#Microblog Mondays: Seasons

So, April.

I've been kind of hanging suspended in this kind of slow-mo, hazy bliss the last few weeks. You know, those moments where the rays of sun slant in at an opaque angle and you can almost hear the perfection of the world in all its idiosyncrasies, thrumming around you?

That's where I am. Noticing the details. Awe-inspired by seemingly everything; the lazy buzz of a fat bumblebee; the taste of that strawberry basil gelato the cafe 'round the corner is peddling; the smell of rain as it hits the warm pavement; the fact that I am mother to a vibrant daughter. A daughter who is nearly one.

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We seem to have skipped spring altogether this year. It snowed on the first day of Pesach and on Easter Sunday.

Last year during the Easter long weekend I was hospitalized in the Labour and Delivery ward with worrying symptoms of a suspected pulmonary embolism, told I could lose both my own life and that of my then-unborn daughter. I was discharged with a confirmed diagnosis of pre-eclampsia, after spending a scary, sleepless night alone. (I told you it was a crazy time, I just never found the wherewithal to explain exactly how.) I had sent H home to bank his sleep before the new parent onslaught began; that night before he left he leaned in to my belly and whispered, asking our little seedling to watch over her mama that night, our roles reversed after long months of me caring for her. She duly obliged, kicking and rolling all night inside me, keeping me company through those long, dark hours. I was struggling hard to breath, panicked, feeling like a huge weight was pressed to my chest; it was this together with elevated proteins and white blood cell count that made them suspect pulmonary embolism. Looking back, I wonder how much of the trouble breathing could have been trauma-induced: a final, terrifying chapter in a pregnancy after loss beset with worries.

With Girl Wonder somersaulting her way through the night, reminding me I wasn't alone, I finally felt settled on her name. I had been sitting on the fence about our shortlist, but H was lobbying hard already for the name we eventually chose, a very traditional one that means hope in Hebrew. 'She owns that name', he said; a kid with her back story was hope personified, he said. Through that night as she brought hope and strength to calm my fears, I couldn't help but agree. I told her so and felt a tiny thump. It was final then.

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And after snowfall and temperatures that have kept us hibernating for long into this spring, it's suddenly strappy sundress weather. Summer bypassed us last year; it was a grey, English washout of a summer, not that we would have been able to enjoy it had the sun shone. We spent most of the season in sterile hospital rooms breathing stale air. I remember looking out at the leaden sky from Girl Wonder's isolation room on the 10th floor PICU. I remember poring over journal articles trying to come to grips with the CMV diagnosis that had wracked her tiny body, feeling as though we were about to become the punchline of some cruel cosmic joke, getting through that whole pregnancy only to have our longed-for child taken from us by a random infection. I remember subsisting on little sleep and bad coffee, donuts and hash browns from the hospital canteen.

This year, we are looking forward to summer holidays in Italy; to trips in Hungary and the Alps; picnics in the city's parks. With our one year old daughter.

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During all those long years of loss, infertility and loneliness, I often comforted myself with the thought that life can change profoundly and unexpectedly in a single season, in the blink of an eye. 'Everything could look completely different this time next year', I told myself, hoping it might be for the better.

But even now, living in the laughter-soaked truth of that adage, I can hardly believe my luck most days. 

Written as part of Mel's Microblog Mondays. Check it out here to participate.

 

Four years, still like yesterday

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      

i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

 

                           ~ E.E. Cummings 

 

 

Source.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You are loved and missed every day sweet boy, and woven into the tapestry of our days in innumerable, magical ways. We will always be grateful for you. We will never stop wishing you could have stayed. We wish you had the chance to meet your little sister. (Perhaps you have.) We wish she would grow to know you. (We will do our best to make sure she does.)

