Honesty

Some days are just so hard. I really feel like I have two heads sometimes. I don't know how I fit in to this world anymore. I know I still might look the same to some, but to me I look changed. Markedly changed. I know I will never be the same. It would not have taken the old Sally two weeks to psyche herself up for a hairdresser appointment. The old Sally would also not have sat in the car for 10 minutes before said hairdresser appointment, encouraging herself to go in, and that it would be ok.

Said hairdressing appointment was hard. Little things were said. Innocent things that were meant with such kindness, but it still stings. It was not the time and the place to unleash the "honesty beast", so I just smile and let it slide. The last time I was there I was 38 weeks pregnant with my Hope. Last time I was there I was brimming with life and full up on joy. Today I was brimming with life again, but that damn joy is so elusive.

While being pregnant again is re-introducing some aspects of joy to me, an emotion I thought was as good as dead and buried with my daughter, you barely have to scratch the surface to unveil the deep, dark and painful emotions these days.

It doesn't take much. I am still so fragile. Yes even now, almost 11 months on. Hard to believe for the non-babylost, I know.

An innocent comment here and there from a friend, family member or hairdresser. A stranger in the street smiling at your bump. Another text message announcing another baby born, even to the dearest of friends.

Most people really can't win, even when they have the very best of intentions. Most things still grate me. Most things can still be upsetting. Most of the time I get sad when I communicate with anyone, in any way. But I do know most people mean no harm. Sadly though, that's not always the point. I am irrational, I know. Because there is nothing rational about losing your baby.

A lot of people mention in the comments of this blog they love my honesty. That they keep coming back because of the honesty. But so much of the time, I'm not very honest. I hold back. A lot.

It comes from knowing too many in my real life read at this sad place. It is not that I want to say "I hate this person, I hate that person, this person pissed me off, this person said that" but I would like more freedom to be able to say exactly what I'm feeling. All of those horrible dark feelings that I just can't shake. The feelings that many need to understand are very normal and natural. It would be weird if I wasn't feeling black and nasty emotions right now. I mean fuck, my baby died. I can understand why some women would chose not to go on after a loss this. I can see how so many marriages break down. This is utterly life-altering. Devastating. It has completely crushed my spirit.

For the most part, I think my mum and sister are probably sick of hearing about it, even though I know they agree with 99.99 per cent of what I say and that they will listen to me every day for the rest of their lives. And I can't dump it on Simon. He knows it. I know he knows it. There is no point just making ourselves any more miserable in the awfulness of it all. So we leave a lot unsaid. Plus he can always hear half of my conversations on the phone, so he knows where I'm at. And he reads here.

And really, how much longer am I supposed to keep paying the nice counsellor lady $150 a fortnight to dump on her? She's great, and I think I'm getting a lot out of it, but I'm not going to keep this up forever. As everyone says, I'm a "strong" and "brave" girl, so surely eventually I'll be able to head out back in to the big bad world on my own, without the help of professionals. Right?

Some of my friends are truly wonderful, and I do dump a lot on them - but I hold back so much, even if they think what I tell them is so brutally raw and painful. Even if they do think it is hard to hear.

The only place I get to be really honest is during the internal dialogue that goes on inside my grief-stricken head. My brain runs wild with all of the nastiness that comes with babyloss, and most of the time I have no way to let it out. I can spit bits and pieces out in a diary. To other babyloss mamas on email. But they are going through their own shit - we can't always keep dumping on each other. And I know there are some I can't talk to as much now, because of the very fact I am in that elusive place that they are so desperate to be in. The pregnancy after loss. Working towards the rainbow after the storm. And I don't blame them for this. Not one little bit. If I could change anything right now, it would be that all my friends in this new sad life find themselves pregnant again. It has not fixed me, but it is helping and I want that for so many others.

Every now and then though, my intense feelings do come spewing out. In dribs and drabs to random people - whoever it is that happens to get in my way, or inadvertently says the wrong thing.

