Slow days

The great chasm between what I could/should/would be doing and what I'm currently doing, seems to grow wider with each day that passes.

I am just so bored.

People ask, concerned as always, what I do to fill my days and the answer is mostly "not much".

And I don't need people to tell me I need a hobby or a craft - something to do to pass the time. I get in the garden when I feel like it, but the cool days make it hard. Sometimes I cook. But nothing really satisfies me. There is not a hobby in the world that could keep this boredom at bay. I just miss my baby girl. I'm so bored at home without her, always wondering what should have been and how much different and better things really could have been for us. Should have been for us. I know I always go on about it, but we really shouldn't be here. She really should never have died.

For me, not returning to work after losing Hope was definitely the right decision to make, but it has left me riddled with guilt for months on end. I worry people judge me and think I should just be getting up and getting on with it - and that returning to work would have been the answer, the cure, the fix-all. But I let it go most of the time. I try to let those comments wash over me. I know in the long run, this time at home will be better for me as it has allowed me to give myself over fully to the grief and the sometimes ugly grief process. Now of course I'm growing a new baby as well. And I forgot how tiring that really was.

It is just so quiet here most days. There are a few who call. More who email. A small handful who visit, and who I'm happy to have visit. I go and visit an even smaller few, on days where I feel I must get out of the house. I go to the shops when absolutely necessary. If the dog is lucky, he gets a walk.

But I'm just so damn bored and lonely most of the time and time really is starting to feel like it is standing still.

I really should be very busy right now. So busy I don't think I'd know what to do with myself. And I've always been a pretty busy person. Full time job, sports, social life, family life and trying to get some time alone with Simon on the weekend - when he's not off fulfilling all his other engagements as well. Life was never dull. But parenting was going to be a new kind of busy and we were so looking forward to it.

The days are just long and empty now for the most part. And all the same. Wake, eat, read emails, read blogs, eat, watch junk on tv, wait for Simon to get home, cook dinner, speak to mum on phone to tell her about said boring day, sleep - rinse and repeat the next day. And the next week. And the next month. And so forth.

And I know people offer to do things with us, and more often than not we turn them down, but even in my heavy loneliness and boredom, there is really still only so much I feel up to doing. Putting on a happy face to get out and about, even if just to have a coffee or visit a friend is so exhausting. Because I know not everyone wants to hear about my sad and sorry life all of the time. And I just find it hard to listen to other peoples' happy lives any more than I'm currently doing. So staying home and alone for the most part it is. And no, I am not depressed and I don't need or want pills. I'm just stuck in grief hell and there is no way out of it, I just have to go through it.

It is also slowly starting to dawn on me, how very different my life could become in just three and a bit months time. We should be the most prepared parents in the world given we don't have any baby things left to buy, we don't have a nursery to set up and I have all the spare time in the world to read every parenting book known to mankind to get some idea of what we are hopefully about to get ourselves in to.

Truth is, I feel far less prepared this time around. I can not for the life of me fathom having a small person in this house, who will require each and every one of his needs tended to 24 hours a day. I have no idea what it is going to be like to not have to put myself first, for once in my life. Even though a very large stint in the pregnant state has made me have to do that to a degree, I know having a baby at home is going to be a whole new ball game. And is that a game I am ready to play?

In my weakest moments, I actually think: "what the hell are we doing? Are we ready for this? Should we be doing this? Was it right to get pregnant again relatively quickly again while we are still in the depths of our painful grief? Are we going to be able to manage this? CAN WE DO THIS? The parenting the live baby thing? The real deal?" I have to stop myself though, as I think back to those desperate days in January and February and I know I couldn't go back there - no baby and no pregnancy and at times, no hope. I know this was the right thing to do. But the reality of it all is much harder than I'd ever imagined.

I don't feel as sure about my instincts anymore. That all shattered when I suspected something might be wrong during my labour with Hope, but didn't do enough about it - then let a bunch of jaded midwives convince me the same.

I guess (like any mother) I'm just worried. I once again have no idea of what lies ahead and I'm terrified. Terrified of Hope's anniversary and how the hell we are supposed to mark the day, the rest of this pregnancy, labour and birth then what actually happens when/if the baby is born alive and I DO get to bring him home? What do I do? How will I cope?

Should I dust off all those parenting books so lovingly given to us this time last year? Should I start brushing up on it all again? I read quite a lot this time last year, but none of it stuck. I forget each and every last word I read. I just don't know what to do.

And people tell me I need to relax, but at this point I don't see I have much to relax about. My whole life is on the line with this pregnancy. It was with Hope too I guess, I just never realised it. I was just so smugly confident she'd be here and that all would be well. I feel like such an idiot now.

Most of the thoughts in my head only do swirl around like this because I do have too much time. Too much time to sit at home and stew and fester in my own evil thoughts. To much time to over-think things. To analyse everything to the nth-degree. Just too much damn time.

And I am bored. Bored being so alone all the time when now is a time in my life when I should have never been alone - my little girl would have always been trailing behind me. Bored when boredom is the last thing I should be feeling as the mother of a little girl about to turn one. Bored waiting for my life to change. Bored waiting for the unknown. I'm just bored.