Eating my words and exiting stage left

'While infertility and loss will always be a part of who I am and are crucial to my parenting journey, the version of me residing in these posts doesn't reflect where I am with life right now'.

'This space has become like any other mommy blog, and that's not who I am/the world doesn't really need another one of those'.

'I always felt compelled to write from a place of sadness/grief/anger/<fill-in-the-negative-emotion>, and with things going well, I struggle to find the motivation to record meaningful thoughts'.

'Life is so full, busy and happy, that I simply don't find the time to write, and even if I do, I worry that my posts are trite or frivolous'. 

'I'm not sure how maintaining this space can be a source of support to others still actively pursuing treatment/living children/resolution'.

'I feel like almost everyone from my 'cohort' of ALI folks, those who supported me in the depths of my struggle, has (happily!) graduated to parenting living children'.

In two year of lurking on ALI blogs, and nearly three (!) of keeping this space myself, I have heard variations of all the above, the inevitable soul-searching and musing on wither the ALI blog after living kids.

And here's a confession: reading any of those, in days past, used to make my stomach constrict and then lurch. I felt abandoned, betrayed even. Left behind. When I was stuck knee deep in my own misery, I wanted only the company referenced in that the old chestnut. I needed an invite to the grand pity party. I didn't want and wasn't able to hear about your full lives, your happy babies and growing children, your peace with your current selves.

But now? Now, I get it. In the cycle of things that sees us all pass through numerous seasons, I've become that blogger who used to make me cringe with pain to behold.

And so, this blog has reached (some while ago, in truth) the end of its natural existence, or perhaps it's fair to say I've grown beyond this blog. That growing was hard, it was often horrible, it was some of the most arduous emotional work of my adult life. In fact, only a fraction of that devastation even made it onto the blog.

But now, here we are. I'm ready to eat my words and bow out gracefully, happily, if belatedly.

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There's another point, a small vanity that has kept me from this space in recent months: while I began writing simply to pour out the emotions that roiled within me, quite soon it allowed me to experience the catharsis that came with a well-worded description. When I found a resonant or beautiful phrase to describe my pain, when I landed on an apt analogy to articulate my emotions, it calmed and healed me. When others said that my writing gave them that catharsis, resonated, or validated what they were experiencing, I felt a sense of pride in my ability to abide with you. Pride and accomplishment in the person that this admittedly often shitty journey forced me to become.

Right now, I simply don't have the time or headspace to write in a way that gives me that sense of calm or pride or accomplishment. (I've written exactly one post in all of 2015 that I feel meets these standards.) And truth be told, maybe I derive those things elsewhere right now.

So yeah, things have gotten quiet here, not only in terms of my posting, but also with visitor traffic. I can't blame you; what reason is there to visit, really?

I still have many things to say - about motherhood after loss, about what Girl Wonder is teaching me every day, about parenting, disability, and advocacy, but also, again, about things which fired my passions long before babies were a blip on my radar: politics and social justice and travel and global living. And of course, tea and Star Trek and finding my bliss. But I think all that's for another day and another space. (If you'd like to keep following my meanderings on that journey, or just want to keep in touch, leave a comment or drop me an email. I'd hate to lose these connections!)

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After S died, I remember reading somewhere that the two most comforting words in the English language are me too.

Blogging showed me the truth of that sentiment. Like a beacon in the darkest of hours, you reached out to me. You were there too. You understood. And so we commiserated, simultaneously drinking in, from the tiniest, far-flung corners of the earth, our respective cups of tea/wine/tears. Our paths crossed and diverged and crossed again. 

Blogging, reaching out to others and having them reciprocate, made me feel less alone. It - and you - helped me to laugh and cry and remember and forget. Made me brave. Made me grateful. Made me smile. Made me, in part, the woman I am right now.

To all the sentiments you've shared; all the pieces of your hearts; your deepest secrets; your inner crazy and your outer coping; your anger, your fear, your hope; your gestures of friendship and compassion; the lessons you've learned; your insecurities and affirmations; the resilience you've built and the joys you've discovered; your love.

To all these things you've shared, I say only this: Thank you friends. Me too.

#Microblog Mondays: Many worlds

I'm no physicist (despite occasional appearances to the contrary), and so I can't speak to its plausibility, but I've always found the Many Worlds theory compelling stuff. In addition to seeking an explanation for the wonkiness of quantum mechanics, it suggests that with the existence of these alternate worlds that branch off from ours as time expands at different rates in different places, 'all possibilities are realized'.

Think about that for a second: do you realize what it means? It means (my social scientist brain is extrapolating here; allow me the poetic licence) that anything you've imagined as possible has actually occurred.