Happy New Year: Google + made me cry

I've never been big on lavish New Years celebrations. When I was young, and liked to pretend I was more seasoned than my years, I was fond of this one quote (attributed to Frank Sinatra, I think?): New Years Eve is for amateurs. I guess I took it to mean that you only got worked up about stuff like that if you were too naive to really know how to live your life the other 364 days of the year. You don't need an excuse (least of all one born of chronology) for a party.

Later on, the very idea that a flip of the calendar could be anything other than a random date change began to feel like yet another bitter joke in life's plan for us. Losing S was (and continues to be) the most difficult, painful thing I have ever experienced. I remember December 31st, 2010, after surviving our first holidays as childless parents, H and I looking at each other with determination as we stated: this year will be our year. Things have to get better. It wasn't and they didn't. But in each year that followed, we dutifully repeated the mantra while our determination became more grim and our conviction more shaky. The closing weeks of 2011 - during which we continued to mourn, and adjust to that feeling of being invisible in a world that refused to acknowledge our son or the pain that came with our childless status - brought our second pregnancy loss. 2012 brought serious illness for H, months of testing that confirmed (without explanation) our subfertile status thankyouverymuch, a surprise conception in August followed with a by-then unsurprising miscarriage a week later, and by year's end, the darkest, most all-consuming depression I have ever experienced.

Of course there were lots of happier moments in there too; laughter and adventure and flickers of hope. It's just that in the context of those years, none of that stands out in memory as starkly as the sea of crap through which we waded for so long. And then, while attempting to pull myself up for air, I sat down and wrote this. That simple act of writing not only led me to all of you - all your support and encouragement and compassion and tears and anger and humour and understanding - but helped me to see those flickers of hope for what they were, to somehow more easily embrace them when they came along.

And it occurs to me that this is what movement, healing, change, growth are all about; a series of tiny things, none of which seem particularly momentous at the time (and almost certainly accompanied by laughter and tears in equal measure), that once accumulated can lead us to the most profound realizations and discoveries. Good or bad, you never know what's around the next corner. And I for one can think of no better reason for a party, whatever form that takes. Maybe it's quiet contemplation. Maybe it's filled with angst and red wine and self-soothing. Maybe it's more conventionally recognizable as a party, time spent laughing with the kind of family we all long to have and hold.

But the strength and hope and perseverance and giving-the-middle-finger to an unfair, indifferent universe? It's all worth celebrating.

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And that brings me to Google +.

Urging me to click on the highlighted little notification button when I logged onto blogger today, Google + announced that, thanks to their annoyingly titled new feature Auto Awesome, they had a gift waiting for me.

(As an aside, I'm pretty hopeless when it comes to techy stuff. I don't really have a clue what the purpose of Google + actually is. If you've ever 'added me to your circle' on Google + and I haven't reciprocated, it's because a) I don't know how and b) even if I did, I wouldn't see the point. I'm not being rude, I swear! I want to be friends! I am just not at all social media-y. I actually kind of loathe that stuff. There is nothing you can say to convince me that it's not kind of...well, superficial and narcissistic, instead of the cure for all ills of postmodern ennui from which we suffer, as it is too often touted to be. And yes, I am fully aware of the irony of my recording that statement on a blog. I never claimed to be consistent.)

Anyway, it seems Auto Awesome was so sweet as to prepare a 'personalized' 2013 Movie! for me, based on all the albums I have (apparently? I'm not techy, remember?) created while keeping this here blog.

Obnoxious, intrusive, commercial, impersonal, marketing ploy, right?

Right. Except that it made me cry.

It started off with those beautiful shots of the snowy day I sat down to start this blog. It continued on to that whimsical memory tree I found one day while practicing laughter yoga and missing my son, then went on to some of the photos we took while marking his third birthday. It threw in several lovely slides of our glorious holiday, as well as the disappointment that followed. A beautiful hike which made me again feel close to S, an impromptu, pre-new-job trip to France, a hot, boozy, day of dancing at Notting Hill Carnival. Next was a shot of the candles lit to mark Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day and all the tiny lives that never got to live. And the slideshow concluded (as though Auto Awesome somehow knew what it was looking at?), with the most amazing sight we've seen all year for a very very long time: that little grey blob, beating, growing, living. (Not that we dared hope we'd get this far at the time.) And then, blame pregnancy hormones I teared up.

