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.

To Chapter One or to Prologue: a call for help (and a couple of readers)

Okies, it's time. I have a few readers up *this* old sleeve, but none up *this* new sleeve and now I'm looking for a few more since I made a few changes to my draft.

My current dilemma: I have a good first chapter. BUT.... I also have a great Prologue. There are differing schools of thought as to whether a Prologue is necessary or, indeed, a good idea at all. Some call it a very old-fashioned way of starting a story. In other places where it is discussed online, it is deemed okay as long as there are clearly defined boundaries. See, for instance, here (source: here):


What Is A Prologue?

A prologue is used mainly for two reasons.

1. To outline the backstory quickly and economically, saving the author from having to resort to flashbacks or ruses such as conversations or memories to explain the background to the reader. This is commonly done in science fiction and fantasy to show why a certain quest is being undertaken or what will happen in the future. The prologue is a better option than a first chapter bogged down in detail.

2. To hook the reader and provide the story question right up front, giving them a reason to keep turning the pages to find out the answer. Quite often the prologue relates to a scene near the end of the story, and the story itself then shows what has led up to this moment. When is this justified? Perhaps when you want to introduce your characters in a more leisurely fashion, and your reader's experience with 'meeting' them will be enhanced by some sort of foreshadowing of what is to come.

Apart from these two reasons, a prologue can be used to introduce a certain character's viewpoint on one occasion only. The rest of the book may be told from just one other viewpoint, or from several different viewpoint characters that are in some way removed from the one you've used in the prologue. The prologue can bypass the danger of viewpoint violation.

So, with all that being said, I was wondering if there are any takers to put their hand up to read the first chapter (and Prologue) of my manuscript. What this will involve is reading approximately 7,000 words and giving your opinion, as the reader, on whether or not the two work together (for you personally). I guess, in a nutshell, I would like to hear from you how "hookie" it is. Does it hook you in? Are you compelled to turn the page?

If you are interested, please contact me via email - aussiejazz@gmail.com - and I'll just say it here... if I get a huge response, please do not be offended if I say 'thanks but no thanks'. There is only so much criticism, however constructive, that one can take at once. And it is with the utmost respect that I may politely decline your offer. Mind you..... if you are the only person who emails me, then consider yourself IN for a sneak peek preview!

*waiting with baited# breath and hitting Publish Post now........*




#Late edit: And this is why I love throwing the offer out there from time to time - I have been advised by someone in the know that the phrase is "bated" not "baited" breath. Thank you. You can read my extract, by all means!

Turn around and you're two, turn around and you're... 5

I shouldn't be here. I'm on such a strict limit with internet at the moment (I've probably well blown it now) but ack.... Apparently you just can't keep a blogger down!

Our little girl is five. Still can't quite believe it. And she is taking such great care of me this week, keeps putting a gentle arm around my neck because "mummy's voice is sore and then she lost it". Hmmmm. Perhaps if I stopped screaming at the cat, dogs, husband... whomever is getting under my feet as I try and both recover and prepare for her various party festivities this week. I'm not a very gracious sicky.

But enough about me!  Look at photos of her!  Where oh where did all the days go???

From then to now....

Happy birthday, our dear miracle "Lolly Lou".

On this day, in 2006.... all those fears I had dissolved into thin air. And colustrum.
My heart opened up a little bit more.
It didn't burst and it didn't forget the other little girl.

The writing fanatic. Experimenting with different fonts on her whiteboard last week...

Sometimes there are rainbows... and then there are RAINBOWS

Was worth getting rained on to capture this one while waiting at the lights yesterday!

I was never really into rainbows as a kid. I mean I liked them, sure. But I didn't squeeee with delight. After Ella died, I did not associate seeing one with her, although I do respectfully acknowledge that the identity is there for so many bereaved parents and partners of lost loved ones.

It's only been since having our Lolly - and her being such a rainbow fiend, possibly thanks largely due to this book (and the sentiment seems to be spreading, see how Lori @ RRSAHM finds them...) - that I have really stopped to wonder about rainbows. See the wonder in them. Marvel at how they actually occur. Appreciate their colours and the very many ways they bring cheer, particularly on dreary, ruddy awful, wet soggy cold days.