It means that someplace I'm still tramping through the island jungles of Oceania. Someplace I'm a CEO of something or other, wearing tailored suits and doing whatever it is CEOs do all day. Someplace I'm living out my fascination with carpentry, slowly turning wooden spindles to soft, delicate curves. Someplace I never set out to see the world at all. Someplace I'm a 40 year old woman who owns Hello Kitty soap she considers too adorable to actually use (Oh wait, that actually happened here...)

It also means someplace my 4.5 year old son is playing amiably with my one year old daughter. Someplace S is alive and growing and laughing in something other than the breeze that sways the trees.

Someplace, when people ask 'Is this your first?', I don't stutter, or meekly voice a 'yes' while silently thinking 'the fourth I've carried in my womb, the second I've birthed, but only the first I've held pink and screaming and alive'.

And then today, on a beautiful summer's day walking through the park, delighting in my daughter's discovery of bugs and bare feet in grass and the exploratory eating of said grass, I also realize that if this Many Worlds theory is true, there is someplace I never had life lessons that taught me not only how precious and fleeting these delights are, but that they, or the sight of a swollen belly, might pierce the heart of a passing stranger, someone less lucky than I. Someone who I was not so long ago. It's hard to know that in my very joy lies someone else's pain; for I too have felt that heartache.

And wearily, I wonder why it seems to be the inevitable way of the world that only with the painful, been-there-done-that knowledge of direct experience can we truly achieve such compassion and sensitivity for others. But then, maybe there's another world where that's different too.

Full of possibility

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

On Mother's Day

Wherever you are in your parenting journey, whether in the depths of new grief, mourning losses long ago, missing the children you will never have, parenting after infertility, actively trying with or without assistance, pursuing adoption, ambivalent or resolved or a combination of the above, today I honour you.

 

A tale of two playgroups

I'm the kind of person who really likes my own company and can be a bit of a loner by nature, but I think when you're trying to integrate into a new cultural space, it's do or die. I've moved to enough new and strange cities in my time to have a keenly developed survival instinct telling me to get out there and vigorously mix, integrate, interact. Volunteer opportunity at the local homeless shelter? Sign me up! H's second cousin wants to meet for coffee and practice her English? Yes please! Plus, there is the small detail of my small daughter now spurning me on; she has a couple cousins here but both are school age and if I don't want Girl Wonder to become a little hermit baby I'd better mom up and make an effort.

So we've been checking out playgroups. However - leaving aside the strangeness that is my new social role as a mom - my German is still wobbly enough that I'm not confident just waltzing into a local group to make my own way in a language which still feels foreign to me. So we went for 'special interest' groups as a first step.

First up: there is a very active, city-wide, English-language playgroup that exists for the many foreigners who call this place home. A good place to start, right? Well, sort of; we might have had language in common, and even the experience of being newcomers, but to be honest? (Of course I'm painting with broad strokes here, I only dipped my toes in, after all), that might be where the commonalities end.

Because this city hosts the headquarters of a number of international organisations, expats here tend to be of the well-travelled and well-heeled variety. While we may be the former, we are certainly not the latter. Our home isn't big enough that we can play host to fourteen (fourteen!) sets of moms and babies, as others in the group have recently done. And while we move in some pretty interesting circles, we can't tell you about our last visit to the ambassador's residence for a semi-formal buffet dinner.

So there was already a certain socioeconomic divide, although that wasn't really the thing that singled me out and made everything seem awkward. Nope, our family history took care of that. Since my own brush with terminal illness in my teens, which left me with a pronounced limp, I am accustomed to answering intrusive curious questions about 'what's wrong with your leg?' my complicated medical history. When I know the intentions are good, it doesn't really bother me and I'm happy to oblige. Though I'm finding that things get a bit more sticky when it's your child(ren) concerned, I'm also someone who wants to contribute to the destigmatization of topics like infertility, disability, unconventional family building, etc. and so I generally try to be open and matter-of-fact. Our stories, all too often shunted to the margins for the comfort of a complacent society, should be part of the conversation too. Also, I (naively?) like to think that if I share my experiences in a way that shows they're not a life-defining tragedy for me, it might demystify some of the fear and pity for others as well.

Uh, except...maybe, on some occasions, this is more than a room full of terrified, pregnant fertiles most people can handle. So when stories were being exchanged about birth experiences and starting solids and yadda, yadda, yadda and, rather than come off like a wallflower, I honestly contributed...'born six weeks early by cesearean'...'intra-uterine-growth-restriction'...'Down syndrome'...'we're starting solids later because of her surgery at 36 hours old and feeding tube for first nine weeks'... Well, I'm sure you see where this is going...