And there you have it. Happy/sad/scary/fun all mixed up messily together. A year in the life, as well as in this blog.

Thanks for being here, through it all.

I still do

Four years ago today, high up in the Austrian Alps, H and I were bound to each other, two lives intertwined. Though it wasn't a wedding in the conventional sense, it was, and is, the most meaningful day in our still growing relationship, and the date we mark as an anniversary. (And yes, we have a penchant in this family for celebrating the less conventional milestones in life; somehow, that makes it feel all the more special).

There was only us two, no witnesses, no papers to sign, nothing to officially validate that momentous day as two lives, almost imperceptibly really, became intertwined, became A Life; a future that we promised each other we'd build together. There were no formal vows, at least not verbal ones. I can say this: every fibre of my being sang with the possibilities before us, my flesh and blood and bone and grey matter and intestines, all my bodily secretions, rushed and tingled with the rightness of this transformation we were undergoing. I just knew. There was champagne, and breathtaking views as far as the eye could see; not that we really had eyes for more than each other. We had a passerby, careless of either the stunning scenery or the Big Day she didn't realise she was witnessing, take a hasty, ill-framed image.

On that afternoon - emotionally and spiritually and in every other way that holds meaning for us, if not bureaucratically - we became husband and wife. 

Our 'wedding', which happened us much for the benefit of US Immigration Services when I was offered a fellowship in that country as for sentiment, took place months later, in the echoing chambers of Toronto City Hall. We posed, faux ironically, with our wedding party witnesses, my brother and a buddy who had the day off work; had these two single, beer swilling, 20-something guys elbow each other out as I threw my bouquet, (result: my shy, steadfast brother, still single, still gorgeous but wisely choosy these years later, didn't catch the bouquet), and then the four of us went for a gargantuan, slap-up lunch at one of my favourite Vietnamese Pho restaurants on Bloor St. It was fun and it was inconsequential, which felt appropriate for us.

(I have a confession: I wasn't really sold on the idea of marriage per se, even after I met H, and even after I knew he was The One. My own doubts about the social [and economic, and political] conventions attached to this particular institution, combined with the values imbued in the matriarchy that was my stridently feminist upbringing by a strong, capable, idealistic single-mother-of-five, made me a wary convert. And yet now? Now I derive great delight from uttering the words 'my husband' as pertaining to H, and not just for it's retro vibe.)

But before all that, four years ago exactly, on a terrace atop a ski jump in Innsbruck, we looked into each others eyes and saw the future.

Long before we ever uttered those age old words, I do, well, we did. We do, every single day.

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It's not always, or even often, easy. Did we know, those four years ago, just how full of twists and turns and potholes this journey together would be? We've certainly been together through some better and (a lot of) worse, some richer and poorer (though not really), a worrying amount of sickness, and health too. But really, two people could not possibly love and cherish each other more.

Still, there is no way we could have imagined just how hard our future would be. Our young marriage has had more than it's fair share of challenges, so that sometimes we feel as though the universe is testing us. We've experienced losses, paralysing grief, hospitalization and major illnesses, joblessness, innumerable moves and family dramas. H has talked about the unfairness of all we've had to face, how hard we've had to work at finding romance, seeing the silver linings, counting our blessings, just staying afloat some days. As though we naively expected that our love alone and the marvel of us having found each other should shield us from any of that. No; like too many couples who find themselves having drifted into the world of loss and infertility just as they thought their happily ever afters were about to begin, who end up devoting so much time to the pursuit of elusive offspring, there has been heartbreak and disappointment, hard life lessons and hope. Such is life, for some of us.

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I wear a ring, given to me by H, my engagement-cum-wedding band.