When that happens, I often get the distinct impression that person is sicking of hearing about it. Most people are. I have after all been saying the same things over and over for 10 months now. There is not much left to say, but I can always find new ways to say it I suppose. I love her. I miss her. I want her back. And this all fucking sucks.

But really what do people want me to do here? What do people expect of me? To lie? Say I am fine, and coping? Say I am happy and enjoying life again? Because I'm not. I'm sad and broken and I still don't know how to live out the rest of my days like this. I still don't know how to live without her. I miss her so damn much. It makes me feel so ill, I shake. She's gone, and I really can't get her back.

So I try to be as honest as I can when I can. Because this stuff has to come out somewhere. I can't bottle it in and at this point, I'm not able to let it go. Yeah, letting go would probably do me the world of good, but I can't. I just can't.

Could anyone blame me though? For not being able to let go? Sometimes I think people need to just stop, take stock and think about what happened. Again.

There was a death in my family. The most important person in my world died. She died inside my body, as my body was trying to labour and bring her forth in to this world. I was five days over due. She was eight pounds and perfect. I was young and healthy. I had a dream pregnancy - everyone I came in to contact with said so. She was our first child. She was the first grandchild. I found out she died then came home carrying her dead body. I spent the night with her dead body inside mine. I sat on this couch I'm now sitting on. I slept in the bed she was made in. I then laboured hooked up to all sorts of nasty drugs for eight hours to get her out of me. To remove her corpse from my body, which miraculously still had a heartbeat. How did I not die with her? I stretched and ripped and was put through all the excruciating pain of labour, only to have a baby's dead body taken from me. Pale and lifeless. Still and broken. Silent and limp. But still the most precious little thing I had ever seen. Simon and I made her. We have made lots of things over the years. A happy marriage, a beautiful warm home and plenty of happy memories from 10 years spent together but Hope, Hope was our greatest achievement, and any parent would say the same. And she was gone before she got here. So dead, so very dead. Nine months of planning. Nine months of joy. Nine months preparing for the best day of our lives only to be plunged in to hell - the worst time of our lives. With a funeral to organise to boot.

I think of her ruby red lips. Her peeling and bruised skin. The smell that was delicious to me, but I also know it wasn't quite right. The evil smell of death. Her eyelids started to go puffy. She had small drops of blood running from her nose. Her finger and toe nails were a deathly purple . She was limp, and when Simon lifted her little legs to put her first and only nappy on, they flopped back down to the change table. I don't think I have ever seen anything so tragic.

After an evening spent with her, she became cold. So very cold. Then after a morning spent in the morgue, she became very stiff. When I last held her, after her sweet body was blessed, it was like I was holding a frozen piece of meat. My daughter. Stiff, cold and dead. My daughter. My first born. My only child. Dead. Can you believe it? I still can't.

Is it any wonder I'm so broken? Sometimes I think I should be in a mental institution. It does not seem like the sort of thing that anyone is supposed to survive. How did those mothers all those years ago survive? Because I'm one of the lucky ones. I got time. I got to make memories. I got to to hold her. See her. Smell her. Kiss her. Yet I'm still an absolute train wreck.

Like others have said so much more eloquently before me, it is like I am standing on the edge of an abyss. At the start, I was in the abyss and I was pretty sure there was no way out. And in those early days, I didn't want out. I needed to be in it, I needed to be feeling it. And in the abyss, I could avoid everything else that was going on in the world around me. Because the world so incredulously kept spinning. After my girl died. Everyone and everything else moved on. And my family, Simon and I were left behind. Left behind in our deep well of grief.

Now I stand on the very edge of that abyss. Teetering on the brink at all times. It does not take much to send me spiralling back in.

Thankfully now I can usually claw my way out. A kick here and there from this new baby. Thoughts of what could become of our lives in November. A delicious meal now that I have a bit of an appetite back.

But I'm still always on the edge, and when I do fall back in, can anyone blame me when I chose honesty over faking it? Because while I know my honesty can hurt, I am sick of having to fake it for people. Because in the end, I'm only doing that to make them feel better. And really I just want me to feel better right now.

Because in my universe, it is all about me. Boring old me. Just like it always has been.