I wasn't just the lead balloon in the room; I quickly became the bogey man, the personification of everyone's darkest dreams. You guys, that was before we even got to the infertility and loss stuff. People just looked at me. And despite the fact that my life may be dreamy these days and is certainly a long way from dark, it wasn't the most comfortable experience to see myself through other eyes.

I felt isolated. Like a fake, a freak. And though I know it wasn't intentional, that no one had set out to ostracize me, I couldn't help but feel like the awkward new girl at school facing The Plastics. (And if you haven't seen Mean Girls, go check it out; I'll wait. Tina Fey and Lyndsey Lohan in a previous incarnation. Love.)

(As another aside, I'm not really sure why people think 'I can't possibly imagine what you're going through' is in any way a good thing to say to someone facing life challenges. In my experience this only underscores otherness, leading to the person feeling all the more isolated and lonely. Also - while the subtly but crucially different 'I won't pretend to know what you're experiencing' is honest and direct, which I appreciate - in saying that you simply can't even imagine, you're pretty much saying that you lack the compassion or humanistic imagination for any kind of empathy. Way to go. But I digress...and that is deserving of a whole post of its own, really.)

So where was I? Ah yes, back to the playgroups.

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Luckily, that finely honed survival instinct of the expat prevented me from throwing in the towel after my initial difficult attempt. The following week, there was a playgroup put on by and for the local parent's network for families of kids with Down syndrome. (Again, at the risk of generalising,) I've said it before and I'll say it again: I like how people from this 'community' think and approach life.

There was the kind of shorthand that groups who have found themselves on the margins tend to share, and none of the awkward horror at all our baggage: was she born early? Did we get a birth or prenatal diagnosis? Did she have any medical anomalies? What is she doing with her early intervention therapist?

In a few brief conversations, I also learned that two of the babes in the group close in age to Girl Wonder were the product of fertility treatment. Do I think that there's a relationship between this extra challenge in family building and potential parents' attitudes towards chromosomal anomalies? Probably, yes.

Am I saying that if you've experienced hardship you're inevitably going to be more empathetic and have your priorities worked out? Not at all (and Loribeth wrote a great post recently about how people who do experience adversity in life are expected, often for the benefit of everyone but themselves, to fit a certain redemptive cultural narrative).

But I do think that once you've been through some of life's nastier shit storms there is at least the opportunity to gain some perspective; some gratitude. Not to get hung up on life's little 'problems'. So many of you have shown me that, with grace and humour and generosity of spirit. And while this ALI club is certainly not one that any of us would have voluntarily joined, I think the higher-than-average levels of compassion and determination not to sweat the small stuff are a significant silver lining that make me glad to have you all for company. But again, I digress...

The gist of my second attempt was this: I felt accepted. Embraced. And - perhaps ironically, given that shared language was not the common denominator here - understood. It was such a good feeling, and one that made me think I'll do fine as we move forward, even juggling as I am a new hometown and my new role as a mom and my newbie status in the world of Down syndrome.

I'm not saying that difficulty is something to be lauded. But maybe difference is, or should be.

With our unorthodox background stories, our transnational lives, our off-the-curve road to reaching a family, our high risk pregnancy, and a host of other variables, ours was never going to be the typical, 'normal' story. And as much as others may have a hard time with that, I'm ok with it; better than ok. I'm grateful for and sensitive to complicated, less-than-'perfect' realities. I'm happy. My life is full of love.

Leaving that playgroup, I found myself, not for the first time, feeling like we've landed on a really good side of 'normal', and oh so happy to be here.

And we don't even own a dryer! Source.

Of mindfulness and mourning

There was a passage in the book I'm currently reading that snagged my attention and my heart, exactly the way such sentiments do when I encounter them in real life:

Time was when I cooked for four. Time was when I chafed and grew fretful and said 'I can't bear this business of having to think of supper every night'. Time was when I dreamed of all the things I could do, all the lives I could lead if I wasn't tied down, beset, beleaguered. And time was - I'm glad to say - when the clasp of small arms around my neck and the feel of a soft face against my own stilled the restlessness and made me grateful and glad for the moment. 

Glad for the moment.

Although all too often my real life encounters omit that last thought - the only one that really matters - it's a sentiment I think many of us in the ALI community can relate to, we who have longed for the clasp of small arms and the feel of a soft face against our own. No restlessness about it.