The most incredible rainbow I have ever seen in my life almost caused me the greatest car accident I've ever had in my life. A great honking double, unbroken rainbow, so completely commanding the sky that it even lightened the sky underneath it.

I mean, sure, there was this ace one I took one day (whilst doing 110km/h down the country freeway) but the one the LGBB saw on our way home yesterday was so astounding I had to pull the car over so we could gaze at it before it disappeared.

But it didn't disappear. And there were so many exclamations bouncing around the inside of our car that I don't know what was filling me with more joy: the LGBB's squealing adoration of it and pleas of Oh pleeeeease, mummy, can we get to the pot of gold, please, pleeeease, please, can we? as if today was surely her day - it did look so tantalisingly close - or the exquisitely bold colour spectrum. We could see so many colours in it.

I have to say, I was gobsmacked. Totally astounded. While we drove, the rainbow seemed to be coming from nowhere yet everywhere. It was literally coming off the glistening gum trees, all wetted down from the recently passed thunderstorm. And then as we mounted the crest of one of the tallest hills in the area, it was right before us. Settled on the roofs of houses below.

We could have looked at it much longer. But as we continued to drive, it eventually faded.

Never seen anything like it. It's the one you always think rainbows ought to look like when you think of A Darn Good Rainbow.  Textbook stuff.

Conversations with friends: The beauty of keeping it short

I am limping, guys.

I'm on a slow dongle (settle down) that's giving my laptop some pissy lame excuse for "internet connection" while we swap providers. I hereby solemnly declare.....

TPG, I promise, we will never leave you again

We left them at Christmas time because Steve grew indignant that we couldn't get ADSL2+ here with them (they took their time rolling it out) so we changed providers. WELL. Hasn't that been haphazard, to say the least? Let me just say, I know why their plans were so cheap. Down-time was a lot higher than what we'd previously experienced with TPG.

Now we're moving back to them and changing a few other home services around as well. But this interim period is going to be around twenty days long. I reached 50% of my limit in a DAY, folks! This does not bode well for blog posts (or visiting yours).

So please know that's why I've gone quiet. Bad timing, really, given that Blogopolis is just around the corner. I can't very well keep up with what you're all doing. Ack. Ah well, can't be helped. If you think there's something monumentous that I haven't commented on.... fill me in if you see me on the day. Yes?

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Now, to me being a winner:  No, really. I won something! From the very delightful and amusing Megan Blandford (she Writes Out Loud...). Thanks so much, I was very surprised to win the Coles Myer voucher. And very chuffed.

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I have a cold. I feel like shite. That is all I can say about that.

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My baby girl turns five on Wednesday. As with many of her milestones (and all of her birthdays), I am heading into the strange bittersweet balance-dance of being happy for her, proud of her (and us) and thinking about Ella. Not sad, not anything really. Just... holding her in my awareness more, I guess.

The other day, Lolly had a dear friend over. They played joyfully for five hours straight and both had eyes standing out on stilts when she went home. During the afternoon, I was doing dishes while the girls sat at the kitchen bench eating sandwiches.

I heard my daughter tell her friend, totally unrelated to anything they were nattering about.

"Before, in the hostibool, I had a sister. And her name was Ella. But her heart was a bit funny, so then she died in the ground."

I didn't turn around. Didn't weigh in at all, although I listened keenly to how her friend would respond. Lolly tends to throw this in at moments that don't seem to fit. But they do to her. And this is what I respect about her and the friends she will no doubt gravitate towards and learn to keep - for her friend merely said, "Ah" with a half-interested, half-"this-sandwich-is-yum" tone.


Simplicity, people. Simplicity is what I need to get back to. And ADSL2+.



So, I will see you when and where I see you! If you're wondering where I am, just imagine me under my pile of tissues, stalled by my grossly underweight data usage cap and struggling with my own self-imposed project to "keep it simple." Mark my words, though, I WILL be back with birthday cake photos some day soon.