It's a thick band of white gold, surrounding an enamelled inlay with a distinctive pattern inspired by an artist,  Hundertwasser, whose work has particular meaning for us. (H later told me that, despite the numerous times family and friends tried to persuade him that it was perhaps too unorthodox, he knew that ours was not a routine, diamond solitaire, gold band kind of union. I'm so pleased he remained dissuaded.)

Still, when we went to have it sized after he put it on my finger, and the woman in the shop gave me the instructions for its care, I did take a gulp of trepidation; it turns out that that distinctive, eye catching enamel pattern which has garnered so many compliments since, is also particularly high maintenance when it comes to daily routines (never mind month upon month of heartbreak and trauma).

It should be taken off whenever I use my hands for anything particularly active (which is always); it should not come in contact with any cosmetics or chemicals. It shouldn't be worn adjacent to other jewellery. And the list went on... The thing is, I didn't really take the advice to keep it pristine, safely tucked away; it is far too beautiful and well, it is a special reminder of just what H and I do have, a symbol of our strength.

That ring has been through all those dramas and traumas with us (and, I am ashamed to admit, one screaming, rage-fuelled journey across a room to hit a wall on the other side, when I was in a particular pique of anguish during the worst of my grieving. When I thought that since my hopes of motherhood had died with my baby, so everything else might as well go too. Luckily, H gently scoffed at my petulance on that occasion.) But here's the thing: even if it momentarily feels eradicated, you don't give up on the beautiful and the magical just because you're stuck in the middle of a seemingly endless shit storm; maybe you even cling to it all the harder.

In truth, all the carefully conveyed instructions of the saleswoman having been cavalierly disregarded, my ring is now full of scratches and nicks, after only four years of wear. But it's still whole. It's still beautiful. It's still full of vibrant colour and imbued with the deepest meaning.

Yes, I think it remains a perfect emblem of this unique, indestructible, and frequently magical union.

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Happy Anniversary, H. Your mighty smile and your gentle, compassionate tears, whether of joy or sorrow, are still more than I could have ever dreamed of. In the face of this, all the rest falls away. And yes, I still do.

Still beautiful, scars and all

The weekend that was, and forward we go

Firstly, thank you. It's all I can say, really, because the warmth and love by which I felt encircled last week was beyond words. I don't think I can adequately convey the gratitude I feel knowing that not only is my boy remembered, but continues to inspire moments of beauty and laughter. You guys are simply amazing. All the comments and emails and beautiful pieces of artwork that you made in honour of S. The cartwheels, the time spent playing with rambunctious puppies, digging in gardens, picking wild bluebells; the candles and the colouring books.

Just...thank you.

We spent the weekend away, arriving home yesterday morning. Friday was a beautiful day, in spirit if not in weather. There were tears in the morning, gently soothed by the sound of the lapping waves and the breeze in the sea grasses as we sat on the sand dunes, remembered, and looked out towards the horizon. The tears - and the sadness - were neither as copious nor as tinged with bitterness as they have been in past years, giving us both a sense of affirmation that we are indeed intact, as is our sense of hope for the future; just as we release our previous expectations of life, and forgive those versions of ourselves that held them. Our love, too - for what has gone - remains.

And just as there were tears, there was much laughter on Friday. There was digging our toes in the sand and getting very dirty and collecting seashells. There were jokes about H's rather tyrannical vision of a historically and architecturally accurate medieval sand fortification, (I insisted S would be as bored with the notion of historical fidelity as I was, while my dear husband insisted any son of his would be as avid as he. But really...a toddler?). There was ice cream and meadow walks and forget-me-nots and frolicking newly born lambs and freshly caught seafood (because if he can inherit an interest in military history from his father, then I would surely nurture a fine palate and appreciation of local bounties in my boy). And after dinner and a long day in the fresh air of the countryside, there was a quiet and contemplative walk through the twilight of a beautiful little coastal town of winding, cobbled streets. (Some of which appear below, in case you're interested). And so importantly, this commemoration felt woven into the mundane fabric of our lives and our routines in a totally natural way. And S was present everywhere, not least in the tiny space between H and I when we cuddle and comfort one another. In some ways, the love grows deeper, the connection stronger, and I marvel at the experiences that my son continues to inspire me to seek.