We are fond of saying (perhaps to stay the tears?) that this is a silver lining, a blessing in disguise of infertility and loss: that these heartbreaking experiences will make of us more mindful parents. That when the chance comes our way, we won't whine about being tied down, about the loss of glamour or about sticky floors, having to be home every night for dinner at six, about the curtailing of dangly earrings or picking stray cheerios out of the bed sheets. And even if we cannot always keep to our own heroic parental standards of constant gratitude and mindfulness - for we are human, and there will be moments taken for granted - we remain, I believe, acutely aware. Perhaps more mindful than most of just how precious and ephemeral every beautiful moment is, as each new day presents us with new versions of our children, exceeding all the long-held dreams our hearts would conjure. Moment on top of beautiful (or infuriating, or scary, or prosaic, or tedious) moment, as these little beings we seem to have dreamt forth change, develop, astound, evoke pride and gratitude and wonder.

But what if this mindfulness, as much as it reminds us to savour, brings with it such awareness of the fleeting nature of everyday life that it tears us away from the moment, tempting us instead to mourn for that which is passing before we've had the chance to fully appreciate its perfect bounty in the right-here-right-now? The knowledge that every first in their developmental trajectory is matched by a last. Our babies wrenched from our grasp by the children they will become, and the adolescents those will become, and so on, before we have time to say our goodbyes.

Because that, too (at least for me), is the legacy of loss and infertility; each moment fiercely, irrevocably, painfully precious.

I fret over the days that pass too quickly (while also being uncomfortably aware of just how unlike the parenting experience of my firstborn). Five months old! Six months! Now seven! I flail and try to grasp. I chide myself for not making note of each infinitesimally adorable thing. I take hundreds of pictures, and then feel awkward guilt for placing a lens between me and my daughter, capturing rather than living in the moment.

Mindfulness can and does nurture gratitude, but it can also overwhelm with, well...mindfulness. Awareness of just how real it all is. Just how impermanent.

I know it sounds melodramatic, but it's a question I've been ruminating on a lot lately, even before the passage from the book spelled it out for me. Girl Wonder will be my last child, the only one I get to raise. And while the knowledge of that and the arduous road we had to travel in getting her here are vital reminders to cherish each moment of joy, those same moments also encapsulate a strange kind of mourning (albeit one I know I am supremely lucky to experience).

And how do I truthfully balance that in my heart?

Remembering

Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. This means that tonight at 7pm, as every years since S left us, we will light a candle in memory of he and all those babies whose lives ended far too soon, and in solidarity with all those families they left behind.

Today, as every day, we think of S and miss him. We wonder about the two little lives who left us even sooner after he went away. Three babies who will always remain a mystery to us.

One year ago yesterday, we found out Girl Wonder's tiny heart beat fast and healthy. As I type this today, she lies cuddled in my arms; an amazing, unbelievable feeling. She has brought us so much joy, but she cannot ease the sense of loss we will always feel, for the big brother who should be here, full of protectiveness and jealousy.

Tonight, we remember all those tiny lives, those of our three babies and of all others too. We honour them, and we thank them for the beauty they have brought to the world, even if only in their parents' imaginings.

#Microblog Mondays: Family of four

'How are the three of you doing?' 

'The three of you'; they say it so innocuously.

Or, 'Is this your first?'. An innocent query from a passerby. I stumble, pause for a second too long. Guilt. Sadness. Pride. Uncertainty. Love. So much love. How do you reply?

I have become resigned - after so long spent loudly and furiously grieving - to the fact that people can't won't don't acknowledge or remember our first born. Though to H and I, this is a family of four.

He is there in his sister’s sparkling eyes; in her secret dreaming smiles.

He is there in his parents’ impossible-to-realize determination to let no moment go unnoticed, unappreciated, uncelebrated. We want to stop and savour; to capture everything.

For babies grow so fast, you know. Except when they don’t. He never will.

And yet he is here. We are a family of four, but one of us - a son, a brother - will always be missing.

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.)

It's not me, it's you

I think I mentioned that the holidays, while largely beautiful and relaxing and contemplative, also brought some moments of bitterness. Courtesy of our own family, in fact.

By way of the briefest of summaries, we've struggled with how to maintain family relationships with some of our relatives over the last 3+ years, when their callous, indifferent or demanding reactions to our loss(es) and experiences of infertility have placed extra strain and hurt on us in a time when instead we should have been seeking support and compassion. I knew that a subsequent pregnancy would compound this tension in so many ways. I've alluded to it as one of the reasons why I was reticent about sharing our exciting (but still scary) news for so long.

The visits with H's family over the last three weeks were intended as a kind of olive branch, a renewed effort on our part to let things go and start afresh (albeit with reduced expectations: you don't always get the family you want, but they're still family. Aren't they?).

