Hopes and fears

We've all seen those nature documentaries, where the single lioness and her small cub are graciously strolling through the vast savanna.

Lurking behind the long grasses though, are a pack of hungry hyenas. Those hungry hyenas, see a small meal in that delicate little cub, and out of no where, they pounce and take the lioness' precious offspring.

She's livid. She's wild. She's mad. She did not see them coming. She had no time or no chance to protect her young. But she can't do anything about her cub now. It's too late. She's gone.

But she's roaming around those plains. She lets out a mighty roar. She's mad and she will hunt down those hyenas until she finds one to rip the throat out of.....

Best I stop this analogy now, as I don't essentially like where it is going. I feel like that desperate lioness, but I am not quite her. I don't want to rip anyones throat out. I'm a bitter and bereaved mother so while I might be just a tad crazy, I can control my animal instincts a bit better than that lion, who isn't always at the top of the food chain and isn't always in control (much like we aren't). But I still want to fight for justice and change. I still want to know another mother wont be treated like me again.

Which brings me to this. Finally.

Things are a things afoot at my hospital. The first I learnt of this came by the way of a letter yesterday that said the hospital would no longer deal with me directly, because the official complaint I made with the relevant authorities is now being looked at.

I called about the letter and got frustrated and mad with the patient liaison woman again, but realised I was wasting my breath. I called the authorities who are taking care of my complaint, and they said because of the very nature of it, and the hospital's tardiness with responding to it, they have fast tracked it straight through to some sort of conciliation stage. I'm not entirely sure what all of that means, but I'm going to let those who need to do their jobs do their jobs, and just hope that changes for the better are on the way. This means so much to me, and maybe it will allow me to breathe a little easier. It is the one, simple request I've had out of all of this. That the hospital realise they were, at least in some part, in the wrong and that they change the way they do things to try and prevent similar tragic outcomes for other first time mothers.

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Grief does funny things to people. It has certainly done funny things to me. I've reacted to it the only way I know how. I have grieved the only way I know how to grieve. I had no idea how to grieve, I have never lost like this before, so I've just taken things as they have come, responded to things as naturally and honestly as I possibly can and not rushed anything and let myself feel what I need to feel, when I need to feel it. I think, it has all been incredibly healthy so far.

I have not always been proud of this process though. I have not always grieved gracefully or with poise. People have not always agreed with my choices. People have been upset by my responses. I have complained because of the distance some people have put between us, but then I know I put a lot of it there in the first place.

I pushed people away, yet I expect them to push back in to my life. I'm playing games with people, and only some people are good at playing along. Most don't know the rules, most don't play very well. I don't really know the rules either, it just comes back to me doing what feels right for me.

I know six months have passed, which is but a drop in the ocean for me, but it seems like it might be quite a long time for others. People have done so much with their lives in that time, while apart from two weeks in Hawaii, I haven't really moved far from the couch. People are frustrated. People are wanting to know I'm better or at least on the way to getting better.

It is hard because I am better. Better than I was when I was a sobbing mess at around noon on Monday 18 August, when I was lying on that ultrasound bed. Better in that I am able to function. Shop. Cook. See some friends. Have some friends here. Hold babies. See pregnant women. Take holidays and enjoy myself. But I don't feel any better about her loss. I never will feel better about that. Ever.

I feel like the life I get now, is a second best life. I know that things will change when new babies join our world, but I think I will still always have rather she didn't die. Her death will always be there. My life will always be defined by that moment. Before she died. After she died. I can't undo it. New life wont make it better or fix it. It will just make it different.

I have this inner turmoil at the moment, as while I really open myself to allow a new baby to join us, I feel so torn. I know any mother as she prepares for number two must feel this at some stage, in that how can their hearts possibly expand enough to love one as much as the other, but this second baby would never have existed. That egg would never have been fertilized at that time and this was never supposed to be baby number two. Being just 28 when I had Hope, we intended on putting a few years between one and two. You know, in an ideal world where plans - go to plan. We were in somewhat of a rush for one but I knew with my age and fertility, number two could definitely wait. We really only tried for Hope so young as we wanted kids so badly, we wanted to make sure all was ok with us both reproductively young, so we could get on top of any problems fast.

But six months after having a baby was never when I expected to be trying for another baby. In

fact six months after any death in the family is probably much too soon for anyone to be thinking about conception and of course pregnancy.

But that's the uniqueness of this kind of loss. The death of an unborn baby. The tragic end of a pregnancy that resulted in death and not life. I have to finish what I started. New life inside of me again is what's going to take that edge off for me. I have said it all along and I have not wavered from that view. It is what's going to allow me to open up to more people. Let some of those people I have pushed away back in. And this I feel is intensified, at least for me, because she was my first.

100 per cent of my pregnancies so far have ended in tragedy. I don't trust or believe my body can do it, because it has never done it before. I know I did a perfect job for 40 weeks and 5 days, and it was just incredibly bad luck and unforeseen circumstances that landed me here, but I need a reason to go on. I need a reason to get up each day. I need to stop being number 1 in my life. I need to have a little person as my number 1. A life without children in it frightens me more than anything in the entire world. It takes my breath away. I try not to go there often, but the fear it brings almost paralyses me. The truth is I do go there often because I'm there right now, and I hate it. I just hate my life right now. I felt important as a pregnant person and I knew I'd feel even more important as a mother. Now I feel worthless and meaningless and so empty. It happened a lot on the holiday, just seeing the way people respond to pregnant women and mothers. I was just anther young girl. A nobody.

A life of empty, meaningless Christmases, a life without the joy of children's laughter, a life without a little person to teach and watch grow, a life without a family to expand around me is just not the life I want. And I'm going to try so hard to make sure it is not the life I get. I know the odds are stacked in my favour for that not being the case, but that deep seeded fear just wont go away.

I bought a beautiful, turtle shaped dream jar when I was away. At a small road stop along the Hana Highway. Beautiful, handmade ceramic items. I was drawn to it. The idea is you write down your dreams or dream and put them in the jar each night and they will come true. I just have one dream to put in it. And that is for my next child to live. And for them to outlive me.

I just know I can't bury another one. I fear doing that, will really be the end of me.