A contemplative spot

S's castle, complete with seashell entry gate and accurate (so I'm told) fortifications.

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This blog has been a bit of a love fest for my husband lately, hasn't it? In recounting my thoughts of the weekend, I want to offer up one more sickly sweet ode to H, and then we'll return to our regular programming.

After posting this I realized that I too fall prey to the fallacy that we are not active parents, that our parenting will happen in future tense. Of course we struggle. It's not easy learning how to parent a baby who is not here, especially in a society so death averse as ours is. But we try to find ways to express our love. We have to be creative. We learn to honour and include that which we cannot see but know to be present. And H is a master of these touching gestures of devotion. It was he who staked a claim on the 17th as a special day for S, and it has made the ambivalent feelings that come with each birth day anniversary so much easier to bear. It was he who proposed a day of childish pursuits each year, something we hope to be able to include our future children in as years pass. He masterminded the sandcastle.

He is an amazing father. I am so happy to be sharing this journey with him.

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And now we are back and life, with all its banalities and tiny moments of the sublime, continues. There are work projects to complete and summer holidays to plan for, blogs to catch up with and, because the moment for jungle time happened to poignantly coincide with this past weekend, there is a two week wait to begin. Because we are resilient, and even as hope wanes, there's no harm in trying. Or in obsessing.  

Three years

Tomorrow, 17 May, marks S's third anniversary. Not the day he died, and not the day he was born one day later, but the day we were first introduced to his beating heart, strong and thumping as though to announce his arrival. So profound and beautiful was that sound, I imagined that it resonated beyond the walls of that dimly lit ultrasound room, down the corridors of the hospital, out into the sunshiny day for all the world to hear. That is the day we chose to remember, to commemorate.

He wriggled and bounced as if to say Hello! I'm here! Get ready! 

And we fell in love, of course. Truly. Madly. Deeply.


He would have been a handful, that boy.  A little gymnast, more athletic than either his father or I. Or so I think. He had such long fingers, when he was finally born. Would those fingers have been good at throwing and climbing, or more inclined towards quiet pursuits? Writing and drawing? Miniature model building, like his dad?

We were ready. So, so ready. Just not for what came, once we finally got to hold him.

His blanket; too little used

It would mean more than you know, if you could spare a thought for him tomorrow. Maybe do something lovely and life affirming to connect with your inner child. Chase a butterfly. Dig in the dirt. Eat a particularly messy piece of cake. We'll spend the day building sand castles.

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We miss you baby boy. We love you so so much, always and forever. To the moon and back.

When the sun came out, so did they (along with an onslaught of self-pity)

I'd forgotten how sheltering the icy embrace of winter could feel. We had a long, cold, and in many ways miserable winter this year; which meant that except for the intrepid dog walkers in our neighbourhood, everyone pretty much stayed indoors.

But this last week has been beautiful, sunshiny, balmy.

And with that lovely weather, an army of happy young families have emerged from hibernation. Beautiful little children squeal as they learn to ride their bikes. Soft, mewling, wide-eyed infants discover the world outside as they are wheeled past in strollers pushed by laughing moms. Heavy winter coats are discarded to reveal swollen, mesmerising pregnant bellies.

And here we sit. Watching it all go by.

Spring is in full swing and today I am feeling further than ever from our hoped-for changes in 2013. I'm tired. Isn't spring supposed to be rejuvenating?

S's anniversary is fast approaching, and as with previous years, I suspect the anticipation will be worse than the actual day itself ( the 17th, when we always try to find something special and peaceful to do). Still, the grief is weighing heavy on me right now. It's hard not to take stock, look back over the last three years, and wonder what they have brought. Some things are better, clearer, but mostly we have the same uncertainties as before. The same feeling of being stalled while everyone else goes on with their lives. I'm fairly certain that, as far as S goes, we are amongst the only ones who even remember anymore.