It kind of worked out that way, but also, not really very much at all. Two vignettes, brought to you from the suffocating depths of our loving extended family homefires:

1) During a reunion in which H and I were making genuine efforts to let bygones be bygones, on the cusp of a new year with all the symbolism that implied, my mother-in-law wanted to revisit the topic of why we had sent 'hurtful' emails to her, oh...two odd years ago? That's right, apparently we hurt her when (you're gonna love this) we sent an email indicating that while we understood their concern for us, some forms of..ahem, grief management advice (and I'm using this term loosely here) were not welcome. To whit: when, on the first anniversary of S's death, H shared his feelings with his mother, her directive was to 'put it in a drawer and forget about it'. Yes, she referred to my son as an it. Still though, who were we, in our naivety, to imagine that we knew what we needed or to have the audacity to ask for it? That was hurtful to her, and she insisted that new year's day was the time to clear the air. New year or not, I guess a bitch of a mother-in-law tiger doesn't change it's stripes.

2) Lest you think that my own side of the family is immune from such gaffs in grieving etiquette (is there a manual for this? Because there should be), I present my sister. Things have not been great between us since, among other things, she blandly stated, 'Why should I grieve for your son? I didn't know him'. Since, on my first meeting with her after my loss - when I also met her son born a mere few days after S should have been - she indicated that she saw no reason to be sensitive in proffering her new babe because 'My first priority is my baby, and if you can't deal with that it's your problem'. Yeah, she is sensitivity personified, that woman. I'm not actually sure what her deal is, given that she had the same happy childhood as I. Anyway, she wanted the holidays to be a time when to reach out to those she so evidently loves and cares for, with the message that 'Family is so important, and as a parent this becomes all the more true when you have kids of your own'. She is extremely family oriented. Obviously. Here's what I would do with her version of 'family values'. Take them and delete, delete, delete not suitable for some audiences!. Just wait 'til she finds out about the little seedling. She's the type who will suddenly have all the love in the world for us.

As I am sure you are all too aware - though I admit to being deeply envious of some of you who seem to have such warm, understanding support around you - dealing with other people, and with community life in general, can be one of the hardest things about being in this already crappy ALI club.

There have been some break ups. The stupidity, insensitivity or just plain careless, this-is-no-big-deal-at-least-it-wasn't-a-real-baby attitudes to my grief on the parts of some people were enough to make me re-evaluate a few 'friend'ships. (This is to say nothing of the people who dumped us, initially on the pretense of 'giving us space', but later because grief is fucking hard, ugly work and they weren't up to the task; or so I can assume. Most just sort of disappeared, never proffering even a lame excuse, and never to return.) I give people lots of chances. If you've hurt me, I always try to talk openly, honestly and calmly about how your behaviour makes me feel (hence the 'hurtful' email to my mother-in-law), leaving a chance to clear the air. However, if your response to those attempts proves even more self-absorbed, sometimes you gotta know when to throw in the towel, if only for self-preservation.

But these people are my relatives. Unfortunately, things aren't so simple here. I can't break up with them. So I come here to vent, to shake a raging fist at the universe for bestowing me with such a frankly useless support system, and to beg your patience with me as I do.

And I know what they say about relationships being hard work, and how it takes two, and yadda, yadda, yadda. That's all totally true. I've worked hard over the past few years.

But still, I'm pretty sure it's not me. It's them.

The ties that bind. Like, literally. Source.

If you've faced similar insensitivities, what do you do to manage? How do you learn to bite your tongue, turn the other cheek, and keep that pasted-on smile upturned?

One of those posts with all the bullett points

So, in between the bipolar, hope/terror/hope stream of consciousness that is pregnancy after loss, punctuated by genuine freakouts which seem to grow in frequency as we approach each u/s appointment - because I promised I'd try to give that a rest for a while (and really, it's exhausting enough to live it the first time) - other thoughts do occasionally manage to make their way into my consciousness.

Like what? Like, for example, all the of the following, as inconsequential as it is...

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It's November already, which means it's more than a year since we traded in the sun bleached cobbled streets of Lisbon to return to the leaden skies of England. Even though we had some terrible hardships while living there (we lost our second and then our third pregnancy during that time, and got our initial diagnosis of subfertility), a sliver of my heart will always belong to that city, not least because I felt so close to all my babies in the beauty of that country. How could you not be awe-struck, every single day, when this is the view from your local cafe, five minutes from home?

Here we are enjoying a weekend away in Porto. Sigh. It's so inspiring to be surrounded by that kid of beauty. I truly miss the place. At the same time, it's incredible to think of the time that has passed, and how new and fresh things are beginning to seem, again. Aside from leaving Portugal, this year has been filled with some very necessary (and long overdue) changes.

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It's kind of baffling how much traffic has picked up on my blog since this post. I guess the cynical side of me thinks that, even in the land of ALI, most people would rather hear about a pregnant lady than a bitchy, barren one. (Who, me bitter? Yep, guess I'm still processing some emotions.)

