New hope

Something I have neglected to mention in the past nine and a bit months is that my sister, the one who held my hand as I pushed Hope in to this world and the one who more than anyone else (right there with Mum and Simon) has stood by me through this shitty mess, was pregnant.

On Thursday, she gave birth to a little girl. Her first child. And they named her Lucy Hope.

I think everyone thought this would be hard for me. Friends keep ringing and texting to make sure I am ok. But I am fine. Really. I am fine.

Yes, I'll admit first finding out she was pregnant, then weeks later getting the news she was having a girl all did tug on my weary heart strings just a bit. And since she was born I suppose there have also been some careless comments from some in our lives along the lines of "oh, how nice, now your family has one of each!" but honetsly, it has been fine. Fine.

I mean I am an aunty now! And it is lovely. Lucy is lovely. I just look at this little girl and feel.....love. That's all. It is like we all say, it is not Lucy I am pining for, it is Hope. And she most certainly is not Hope. She is her own special little being. And what a crop of hair she has!

I also knew she was going to have the middle name Hope. I think my sister was worried I wouldn't like or want this, but honestly, I couldn't be more touched. I never thought for one second she would do this. Goes to show just how much my little Hope's life impacted on hers.

I guess I have also been lucky because my family hasn't been one that has fallen apart in the wake of losing Hope, at least not my immediate family. Relationships with some extended members of the family have become incredibly strained, but they are not even worth mentioning here in this space. They are just filed under "will never get it". But this is my sister. Jealousy is not relevant or welcome here. We are close and certainly much closer because of Hope and really, I am just happy. Purely happy.

When my sister first told me in the middle of last year she and her husband were trying for a baby, it did shock me a little. She's two years younger than me and it has been quite uncanny through life that we have always managed to do things about two years apart.I moved out of home, she moved out two years later. I got engaged, she got engaged two years later. I got married, she got married two years later. I travelled to Europe, she did the same two years later and so on and so forth. Then I had my first baby, and almost two years later she has now had hers. But I guess that's where it gets all messy, for obvious reasons.

So many people have commented how nice it will be for Angus to have a cousin close in age. And that is of course true - it will be nice. It has already been nice. Even at five months old, Angus has seemed very interested in Lucy. Gazing at her, smiling at her, reaching out to touch her. It has been beautiful. But it should never have been this way.

With the first few months of my sister trying for a baby not working out, I'll admit I did breathe a bit easier. I was heavily pregnant with Angus and an emotional time bomb and I just wanted to make sure I got my live baby here first before she got hers. I am the big sister. That's how it is supposed to be for us. I didn't want her getting in before me.

Those first few weeks of her pregnancy I just wasn't able to be there for her, as they were the last few, hellish weeks of mine. I warned her this would be the case. Selfishly, it would have been much easier had she just waited til Angus was safely here, but the maternal switch in her system had been flipped and when you want a baby, you want one yesterday. You don't want to wait. I know when she saw me have Hope, that sparked something in her. You'd think it would have made her go the other way and shy away from pregnancy, childbirth and babies all together. But I think she saw the love through all the pain, and she knew she wanted that for herself. I can't blame her for that.

I often felt sorry for my sister through her nine months carrying Lucy. As she pointed to me, she didn't get the joyous, carefree and innocent first pregnancy I did. She was in a way, babylost by default. She didn't lose a baby, but I lost mine and she lost a niece. And in a tight-knit family, that is close enough. She too gazed down at her belly each day and wondered if the baby would make it. She too asked her husband daily if the baby would live. She also struggled with friends who just couldn't understand why she wasn't "EXCITED!!" Because to most of the world, pregnancy, especially your first is "EXCIIIIIITING!!" She had to fake it a lot of the time, too.

When that test did finally go positive for my sister, she was too afraid to tell me her news. And it was because of the uncanny timing of it all. She took the test on Hope's first birthday. There I was in the depths of my grief and longing for what should have been, and there she was, staring at those two pink lines. Life is never the same after that moment.

So last week, at 40 weeks 5 days gestation, just like my first born little girl, and after 60 hours of labour then an emergency c-section to boot, little Lucy Hope finally entered this world.

New hope for our family.

A reason for me to be truly happy in pregnancy, birth and babies once again. And while Lucy's birth hasn't completely cured me, in that I don't and probably wont ever feel pure joy for the pregnancies, births and babies of everyone else I know again, when it is your family, it is different. And it really does feel good.