And what about project sibling? Well, we are (finally) really happy with our current care, and have pretty much decided that we'll move forward with this clinic. Obviously that's a good thing in and of itself, but it also means that we'll be left in limbo with everything else that much longer. H can't actively pursue any of the job leads he's been feeling out, each of which which would surely involve a big move (out of region, or even out of country). Not that there are so many leads to be had these days. We don't seem to have much luck in that department either. That likely means that come September, we'll have to take whatever jobs come our way and put the career advancement, (not to say the putting down roots somewhere), on hold indefinitely. 

Something funny also happened to me psychologically once we got on the ART train: I think I gave up any hope (illusion?) I had previously held that our bodies might ever do this on their own. Even though accepting a doctor's advice - starting with medicated cycles and then moving straight to IVF - has in no way altered the brute biology that we've been dealing with all along, I feel like in acknowledging the situation, my very organs have closed shop and left the building. (Perhaps now is the time to find reassurance in the doctor's oh-so-heartening opinion of my multiple conceptions/losses?). Totally, wildly irrational, I know. But there you have it. Though on the plus side, I'm not even thinking in terms of a two week wait anymore, and there is a certain liberation in that I guess.

So. yeah. Everyone seems to be thrilled that this fine weather has at last arrived. I don't blame them, I just don't much feel a part of their forward looking ebullience right now.

I am well aware of the narcissistic depths of my self-pity here, but....When  is anything good going to happen for us? Don't we get a turn? It just feels like no matter how hard we work to make things better, no matter how much we try to go on being optimistic and hoping our big break is around the next corner (a pregnancy to hope for, a career break, the resolution of our immigration issues) nothing much changes.

I'm sorry I'm being such a Debbie Downer. I know it's just a bad week day (please let it only be a day). It'll pass and I'll be back to my usual sass, finding something to be excited and hopeful about. 

But now? As the sun shines, I'll be wearing my sunglasses. Not just to keep out the glare of the sun, (or to disguise the rogue crying jags that seem to strike from nowhere), but also that of all those shiny happy people who seem to have come out of the woodwork.

Spring is in the air, if not in my step.

What the body remembers

When I was doing my post-doc and began working with trauma patients, I came across a book that I found particularly compelling, in a professional sense. It was about the important relationship between psychotherapy and neurobiology, and its basic premise was that even when there are things that your brain or your psyche can't compute - because maybe they're simply too devastating - your body holds on to those memories. The author argued for a therapeutic process which gave voice to the body, suggesting that this reconnection could aid in healing.

It's true; the body holds onto a lot of stuff that the brain, because of its protective capacities, simply can't deal with. I've always been a firm believer in the mind/body connection, but I got to experience it firsthand, in an embodied way, when I was forced to grieve the loss of my son, and subsequently all the secondary losses that came with that.

When I began to frequent babyloss blogs, I would hear parents speak of this phenomenon again and again: your consciousness might forget the weight of a particular date, as your brain allowed it to become just another number on your calendar. Then maybe, seemingly out of the blue, you'd get sick or just not be particularly good at coping any more, when you'd otherwise felt you were making 'progress'. That's your body remembering.

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I meant for April to be the continuation of the mindset I managed to embrace in the latter half of March; hopeful, irreverent, happy. I survived another birthday (and another two week wait) without too major a meltdown. H and I made progress on the medical front, and found a really great doctor. We are making plans for exciting summer travels. Here in blogland, I wrote a series of silly, carefree posts that reflected the mood I held for many days in a row. I planned to write a post about spring, such as it is finally here; to enumerate all the ways I feel blessed, all the things I have to look forward to. They are, after all, many.

But then.