And while we're on the topic of this here blog, why is it that this particular post, amongst all my blathering, seems to be catnip for spam commenters wanting to share for the benefit of I and all my readers the wonders of the witch doctor who cast a spell that made tangible all their deepest desires? (I deleted a good many of those comments, but in case you're perversely curious as I was, I'll wait a moment if you want to go have a look for yourself before they're gone for good.) Could it be because, given the title of the post, some poor mammalian ovaries are an ingredient in said magic spells <shudder>? Curiouser and curiouser.

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This morning I received an appointment for my 20 week anatomy scan....booked for the 15th of November, when I'll be 11 weeks pregnant. I have to say, the NHS can generally not be accused of this level of...erm, efficiency, but today they're waaay ahead of the game. However, much as there is a part of me that would love to ffwd to a point in this pregnancy closer to viability, and beyond the oh-so-scary-I'm-already-dreading-it point when I lost S, I'm not actually aware of a method for doing so (correct me if I'm wrong here ladies!). So, time to rescheduled the appointment then, for a date that corresponds to my real-world pregnancy timeline.

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Last week, I had to travel to London to attend a day of training for work. The venue for the workshop was right next door to one of London's more fascinating and touching museums, the Foundling Museum, which uses artifacts and historical archives to tell the stories of London's abandoned babies, or 'foundlings', who were looked after at the property throughout the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. They are currently exhibiting a collection of photographs around the twin themes of Motherhood and Loss. Though loss is understood in the broadest conceptual and emotional sense here, there were several powerful pieces that dealt specifically with pregnancy loss and stillbirth. It was moving and refreshing to see those experiences of motherhood included, given that so many of us experience the societal silencing of our stories and that there remains such a strong taboo on speaking these truths (for fear of 'upsetting' those fortunate souls who never have to contemplate unhappy outcomes of pregnancy?).

After my training workshop and the visit to the museum, H and I met for some shopping and dinner at one of my favorite little hole-in-the-wall Korean restaurants in Covent Garden, where I can indulge in lots of gluten free goodies. I think kimchee pancakes are my new culinary obsession.

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In the last week, just as the more conventional symptoms like food aversions and random cravings seem to be abating (good thing too, or my body's horror through weeks 5-8 at the very thought of anything spicy, usually a staple in my diet, would have prevented me from enjoying those kimchee pancakes), and along come a few genuine head scratchers. Because amongst the exhaustive lists of possible pregnancy symptoms that the likes of Just Mommies and other oh-so-helpful sites have compiled for those of us neurotic enough to compulsively Goo.gle deeply in touch with our bodies, my own seems to have settled on a few new quirks.

I'm having pretty regular palpitations in which it feels like my heart is going to leap from my ribcage; they start in my chest and extend up through my throat. I asked the doctor about it, and he says that although it's not terribly common, it's a perfectly normal response to increased blood flow in these early weeks. I'm supposed to rest as much as possible, which I guess is a good thing, because these episodes usually leave me feeling weak, dizzy and unable to catch my breath.

Secondly and perhaps more humorously, (though probably not for H, for whom this particular 'symptom' is more unsettling than for me), I've started talking in my sleep. Well, not talking so much as...emitting a kind of muttering/humming sound? After H pointed it out, I've caught myself doing it a few times as I drifted off, and it's odd, to say the least. I can't find a single reference to this as an actual pregnancy symptom, but I have never before been one to talk in my sleep and am normally a very placid sleeper, while this habit has only surfaced in the last month, so it must be related somehow. I recall reading somewhere once that post-menopausal woman suffering from snoring so frequently because of the huge shifts in hormone balance that softens the tissue in the ear/nose/throat area, so I'm wondering if it could be something similarly to do with changing hormone levels. (I didn't have the nerve to make a special call to Dr. B to ask about that one.) Wierd.

But also, I told you I was glowing.

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I've been nominated, like, a gazillion times for the current wave of blog awards that are making the rounds. Thanks everyone; I'm feelin' the love. I even keep meaning to reply and accordingly have a draft sitting somewhere in amongst my current posts, but I always end up too lazy and, well, bored with that much self-reflection. I promise I'll get to it after everyone else has thoroughly tired of the exercize! At least, I think I will.  

I hope everyone else is hanging in there. I'm on my way to check in with your blogs now!

Waves of light

Today is international Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. A global 'wave of light' will be created as those remembering the souls of little lives ended too quickly light candles in windows across the world, from 7pm to 8pm in each time zone. I love the symbolism of the candle and its flame as a memorial to S, whose soft, flickering presence continues to gently light and warm so many of our days.

