30 and 30

Today I am 30 weeks pregnant. Coincidentally, tomorrow I will be 30 years old. Feels significant. I guess it is. Hooray for me.

I can honestly say this is not where I thought I'd be at 30. In fact a bloody long way from it. Having met Simon at 19 and marrying him at 25, our one dream goal was to have a baby before we were 30 (Simon turned 30 in January). We knew we always wanted kids, and a few of them, so we didn't want to wait. I was terrified at the prospect of leaving it until we were older, then suddenly realising we might have a problem, meaning it would all be too late. We were lucky to meet so young, so we wanted to make the most of it. But really, we still did wait a looooooooong time, considering how young we were when we met. And we copped much flak and had much pressure put on us to HURRY UP AND HAVE A BABY ALREADY!

But did we achieve our goal?

Yes? No? Sort of? I really don't know.

I mean we had a baby. We have a baby. We became parents at 28 and 29 years of age. We did it.

But she's not here.

And then there is our boy. He's here. He's so very here. But still so not here. It is still just Sally, Simon and the dog. Still just the two of us, as always, even though this wee one in my belly now pounds my ribs as I type.

These days, these big milestones, are all just so hard now when I think about how I imagined they could have been. I had clear visions of having my little one tottering around at my 30th birthday, playing with all of our friends' kiddies born around the same time. Just like I imagined cradling my precious and tiny newborn last year on my 29th birthday. None of these big days will ever be as they should be now. And this is what I think a lot in my real life don't realise. It isn't just the first year of milestones that is hard, it is all of them. For the rest of my life. I'll never have my little girl on my hip to help me blow out my candles even if at some point, her brother can. And this year, for a milestone birthday, that would have been so bloody special. Bad enough she'll never get to blow out any of her own candles. But damn it, today I'm being selfish. I want her here for MY big day. I still want to stamp my feet and sulk most days. I'm just so pissed this is how things worked out for me. And of course so very sad.

I do feel lucky and glad I get to spend this birthday pregnant with our son, though. Pregnant, and at this point, gloriously round. When I think about the sheer horror that was my 29th birthday, this sure does feel like a walk in the park by comparison. Much of that shocking rawness has gone but the deep ache has now taken its place. And that's the ache I know I wont ever be able to shake. The permanent scar on my soul from the devastation that is babyloss.

And I also feel lucky that I am only 30. That I have years - good years - ahead of me to try and work towards building that future I'd always hoped of (just that it wont ever look as it should have). But in the same breath: 30? Really? Shit. I feel 100. This seems like too much for someone my age to have lived through. I remember at Hope's funeral hearing the celebrant say the word "parents" and thinking she was talking about our parents. Or "grandparents", and thinking she was talking about our grandparents. I couldn't believe that she was talking about us, and our parents - Hope's grandparents. I felt like a baby myself. Yet here we were, the blissfully happy young couple, me sitting there in my fancy new grey dress, watching our first and only child get buried in to the cold, hard earth. And watching Simon carry that tiny white box. No one should have to see their husband do that. Sometimes I'm amazed I just didn't throw myself in that big hole with her. Because in those early weeks, that's the only place I wanted to be, nutty as it might sound.

We're not really doing anything all that special for my day. I still feel funny about celebrating birthdays at all anymore. I think that comes from having a stillborn baby. Celebrating the anniversary of the day when me or anyone else was born alive is hard for me. It just is. The most important person in my entire world was dead on her birthday. Dead. The day she was born, was the day after she died. She was dead. I pushed her out of me, dead. Dead. I know I should rejoice the fact I escaped the womb alive and that all those other special people in my life did, but it is still hard. So we'll keep things pretty low key. But I know Simon wants to make it as special as he can for me, bless his heart.

So here I am, in the twilight hours of my 20s. You'd think I'd have something more profound or insightful to say. But I still think a lot of that extreme disbelief is there. Those thoughts that "shit, this really happened to me". That before I turned 30, I attended my own child's funeral. That the first time I got pregnant, it ended in disaster. A death. And that here I am again now, hugely pregnant. Again! I still really can't believe it. Any of it.

I can say my 20s were good years, though. Great years. So much happened. Finished uni. Moved in with Simon. Married Simon. Landed good jobs. Travelled overseas for the first time. Bought a house. Got pregnant. Had a baby. Buried a baby. Grieved heavily. Got pregnant again. Continued to grieve.

And looking over that, it feels like a lot. Pretty action packed years whatever way you look at it. I can only hope that my 30s bring me more of the good things life has to offer. And then so much more.