The forlorn photobomber

(this is a post kinda especially for Jodie from Mummy Mayhem - I know she hearts the idiotic antics of my photobombing dog)

Today, I bring you.....

Pensive Jazz

Regular readers will recall that our little Waggedy-Ann loves a good old-fashioned photo-bomb. The tricky trickster that she is. Please see here (for Exhibit A) and here (when she returned). These are by far not the only times she's done it, but they are the most recent. Over time, perhaps I'll dig out some others.

I'm starting to wonder if Jazz thinks there's not enough attention on he...... BWAAAAAAHAHAHA I can't even finish that sentence without guffawing. This has got to be the most attention-seeking (and getting) dog I have ever come across, although I hazard a guess there are plenty of others out there. Do you know one?

It all happened today when I decided to take a photo of the LGBB in her under-desk cubby hole. Eating a lollipop and listening to Shirley Barber's Fairy Stories on her headphones ("when you hear this tinkly sound, turn the page"... didn't you just LOVE those as a kid?).

Except.... Jazz caught on straight away. One "click" of the DSLR and she was over by my side in a flash, practically sitting on me so that I couldn't not take her photo, like this one time - last week - when I was trying to take a photo for posterity of my dear Pepper and Jazz actually did sit on me in a most passive-aggressive display. Don't believe me? Here, look at the evidence:

Ahh, a slumbering old lady...

Oh... you have camera? You want to snap MEEEEE! Yes?

Story. Of. My. Elderly. Life *woeful Eeyore look - Peppy's so good at those*

Oh don't yell at me and tell me to get out of the... here I'll just lie at your knee...

No, wait, I'll SIT ON your knee - you shuddup, you, over there *grrr-woof*

There. Isn't that better? I We got what we wanted. Yes? *Arooof*

Jazz is sorry. Very, very sorry. But she can't stop doing it. When she sees me with a camera, she has to come and be in the frame.

Strike a pose.

You will tell me when you think it's time for an intervention on her, won't you, dear reader(s)?

I am grateful to my dear dog, Jazz, who herself is not getting any younger (she's 7 now but acts like a pup, always), for helping me smile after the post about our elderly matron earlier this week. No change in old Pepper, but still very much here and sticking to my side.... perhaps frustratingly so, as I can't seem to move in any direction without her being there and I have to be careful not to kick her over. Yes. That close.

Thanks for popping by if you've come from Maxabella's lovely place, I hope to visit you at yours if you've linked up there this weekend:

My friend, my doula, my Nightingale dog. Pepper.

I recently mentioned on Facebook that I had lived with my dog now for as long as I have lived with my own mother. Counting accurately, it's not exactly true. But it's close enough.

I was seventeen when my mother kicked me out. That's seventeen years I spent under her roof. We've been living with Pepper since 1995. That's sixteen years this coming Christmas.

This is a post I have been putting off for a while now. Long-timers to my blog have probably seen me post at least once each season for the past few years (at least) that I doubt she will see out another winter/summer. And still, this old battleaxe is chomping through the days. Well, I suppose now she's gumming them.

One of my favourites for showing Pepper's younger personality:
This was taken the day after Ella was born, she was so happy to see Steve!

In the time we have had Pepper, my fingers have had a lot of hours to rub her ears, stroke her head, massage her doggy shoulders and back, find the spots where she loves most to be itched. Those would be on her rump - she would give me the best doggy grins and "huffy-puff", as Steve and I called it, really showing her appreciation for the scratch of our hands - and also a thumb and forefinger drawing a slow line into a pinch from the base of each ear to the centre of the back of her neck. She still loves that one.

But it's hard for me now, to do it. Each time I interact with my dearest friend in the world, I'm reminded: she's not quite all here and not yet all... there. The shape of her skull has changed, I noticed just tonight. Another thing to add to the mental list I've been compiling. The space in front of those beautiful, almost regal, proudly pointy intelligent ears (can ears be intelligent?? Hers were very smart on her, that's all I know) has hollowed. Her top lip protrudes now, unhindered by strong, full length teeth. Her breath is foul. Her rump - once the subject of much discussion with her vet - is now my main cause for concern, for twice today, her back end has collapsed under her feather-weight. I dread... I just dread the next bit.