Remembering

H recently read somewhere that the Inuit of Greenland believe the dancing, multi-coloured lights of the Aurora Borealis to be the souls of lost babies playing together in the heavens. I don't know if that's true, but I absolutely love the beautiful and playful image that it conjures. The idea that their waves of light are not just symbolic gestures that we as babylost parents make to memorialise our babies, but that those babies are the very filaments of the cosmos itself, colouring our skies, warming our lives and enveloping us in wonders.

It feels strange, but also appropriate, that just as fluttering hope and burgeoning love is developing for this new life inside me, there comes a special moment for remembering what came before, what brought us to this place. This juxtaposition will always be hard, but it will also always be my reality. Joy and grief and love are all wrapped up in each day and how we live them. I feel like this juxtaposition shapes my experience as a parent and as a human being. It isn't the first time I've been confronted with these inherent, messy, life-affirming contradictions.

This evening, as I do my best to nurture new life, I'll also be thinking of all those who grieve for the babies they never got to know. I'll think of their babies, but instead of just remembering them, I'll be imagining their ongoing presence and the beauty they bestow, up there whirling happily among the colours and the clouds.

How's that for a brag-worthy baby pic? Source.

Five weeks, four days and a whole new level of crazy

What was all that blissed out zen crap I said last week? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I lied.

This past weekend involved several mini breakdowns, a patiently handled 'emergency' telephone consult with the lovely Dr. B (whose assurances that all those cramps were 'good news if anything, evidence that your uterus is preparing in all the ways it should right now', were only partly comforting in a long series of moments when my body's mimetic ability to feign PMS symptoms really convinced me my next period was impending, those second lines really just another cruel joke), and nearly a full day of lying curled up in the fetal position, all mucous and red, raw skin and ugly crying.

I'm having nightmares and not managing to sleep very well some nights. And then freaking out because it occurs to me that my lack of proper rest and the overstimulation of my adrenal-cortical system is probably harming the fetus trying to grow.

And symptoms? Much as I've had quite a few, ill-conceived pause for thought don'tthinkdon'tthink! led me to wonder: what if I just dreamed all those too? Because, just as with every two week wait I've experienced until now, I want to feel pregnant and so I do? Because ya know, when your uterus has done such a spectacular job of not sustaining the life you created, it's hard to place even the teeniest amount of trust in your body or any of what it's experiencing.

This is the nasty progression of infertility schizophrenia to the nth degree.With the after-effects of recurrent loss thrown in just for measure. Because if some seriously bipolar tendencies weren't enough, I also have some major PTSD sensations around ultrasounds themselves. They're a huge grief trigger. I'm afraid that the healthy form of grieving that I've carefully, painfully built over the past years, all the ways in which I've managed to incorporate and honour my losses without allowing them to overtake me entirely, will all crumble should the u/s screen reveal what I dread it will: just deep, still blackness.

Ultrasounds are not harbingers of good news for us. We've been here, hoping and waiting, three times before. And three times those hopes have been dashed. And in each case the u/s machine was the instrument of torture delivering those blows. The ultrasound terrifies me.

On the one hand, I don't see how this could possibly end happily for us; it feels like that's something that happens for other people; the preserve of those blessed masses among whom I don't belong, but never for us. At the same time, there's a still-resentful and resilient part of me that's thinking: If it's happening for everyone else, don't we get one shot?

I'm not always this bad, every second. I have a lot of hope for this pregnancy to turn itself into the wonderful culmination of all that love and desire we've been nurturing for so long, in the absence of more practical acts of nurturing. The rapid succession of emotions on that crazy hopeterrorhope continuum does not make it easy though. 

I guess for now, I have to hang on to that resentful and resilient little voice which keeps me going. I always feel like when I reach that Fuck You place in my emotional arc, there's a lot of good momentum to pull me forward into a place of greater optimism and fight. (Though obviously, let's be honest: we all know that the real remedy for this particular malaise is just one, and that's to hear a happy, beating little heart next week.)

Also, as crazy and obnoxious as I know I sound right now, it helps just writing it out. Phew. Slightly better now. Yeah, let's go with that.

A special kind of crazy. Source

Endangered

Okay, so I have a crazy thing for anthropomorphizing animals and projecting my own skewed-by-loss maternal yearnings onto their behaviours. (This is just one of the many and obscure ways in which my brain has become its own peculiar version of twisted as a result of loss and trying and infertility and loss. What does animal reproduction and parenting have to do with my own experience? How do I manage to take the most random scenarios and find in them a reminder of what my body can't do, or do only badly? How can I feel I understand anything of their animal experiences of death or grieving or maternity? Crazy talk.)

When I read that Washington Zoo's panda Mei Xiang gave birth this week to a surprise, stillborn twin to her healthy delivery, it hurt my heart a little. And when I read that she groomed her dead baby for 17 minutes before relinquishing it to keepers for an autopsy, not only did I cry; I felt I got it, a little.

