The Wall

For too long now I have been banging my head up against a brick wall trying valiantly to get people to understand my pain. To Get It. As of now, I officially give up. My attempts are clearly futile and a massive waste of my time and energy. I'm stressing too much about things I don't need to stress about. I have much bigger things on my plate right now and that's a) grieving the death of my daughter and b) trying to make her a sibling, which after today's ultrasound, might be a bit harder than we'd hoped. But it is cool and I'm not going in to it (yes, I believe that is censorship). All is well, for the most part. We got much more good news than we did "bad" news, and the bad news might not even end up being bad news, more like "slightly inconvenient" news. So that's that. Moving right along.

When I say people either "Get It" or they don't, there are two versions of "getting it". There is the "getting" the the oh-my-fucking-god-I-will-do-anything-to-protect-this-precious-child fierce mother love thing, that only another mother can know and the "getting it" which relates specifically to knowing the all-encompassing and soul-destroying pain of losing a child.

Someone said to me in an email recently that when we become parents, and by that she meant from the moment of conception onwards, we wear our hearts on the outside. Suddenly we are open to experiencing pain and joy in all shapes and forms. I have felt more pain and more joy in the last 12 months than I ever knew possible. The joy of the pregnancy was unparallelled to anything in my life, and now likewise, this filthy grief is like nothing I have ever known. There is just nothing on Earth like it. As much as I fill this space up with so many words, I really wont ever have the words to properly describe this pain. It is simply beyond words. The stuff of nightmares yet for me it is not a nightmare, it is my daily reality.

Some who do and don't get the "mother love" bit of it have been good, some have not been as good. Some have surprised me in good ways, others have let me down. That's just the way it goes I guess. Cest la vie.

But as I have said before, no one can GET the grief that follows the death of a child. No one. Unless of course, you have been there - and then, and only then, can you ever Get It. If you don't get it, relax and breathe easy. You don't want to Get this. And just pray, if that's your thing, that you don't ever Get It. This is not the side of statistics any parent wants to end up on.

It seems some are a bit jealous, for lack of a better word, that I have not been able to turn to them for help getting out of this pit, because when life had previously had got me down, I'd always knocked on their doors. I soon discovered while working through this immense and devastating loss that I was going to have to look elsewhere to find the love, understanding, compassion, and patience I needed and craved. It is not to disrespect others in my life or reflect badly on their personalities; this problem was simply out of their league. Not something that could be fixed over an afternoon chat with a cup of tea and a muffin. Or over a couple of wines with dinner at some trendy inner city restaurant. This problem is obviously much bigger than that. Which is why I had to call in the big guns - bereaved mothers from all over the world on the mysterious world of the interwebs. It is the last place I thought I would turn but now, I can't imagine where I'd be without this wonderful web of support. It was just days after returning home from hospital that I found myself here. In fact maybe even the day after. I felt so desperate to find others who had walked this path. I soon learned, women like me were everywhere.

People who feel frustrated that I can't turn to them and who feel like they wish they could help me, should not worry. Because if you were able to really help me, that would mean you had been through this. And it goes without saying and of course is horribly cliched, but I could not wish this crap on my worst enemy.

Some of the people in my life who have not lost a child, whether they are parents or not, have simply been fantastic. They have stopped trying to fix me and helped me in other ways. I know these friends will wait for me as long as it takes. I know they will remain on the sidelines of my life, which will only be a temporary measure, until I'm ready to join the land of the living again. They help by just letting me be. By listening. By giving me the space I need or by letting me vent for hours and hours on end. They are just treading easy around me and letting me call the shots.

I spent the entire day with two of those friends yesterday, with their 15 month old babies and they let me talk and talk and talk until I nearly exploded. They probably nearly exploded too, but they never dared show that in front of me. They have made it perfectly clear they will make exceptions for me, they will allow me to express myself honestly and openly without taking things personally and they will walk beside me in my grief. Just seeing the tears in their eyes again yesterday shows me just how much they care. I'm lucky to have some very wonderful people in my life.

As the very wise Elizabeth McCracken says in her brilliant memoir (if a book about the full term stillbirth of your first child can be brilliant) An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, "grief lasts longer than sympathy". I know people are still very sympathetic to our situation, but the grief I feel far outweighs the sympathy I receive these days. And that's ok - I would not really expect otherwise, because everyone has their own life to live. I know I would have been guilty of this in the past. Sending a card in the first one to two weeks, attending the funeral, then dropping off the face of the earth, apart from the odd email here and there to check on said grieving person's well-being. But it does leave us, the bereaved, in a difficult situation. Because while life moves on for others, we remain stuck and in almost as much pain as the day the tragedy struck our lives. It may as well be August 18. But it is not, it is March 18. How the crap did I just hit the seven month mark? Wasn't it like yesterday I just said it was six months? The time thing is really crazy.

And I still stand by the fact that our losses, the deaths of our babies, are very unique losses to grieve. This is not a grandfather who lived well in to his 90s, who fought in a World War, who lived on several continents, who had children, grand children and great grandchildren. This is not even a mother who while she may have been cut down in her prime and died far too young, still married, travelled, built a home and a family. Other people leave behind memories. Possessions. Dental records. Tangible proof that they existed and that they were real. Sometimes I wonder if Hope was a figment of my imagination. My life had been turned upside down anticipating her arrival - as we patiently waited to go from duo to a trio, now things are just the friggen same, Just the two of us and the damn dog. Except with these gaping holes in our hearts and mega sad eyes. And the loss does become unique again when we talk about a child who never drew breath, and a first child at that. I'm mourning the fact that not only did I not get to take my daughter home, I did not even get to see her open her eyes. This wee little baby never laid eyes on her mother. I said recently to a friend I was worried Hope would not recognise me in "heaven" but she made me feel better by saying well "at least she will know your voice". Yes, I guess that is something. So while I also grieve her loss intensely, with ever fibre of my being, I also grieve my lost motherhood and my purpose in life. It is a complex and multi-faceted loss. This is far too complex for me to comprehend most of the time, so why should I expect others to comprehend it. So now, I'm going to stop trying to make others understand. Because you don't know what you don't know.

The old cliches are right - we all deal with loss differently. And you don't know how you will react until it happens to you. I couldn't have told you seven months ago how I would have dealt with this. But now, seven months on, I can't question any of the decisions or choices I have made. This is just the way my story has unfolded.

Sometimes I wonder what people really expect of me? I think it is a god damn miracle I actually get up each morning and eat three balanced meals a day. I can go to the supermarket. I can visit friends. I can speak on the phone again. I even travelled overseas! It is miraculous, to say the very least.

So for now, I give up. I'm not going to fight it anymore. I know others out there agree with me. I know others out there are going through this hell with me. I know more than anything right now, I am not alone - far from it. I know most of this post is repetitive, but hey, it's my blog and I can and will say what I want. So from this moment on, I will stop banging my head up against a brick wall because my emotional reserves are all but spent. And I'm just so damn tired because missing her every waking moment of each and every day is exhausting. I need to dip in to those emotional reserves right now more than ever to try and drag myself forward and to rebuild my shattered life and broken dreams. If you don't get it, don't worry, I wont try and make you Get It anymore. And trust me, it is a very good thing that you don't Get It. The best thing ever in fact. Because if you don't Get It, all of your kids are alive and really, that's all I'm asking for. And it is sadly something I will never get. One of my children, my beautiful first born wee baby girl, will always be dead. I wish I never had to Get that.