I want to have it over with - I curse her numerous times a day for still being here (it is really very difficult nursing a palliative care dog!) but find myself tending her for countless minutes as well. This is where my lost time is spent. Where once I used to gaze at my baby, I now gaze at this old girl before me (as I type, right next to my feet - she is still happiest and most settled there, where she knows we are).

In her heyday, Pepper was a portly 25kg at her heaviest - may not sound like much but she had to be under 20kg to be healthy. It wasn't the last time I worked hard to help her lose weight - it helped me too - and several months later, she tipped the scales 6kg lighter. The vet said she should be the poster dog for weight loss and commended both of us. Peppy huffed her audible, huffy-puff smile. It was a telltale symptom that would eventually turn out to be a collapsed larynx in her later years (something that good ol' homoeopathics has been easing lately, would you believe! Yes, so? I had a consultation for my dog... so what about it?)

I just know I am going to be so bereft without her. Ahhh, shite. Made myself cry thinking about it. It's so close, Internets. I can really feel it now. In so many ways, this dog has surpassed the Tour of Duty any dog makes for its owner. She has caught so many countless of my tears in her fur that even to this day (literally, today), she knows when I am giving her a hug... it is because I really need a hug too. And bless her sweet, age-addled heart, she gives it back. I wish I could balance a camera in one hand to show you what we look like together.

I'm angst-ridden. I looked at Steve tonight as she sat in a very awkward dead-legged position, unable to shift her light weight to stand up and said softly, "It's not going to be long now."

Bugger it.

We've had so very long together, my doggy and I. She has meant more than I can express - when nobody knew how to deal with me after Ellanor died, she was my only comfort each day. I would cling to her and weep and she would sit there and whine softly as I did so. You cannot pay any therapist to do that for you. She's surpassed being simply a "dog" to me - I suppose the good ones always do, don't they? I am tending her now as she tended me in my deepest, most bereaved years. She never ever failed me. Ever. There's not quite enough words to convey just how much she has meant to me, how connected I feel to her. All the ways we used to be connected - gazes for seemingly ever into each others' eyes, her ability to come from anywhere to sit by my side when I was upset, countless word and visual cues (she was the smartest dog who applied herself so diligently, almost anxiously, unlike the smarter Jazz who doesn't apply herself nearly as well and has a devil-may-care attitude and a whippy bloody weapon of a tail to match) - have all fizzled and petered out now to virtually none. The only connection I have to her, one of the only distinctly Pepper things about her are those gorgeous, velvety ears. She looks at me and I know half the time she doesn't remember a thing. I can see it in her face. Yet somehow, she also knows she needs to be near me. These days, I am the comforter. And while I do have my many moments when I'm frustrated to tears by the mere fact she is still existing, I don't, can't, imagine her not existing now. I marvel with Steve often that she is still here. And we still joke regularly that she may just outlive our seven year-old "puppy" yet....

I never expected to get more than ten years with her. That would have made her twelve. We thought that was old. She shouldn't be alive. Kelpies don't live (very well) past about sixteen. Pep's turned eighteen this year. She's gotta go soon. And I can't bear the wait.

Just cannot stand it.

And you know what hasn't been helping as I write this?  It's one of the most beautiful songs that came on my iTunes playlist (one I actually played over and over when I was pregnant with my little Lolly). I can almost hear all the final seasons in this song that she has lived - out-lived - and it's getting close now. Real close.

If I go missing anytime in the next few months without word.... will you promise to remember why? I just don't know if I'll be able to post about it.

Ever faithful, even with impending arrival #2 a short month away.
Never turned an eye or an ear from me, until her faculties began to fail her in 2009.

That lovely bushy tail is a mere lifeless stick now.
And once again, Jazz the photo-bomber stole her thunder....