Mei Xiang, who was impregnated via insemination, gave birth to another baby last year that lived for six days. This was her second loss.

Giant pandas are an endangered species, so that's a big deal.

Sometimes - back in the world of human reproduction - knowing all the stories I do and all the things that can go wrong, I wonder how healthy pregnancies ever progress, how babies ever get born and grow into children. It's inexplicable to me. They all seem like endangered species.

Parallels. Source

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.

Laughter yoga, Bereaved Mother's Day, and the messy truth of life

Over the weekend, as I promised myself I would do, I tried to find ways to overcome the spring blues which I've been battling these past days. This nascent spring summer! is too beautiful not to enjoy, and the perfect opportunity to move beyond the bounds of my comfortable funk presented itself.

Yesterday, to mark World Laughter Day my yoga instructor organized a taster of laughter yoga, a movement with which I have long been intrigued but have not had the chance to enjoy. Based largely on the medical knowledge that your mind and body benefit hugely from smiling and laughing - whether it's genuine or contrived - the laughter yoga movement begun in India is intended as a 'positive manifestation for world peace and to build up a global consciousness of brotherhood and friendship through laughter'. Nice, right? So although I wasn't in the mood, I cajoled myself into an afternoon of merriment with perfect strangers. Because that's the point of laughter yoga from a health perspective: studies suggest that you can actually 'trick' yourself into happiness even through forcing a laugh, and that you should do so as a means to build community too.

In addition to the kinds of breathing exercizes that are part of traditional yoga, and various absurdist activities in which one really couldn't help but laugh in the end, completely and authentically, our instructor shared some of the science behind the practice. We were taught how laughter-on-command can ease the stress of lots of little situations we all encounter in life; you know those moments that make you grit your teeth and set your muscles tighter and generally growl inwardly? The example used was hitting a red light in traffic. Just laugh hysterically at the light, she said, and you'll soon find it no longer holds the same toxic grip over you.

Since I don't drive, and (being routinely 10 minutes late for everything ever) I have come to accept that such small delays are not the mortal enemy, I don't much have a problem with red lights. But truthfully friends, (bad Sadie! I know!) for the briefest of moments, my infertility-addled brain actually wandered to the possibility of applying that same hysterical laughing technique to the legions of pregnant bellies which seem to accost me on a daily basis.

Hhhmm...guess that wouldn't really be in keeping with the laughter yoga mantra that we are always laughing with, right?

Of course I would never do that. Not really. I'm not going to live up to the archetypal, misogynistic evil-cackling-madwoman-who-never-fulfilled-her-maternal-instincts-and-is-therefore-dangerous bit that our culture still nurtures. Because, well...obviously. That would be too easy.

Anyway, where was I?

We also learned that on average, children laugh 300 times per day, where adults laugh on average 15 times per day. Just, wow....something is clearly getting lost along the way, so whatever we can do to restore it, even if I'm the first to indulge in the occasional bout of duvet diving, can't be a bad thing.

Sometimes laughter really is the only medicine. And you know, with my belly muscles pleasantly straining after one and half hours of mandated laughter, I actually felt not just emotionally lighter, but physically euphoric for several hours afterwards.

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It was only on my return home later in the afternoon, after a long and lovely walk, when I learned through several bloggy friends that yesterday was also International Bereaved Mother's Day. At first I wasn't sure what to make of that perhaps cruelly random juxtaposition of days to simultaneously mark such seemingly opposing sentiments: laughter and dead babies. Then I thought, actually, it's quite true to life. And maybe they're not as opposing as they might first appear.

Much as I once might have implored it to - much as I feel at times that mine has - life has not stopped since S died, since we started on this scary, uncertain road of infertility. Much to my own surprise, and despite the brokenness from which I once thought I would never recover, I have gone on laughing (though you'd be forgiven for not believing that if you stumble upon this blog on any given day). I cry, I laugh, I breath. I am alive and he is not. I owe him the full life - to accept, inhabit, embrace it - that he cannot and never will have. And despite the realities of birth and death, we remain connected. I try to remind myself of those things every day.

There was one thing about yesterday which somehow, serendipitously, brought all these sentiments together. The laughter yoga class was held on the grounds of a beautiful medieval convent which remains in use today. It is filled with tranquil gardens designed to bring peace, to foster the contemplation of life's great mysteries (or at least so it seemed to me). Just being there was a special experience. And the lawn on which we sat and moved and breathed and laughed among strangers was also home to this beautiful flowering tree. A memory tree.

The sign under it's branches instructed us to: Tie a ribbon on the tree and remember someone special.

And the next time I visit the lawn to sit and laugh with strangers, I will do just that.