uninterrupted (relatively - boom-tish) Christmas Day together because all the obligatories will be over with by Christmas Eve. And then we get to do what we want, with whomever we want. It's very refreshing.

But then, I also do still wonder how it's received. It must be difficult for the gingham-and-baked-pies set to accept that we don't want the traditional sit-down Shitmas fare anymore. I received the SANDS newsletter a couple of weeks ago. In it, one of the tips for surviving Shitmas was to know that it was okay to feel like you needed to break from old traditions. That we should do what we needed to do to get through this season, and that it was equally okay to allow others to do what they wanted/needed as well. Very sound advice.

Still, I wonder though: shouldn't this kind of advice via newsletters be going to the families of the family who's lost a baby, however long ago? It's just the one minor failing in this particular part of the process for mine. That I can read and be comforted that *I* am not alone, that my partner and my children are not alone. But what of the grannies, grandpas, aunts, uncles, cousins? Maybe they feel alone - as if they are the only ones trying to grapple with their various feelings surrounding the loss of a family member they never met. My sister never saw Ellanor. I wonder how that haunts her and if it does. I know it impacted me. But it's just how it happened.

So why can't there be some sort of register that your address goes on, as part of a very infrequent mailing list (even twice a year would be good), where the organisation sends out little beacons to those people too? Not just reminders about how to keep the continuity of care for the bereaved parents and brothers or sisters or subsequent children of the baby who's died. But also, I dunno... sort of like a shout-out to say "Hey. We know you hurt too and we acknowledge that."

Maybe it'd help things all round if an initiative like that was in existence. As if perhaps by giving them this, they'd have more in them to continue to give to the parents at the centre of the situation. Maybe not. But just maybe. And surely "maybe" is worth it.

And the gobsmacking coincidences continue

I was talking to the Dear Friend today and she told me that Ellanor's doctor - the one who oversaw the team looking after her - was now her son's doctor.

To say that I am floored at realising the chances of this is an understatement. Firstly, the guy changed hospitals from the one where Ella called "home" to the one where the Dear Friend's little guy is now watched over protectively, after serving 15 years in that job. Ok, so the chances could be perceived to be quite high that two of our children could have the same doc, given the fact that there are only four (is it four, or maybe three?) neonatal ICU's in Victoria.

But still. There is more than one doctor in those NICU's! Apparently, with my blessing, she has approached him and mentioned her connection to him through Ellanor. And he remembers her *sigh* I suppose you would. I would like to think that a caring, dedicated doctor as lovely as he would not have to notch up too many lost lives in a career and so therefore recall the memorable cases that he could not save. If that didn't jog his memory, I'm sure remembering me (clamouring for exact details and testing him with zillions of questions and scenarios) would be fairly easy. I was in his face - without meaning to be - every day for the last two weeks there.

And what a career. God, when I think about what those people must see. These are the true angels on Earth. Aren't they not? Ellanor's last nurse had only come back on duty that very morning, from two weeks' leave, and her first patient goes and dies. She came to Ella's memorial, told me that she had planted a rose bush in a little spot in her garden where she has a few other rose bushes for babies who have died while under her care. I couldn't imagine at the time working in such an emotionally taxing position that you have created an eternal memorial for babies who aren't yours.

Beautiful, some people. It's this sort of thing that you have to keep remembering, when all the other dung gets flung about - it's really. So. Very. Unimportant.

Accountability

So's I don't forget, and also knowing that if I put this here I am answerable to not just myself if I "forget" or otherwise don't come back to these thoughts.

I found myself in the past couple of days wondering just how often my free thinking falls to Ella - about her time here, about our life since, about the various fallings-out and fracture and discord because of things unspoken with a few people - and why it is that my mind always wanders her way. They're not destructive thoughts, they are simply thoughts of her. Am I doing this to ensure I don't forget any of these things until I get them all down/out on paper into this book? I don't know how much or little I will end up needing, but I do believe that (as with her initial story which I wrote out in more detail about a year after she died, the one on her web pages) until I get it all out I will not forget and I will keep having these thought processes go trailing through my conscious mind and memory. It's almost as if a daily ritual has been necessary in order that I stay close to that time, until such time as I can clear enough space to let it all flow out into the written word.

The situation I recently found myself in, whereby I went waaaaay beyond this physical realm and which I don't entirely understand or comprehend*, has been struggling to keep itself real in my mind too. When I was in the thick of it, I was very clear and sure of what was happening (not entirely how it was happening, but seeing and trusting that this was what I was experiencing and watching it all unfold into realising my life's work as a sensitive). But now that I am hitting the ground again and trying to recoup my energy, I am finding it so hard to trust what happened. Far too trippy-sounding to explain to the general populus. But also infinitely more important than me getting on the Humble Horse and slinking off into the sunset. No, they won't let me do that. But I am still a very unwitting participant. Well, perhaps that is not so true now... if you stand in front of your husband apologising to him, through heavy tears that you can't help, that he has to "go through this with me" (ie. take up full responsibility for our child while I trip off into trippy head-land to assist with a soul trying to decide whether to take off for good or not) then really there isn't much closer to reality than you get. This IS my reality, I've had to accept. So, in that respect, no I'm not unwitting anymore. Hell, yes, it has kind of knocked the crap out of me. But it wasn't as scary as I imagined it might be, the first time I am consciously aware of going into the void somewhere with someone.

