Aching, missing

As this pregnancy begins to wind up, lately I have been missing her. Really missing her.

I've had to put so much of my grief, my missing and my sadness aside as I've grown my son, otherwise I would not have survived the days, but now as we crawl towards a delivery date, the missing is back full force. I want her back.

I must glance up at her picture on the wall 100 times a day, but most of the time, I barely have the time or energy to stop and really drink her in. Today I did.

I miss her. I miss everything about her. Everything I don't know about her. All of it. I just miss her. Miss. Her. It seems insurmountable I have to live the rest of my life like this. It is bullshit, it really is.

I miss her when I see other children who must be about her age. I miss her when I'm with friends and I happen to notice that she's not there, and their kids play on and live on without her. I miss her on my endless days at home alone. I miss her when I'm out and about and facing the world. I'm just always missing her. Really missing her.

A lot of this missing and aching comes from a recent development in our story/saga that proves what we knew all along - Hope should never have died. As part of the complaint process that is currently active against our hospital, we had to seek a second opinion from an independent medical expert about our case. Last week, that opinion came back very much in our favour. That our care in those final, vital days while I laboured at home overdue, alone and confused was not appropriate/acceptable and as a result our outcome could have been much different. It is a bitter pill to swallow, even if it does validate all the feelings we have had about what happened and proves what we all knew all along.

While we feel vindicated, we just feel so angry all over again. And as we find ourselves here, at the very end of this gruelling pregnancy, where each day now feels like nine months in itself, with all the worry jam packed in to each and every hour, we continue to shake our heads in disbelief. How did this happen? How did we get here? What happened to our lives? When can we get our old lives back?

I'm flat and tired. I know we can now pursue things further with our complaint. We can keep up the fight, and possibly get a sliver of "closure", dare I say that word, but I feel so spent. It wont bring her back. And at this point, with all this draining gestating going on, I feel I don't have the energy. I guess at some point in the future, when/if Thumper enters our world alive, we can resume our battle and really make sure someone takes responsibility for what happened. For 14 months, that's all I've wanted. To hear someone say that they were wrong and that they were sorry. I feel enough guilt and responsibility myself for my daughter's death, but I know I wasn't fully to blame, if at all, and that most of the blame lays with those who were supposed to be taking care of me. Me and my baby. How did those professionals let this happen to me? To Hope? An innocent little baby girl, all ready to start her life. It is so unfair.

I'm just so sad this is our story. That this is our reality. That I'm the person that had this awful, terrible thing happen to them. Even though I know awful and terrible things happen to other people all over the world, all the time, some days I selfishly feel: "it really couldn't get much worse than this". I know it could though, but I can't let myself go there, I just can't - and especially not now. I just have to hope for me, this is as bad as it gets and somehow, rebuild my life from here once our son enters it.

So things have been busy here of late, as I wade my way through the anticipation, excitement, sadness and missing. We had a relative take some photos of us. The tiny family of three. Almost. Four? Not really. Whatever. While my heart wasn't 100 per cent in it and I think my eyes give away much of my sadness and longing, I know in months and years to come, I will treasure the photos.

And my Thumper, well he continues to thrive. If I do say so myself, I am good at growing babies. We're just past 36 weeks now, but he's measuring just past 39. And life on the outside is all of a sudden now very ready for him. Our hospital bags are packed, the car seat has been put back in and we're all set to go. Just have to see if he picks his own birthday or the obstetrician does (or if mummy has a serious mental break down and marches in and demands a date herself). It continues to be a waiting game, but we feel better about the "plans" we sort of have in place now. So while we ache and we miss, we continue to wait in hope for all that is ahead of us in the days and weeks ahead.