Then I ended up here. For the past two days, I've felt indeterminately melancholic. My brain is fuzzy and can't seem to concentrate. I'm irritable with H and work and life in general. I lack my usual energy, but I also feel restless a lot of the time. In light of all the loveliness of the past weeks and my comparatively positive mood, I struggled to think of why this might be.

And then I remembered: this month marks three years since the beginning of our journey to parenthood. (How has it been been three whole years already? How has it been only three years?)

In April of 2010, after we decided to take the plunge - less than a year into being together; but we both knew what we wanted and weren't getting any younger - I had been to see my oncologist in Canada to discuss how my disease and treatment history might effect this journey, and was told not to expect too much too quickly. We were initially cautious. Three weeks later, while we were visiting H's parents in Germany, we learned that we had conceived S; in our first month, before we were even really actively trying. (And little did we know just how active, and just how trying, the whole thing could become, back in those halcyon days). We were scared and elated and filled with wonder. This season is so evocative for me. For seventeen and a half weeks in the spring and summer of 2010, S was here with us, and it was like magic.

Until it wasn't. And I was broken. I was shocked by the depth of my own grief. I gained new understanding of that trite, rom-com notion of the broken heart. Mine was shattered in a million pieces, and every day for many months on end I could feel it, actually feel the shards piercing me. I often had a searing pain and a weight on my chest that made it hard to breath. And while the shards eventually melted, my heart developed new scar tissue to protect itself, and the pain slowly dissipated to something much gentler, the sense that there was no way to possibly ever understand - on a cognitive level - how we had got from there to here remained. How had this become my life?

I don't often spend time thinking those thoughts these days. I'm better than I was. I'm healing. I laugh a lot. I enjoy the little things again. But as I look down the long stretch of time and failure and loss that has carried us away from that magical time, a feeling that anything was still possible, my body and my brain seem to have momentarily reconnected: I'm missing those days in the spring of 2010.

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I miss the innocent and hopeful me I was in the 'before'.

I miss my belief in a 'logical' course of events: you pee on a stick. You see two lines. You cry and rejoice. You have a baby that outlives you by many decades. You walk away, happily ever after, into the sunset.

I miss the (stupid, vain) certainty I had of H and I as a dynamic, confident, always ebullient pair who were blessed, who always had good things coming to us. 

I miss the carefree way I used to be able to interact with friends and family and the world at large, before I crawled inside this protective, fearful carapace which so often walls me off from those around me. From their normality, their joys, their forward moving lives.

I miss the unwavering support and understanding that I used to think they'd be able to provide, before I realised, looking backward, that we were on a completely different path from virtually all of those people, and that this path was diverging into an ever widening gap of experience which they would be hard pressed to even grasp, never mind support.

I miss the version of myself that would have been able to see my two subsequent pregnancies - even for the brief time they were with us - as babies I might look forward to meeting, instead of the dread and diminished self-worth that accompanied those interrupted journeys.

Most of all, I miss my boy. I miss feeling him in my burgeoning belly. I miss the chance of knowing the person he would have become. He'd be two years old now, a chubby toddler. If he took after either of his bookish, nerdy parents, he'd already be showing an abiding interest in the written word. Maybe he'd have his father's flair for the dramatic. Maybe he'd be rambunctious and naughty, having inherited my curious, restless spirit and intellectual ADD. Our lives would be different now in ways I am still not able to fathom.

It doesn't often happen. Three years on, some supposedly significant dates - a loss, a due date, the date I got a positive pregnancy test - may come and go without my even realising it. These random down days may not come forever, I don't know. (Though my mother says that she still has these vaguely depressed anniversary days more than ten years after my grandmother died). And though I feel S is present in some way in our lives, I don't often indulge in the 'what ifs', partly because they're just too painful. My brain is protective.