I didn't expect it. And I found I didn't actually have to do anything! I was merely the grounding energy, not the guiding force. It all worked through me (rather, she did - Ellanor) and I am pleasantly relieved about that. I helped, assisted, was there... but didn't have to consciously step up and say anything (much). What an ace job! Heh. Sort of like being a chair-spinner in an office who doesn't get noticed for not doing more work. I can do that!



*kind of like when I was a kid, lying on our trampoline in the dark night and staring up at the stars; it petrified me sometimes to think that we were a mere tiny planet, suspended in mid-atmosphere - what if we fell?? But fell where? It frightened me and was too huge for my mind to contemplate and this is how it is for me lately, with trying to decipher what is largely undecipherable and should just be left "a mystery" of sorts.

Homework

Class, I want you to watch this video and spot for me the following:

• The Ugly Dave Gray impersonator
• The cringe-worthy slow-mo' dance move (as opposed to the other cringe-worthy 80's dance moves)
• The spot where the sound man accidentally leans on the dial and cranks up the speed of the music
• The suits dancing cheek to cheek (that is, butt cheek)

Bonus: count the number of chicken dance moves and score extra marks. (Note that this should not be confused for the monkey dance move, which is similar but has more hip-swaying with bowed legs)

Mistress of Miserable

Note to self: You're fooling nobody but yourself if you think the "Look! Scraps wants to say hello to Santa" trick is going to raise a smile. Or even a grimace that could pass as a smile.

Behold, the moment the LGBB paused for breath in between gutteral wails and hysterical shimmying to get off the scary man's knee. Do you see Christmas in a child's eyes in this photo? No? Me either. But shit, I am starting to compile some pretty bloody funny moment-in-time yearly snaps with old Mr Claus, if the first two years are anything to set my expectations by. And at least she's looking at the camera this year. Pity Santa was looking at me.

I'm impressed that even when upset, she still manages to get her "I am SO not amused" lips down pat. She's such a consistent li'l trooper. And one day, so help her, she will finally teach her mother to stop setting her up predictably like this.*

Oh, and by the way, just a tip - don't be gripping your daughter so tight when lifting her that you take a decent chunk of his "beard" and, well, basically almost ruin Christmas for approximately 30 children. It was close, but the old man saved it.


* Not if I can help it, she won't - I'll be making her do stuff like this for as looooong as I can carry her and physically put her there muuuuahahahahaaaaaaaa *wrings hands*

A bug's life

Last night, I noticed a big black loping beetle scurrying up the middle of our living room towards the front door. I'd not seen him before in the house (or any other like him) and I called out to Steve, "There's a lost beetle in the house!" as if he'd be able to help the beetle out with directions or something.

He: And?
Me: Well, he needs help.
He: Should I put him out, is that what you're asking me to do?
Me: Well yes, but... he came from over there so maybe his family is waiting on that side of the house. But then... there's no door there so maybe you should put him out the front door.
He: Lenny. It's a beetle. *wanders off*

The beetle was then left to its own devices and headed itself towards our front door. Moments later, it came scurrying back the way it had come.

Me: *calling out to Steve* He's back!
He: *uncaring and snootily* He's lost.
Me: He's carrying string! *stepping on the cotton the beetle was trailing behind him and freeing it from his leg*
He: Oh GOOD one! Now that poor bastard's going to get home and his wife is going to scream at him *scratchy shitty PMS high pitched beetle voice* "Did you get my string??" And he's going to go *lopey dopey voice* "Yuhhh, it's right.... HEY!" Good one. Nice way to get him in trouble.

I think this says more about me than it does Steve. Or the beetle.

Birth quilt

I was painting endless timber panelling this morning - a lovely tinted white, very cool and calming - and as I got on with the job, my mind turned to pregnancy. Heh. Now isn't THAT something I've thought about before.

Not me being pregnant, but the trials that some women (so many women) face both getting pregnant, keeping the baby and then also once it's born (safely or otherwise). Over the past couple of months, I've heard a few pregnancy announcements to women who've withstood some of the most gruelling tests of their lives... the waiting, the angst, the sadness, yet a couple of surprise effortless ones thrown in to the mix which are a blessed wondrous gift. And congratulations to all/any who may still be reading this blog who are newly pregnant ;)

But my thinking went further than that today. I was listening to a woman being interviewed on the radio. They have made a birthing quilt to bring awareness to the issues faced by indigenous Australian and Islander women, who are forced to travel outside their communities, sometimes outside of the country (not just their country/nation but across the seas to a completely different land) to receive medical assistance to birth their children safely. These women go alone. They leave in the final weeks of their pregnancy, leaving behind obviously their partner and any other children they have, they have no birthing support, their mothers and sisters or aunties do not travel with them.

So here they are, completely alone with unfamiliar caregivers, and then basically left alone to birth by themselves - or at the most, with a stranger they've just met - before returning with their newborn/s on their own again.

They gave a statistic this morning: that for every non-Indigenous mother and baby that dies there are 5 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women that die and 3 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander babies that die at birth (or from complications of).

And so, is it medical negligence? Too much or too little intervention? For a woman to give birth safely, she herself must have some sense of safety, surely. How can it possibly help to ensure the smoothest possible passage of delivery if she has so much stacked against her to begin with? Where are her emotional and other birthing needs being met in such a practice? The more narrow-minded might say "Well they should move closer" (and I have met such folk who use this as the all-rounded, bigoted, racist answer to everything that needs "fixing"). But seriously, wouldn't allowing any or all her support people to travel with her be at least some teeny tiny start in ensuring the process is somewhat safer?

Once again, my perspectives and realities become even more sharply defined as I am reminded of my place.