I tell myself that it does no good missing any of these things, because they're gone and won't return. (With the exception of S, who is a different matter entirely). Things are what they are, and no amount of lamenting will bring them back. It was a realization I finally had months before starting this blog, and most days this knowledge allows me a kind of freedom, so that I am able to embrace the now. I am finding contentment in things again, in my life, with all its uncertainties. And although I am no longer (and probably never will be again) any of those things listed above, there are new, and better things that have replaced them; I am more compassionate, more patient, and I'd like to think more gracious with others. I feel acutely aware of all I have to be thankful for. I begin to believe in myself, to trust myself again. I don't want it to appear that I'm sliding backward, or that I'm ungrateful for all the wonderful things I have. I'm happy.

But there are days like today when I guess my body insists I stop, let down my carapace, and grieve. Be gentle with yourself, my body whispers to my brain, in an inversion of the logic we have learned from neurobiology, with the brain sending out missives that allow the body to function.Today, my body is calling the shots, and it has very clear ideas of what should take precedence.

Remember. Love. Grieve. Hope. Heal.

The thing about these embodied memories, as that book also pointed out, is that they aren't only a repository of your traumas; they are also a testament to your strength, to the way in which the mind and body can collaborate in positive ways to strengthen people.

Spring is here, it's come one way or another. Each day follows the last. We are moving forward.  I've learned that even while it retains this memory, my body keeps going, keeps fighting to be a part of the world, to make sure I'm really in it, that I'm happy.

So for now at least, my brain will listen, because that is also part of the trust I am regaining in myself and my body. I know it won't forget, but it won't quit either.

Putting myself back together. Again.

We are all made of stars

Today marks the second anniversary of a due date that never was. Had things progressed as we hoped and planned and dreamed, S was due to arrive on January 17, 2011. He might have been two years old now. Except he's not. And although it's a date that is forever emblazoned on my consciousness, it's not one we mark (we have other days in the year that celebrate S and his contributions to all that has come since, and we include him in myriad tiny ways in everyday life). Because really, it's not a date I associate with him at all at this point, or with the purer, happier connotations of love for our sweet baby boy that remain still.

On the first anniversary, it was a day to endure, but one which I hoped in its very passing would offer me some peace. This was not helped by the arrival, literally days on either side of January 17, of two healthy, screaming nephews, one on either side of the family, who should (had things progressed as we dreamed) have been close contemporaries and playmates of our tiny perfect. Those weeks leading up to and for a while after the date in 2011 were sheer hell for me. I felt like I'd been put through a meat grinder. However, it is at times like those that it was a blessing to be on another continent from our families, those bouncing baby arrivals and all the natural joy they brought, and thus all the more unnatural we felt for it, feeling so excluded from that circle of joy. Last year, I did very nearly forget the date until someone reminded me in passing of my brother's birthday, which happens to be the same, and which I happened to nearly forget. I remember feeling proud of myself for how much 'progress' I had made in my trajectory of grieving.

But the truth is, after that first aweful milestone and the painful announcements of the arrival of S's cousins, this date bears no relationship to my sweet boy's life. He's not in this day. Or rather, he is in every day. Over time, I've come to recognise his presence in many miniscule aspects of my life and existence, and it helps me feel close to him. I've drawn comfort and real warmth from thinking about how he trickles through the drops of melting ice on my windowsill now, how he was present in those sparkling snowflakes whirling around us a few nights ago, in the soft song that comes of the gentle breeze through the trees. This is how I think of him, and how I find him every day and everywhere. It's always reminded me of that Moby song. I was a Moby fan before, but since having and then losing S, this song holds a new meaning for me.

People they come together
People they fall apart
No one can stop us now
'Cause we are all made of stars

According to modern astronomy, we are literally all made of stardust. After S died, I loved that thought even more. And it in turn reminded me of an amazing and whimsical programme on NPR about a physicist's take on death. It did the rounds of the internet some years back, but I often re-read it in light of my own bereavement in the months after losing S. I love the idea that the warmth that flowed through him during his life in my womb, when we were as deeply connected as two human beings can get, is still here, that his energy still bounces off me, that in fact, we are both made of stars.