Grace period & October 15

This time two years ago, nary a baby of mine to be seen and fully immersed in sad the world of babyloss blogging, I remember reading that it would take two years before I felt myself again or found any sort of peace or healing. Two years have passed, as well as two more months and I don't know if I feel like I thought I would when I first read that statement. I'm not sure what exactly it was that I expected, but I don't think it was this.

I don't know who I really am any more. Well I do. And that's a mother. A grieving mother. That's not who I was two years and two months ago. I was a young woman on the brink of something very significant that was about to happen. I thought that was to be the birth of my daughter and in a sense I was right, but I had no idea that it would be her death as well. Her stillbirth. A word that still gives me the shivers.

What I do know is, after all this time, I get a sense many think my grace period for grief is up and that I should be somewhere else on the grief timeline or possibly at the other end of the damn timeline all together. If there are indeed stages of grief, I'm sure most would argue that it is high time I move beyond all of them.

While it does feel good that I have in fact shifted myself to a place where I can function and participate in a world again as I go about my job of raising my young son, some days I do miss the early stages of my grief. Because during that time, everything was about me and my grief due to the great catastrophe that had just befallen us, as selfish as that sounds. I was given a lot of leeway. If I didn't want to talk on the phone - people wouldn't call me. If I didn't want to attend birthday parties, weddings or functions of any kind - people didn't bat an eyelid. Everyone listened to my "woe is me" cries and people never really, at least not to my face, had any problem with anything I said or did. Because I was suffering and in pain and it was my time to do or say whatever the hell I wanted in order to survive - and survival was all anyone could ask of me. While many fell by the wayside in this process, the most important people stood by me through thick and thin.

I often wonder about those who drifted out of my life. Those who said they would do anything for us. At the time, we didn't call on many of those people. There were those who just stepped up and did things - raised money, sent flowers, sent meals, distracted us in any way they were able to but the others who just threw out the old line "call us if you need us", I wonder where many of them are now.

What would happen if I started calling them? "Yep, actually - can you come around and mow my lawns on the weekend? Death of my daughter is still getting me down, even after all this time and you said you'd do anything you could to help. Turns out, I think we need the help now."

I wonder who, if anyone would jump in and help us now. Because like I said, I really think our grace period is up. As it has been said before by others, grief certainly does last longer than sympathy.

I know it is wrong to assume but I am almost certain that there are some in my life who think I need to be doing things I'm still not doing, and to be specific that is start seeing some people I haven't seen in two years. And to be more specific, most of those people are mothers who had babies born in 2008. Many of them are baby girls. In most cases, I am still not ready. I don't know when I will be ready but just because I am now miraculously two years from the hellish event with one living baby to my name, it doesn't mean I'm up to it.

On my amazing living child, some have even had the audacity to tell me that I need to be MORE grateful for him. That I've had two healthy, full term pregnancies and one healthy child to come from them and that I really should count my blessings more often. And this ludicrous statement came from someone in my extended family who hasn't been there through this entire grief journey with me - they have kept their distance and silently judged from the sidelines the whole way along. It doesn't even really make me angry, it almost makes me laugh. Because anyone who knows me and who matters knows that I am so grateful for Angus, I could almost explode with gratitude.

With all the gratitude in the world though, it doesn't mean the hurt is not still there. And that is what is so hard for many to understand, I think. He's here and he's alive and thriving, but each day it is still painfully obvious that one is still missing. There is always one missing.

It occurred to me last weekend that the good times are in fact, often the worst. The days where the sun is shining, everyone is happy, there is food and wine and all the important people are there - it just hits you like a freight train that no, in fact, not everyone is there. There is always one missing. There will always be one missing.

It is like the Hope-shaped hole in my life gets bigger every day. She would be growing, changing, meeting new milestones and doing new things each and every day if she was here. So because of that, I feel the void in my life with her absence grows deeper with each passing day. I can't really imagine who she'd be or what she'd be doing, and I barely even stop to just THINK about her any more, but there is that desperate longing and impossible ache that never goes away. I catch glimpses of her pictures around my house. I imagine a day when I have to tell Angus about her. I get a flash back to the exact moment of learning there was no heartbeat. And in those moments, the pain is new and raw and fresh again.

In a way, I think my grief resets itself everyday. She would be different every day, so my grief is also different every day. It all comes down to how I am able to process and get through it on a daily basis. Some days I have more time to sit down, think of her, think of my hurt and sit with the sadness, others I am so busy keeping Angus out of trouble that I barely have time to tap in to that pain. Days like today when I sit down to write, I guess I am sitting with the pain.

What I think others don't often understand is, that if she was here, I wouldn't have stopped fussing over her, talking about her and generally being absolutely obsessed by her every amazing, new move. As she'd be alive. And when it comes to babies, I find that's generally how most want them to be, for the sake of decency and comfort. If I've learnt nothing else in two and a bit years it is that no one likes a dead baby.

So why is it that because she's gone, people now seem to think the time to talk about her is up? That I need to more healed, less angry, more moved on, less sad. I really do feel as if the grace period is up. And I guess that's why I've had to dust the cobwebs off here as this is hopefully the only place where the grace period will last as long as I do.

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So on the eve of my third October 15th since Hope was born, I really did feel it was time to write again. It has been over a month. The longest I have ever gone without stopping in here I think. I had grown tired with it all. Reading, writing, commenting - the lot. And I never thought the day would come. Quite often now, I can go four or five days without even checking a single blog on my reader and not feel as breathless and desperate for the words as I once did. I guess from two years ago, that is progress.

I think I was worried that this place wasn't living up to what I wanted it to be. And I'm not even really sure what that was. I wanted it to be a place I could visit and write openly and honestly about my grief. I have never really been proud of anything I've written here and with so many wonderful writers in this little community now, I didn't think my blog had a place any more. But I know that it does, because Hope has a place in this world and this is one of the only places that I can safely share her. So I do need to work on ditching my inhibitions and not worrying if this blog isn't going to win any awards for babyloss blogging excellence or dead baby literary magnificence.

I think this time of year often brings out even the most casual of babyloss bloggers and encourages them to do as I have done and dust the cobwebs off their respective online grieving spaces. As this time is for us, and it is the only time of year we get. At this time, we remember them all - even though every parent with a broken heart is remembering their lost child/ren every moment of ever day.

Last year I attempted to write a list of all the babies I was missing, as well as my own. And it almost got out of hand, as I set myself up to fail and forget. Given I feel I have been one of the most selfish babyloss bloggers I know, in that I've never written names in the sand, made jewellery, made art or created anything for any other grieving mother - this year I want to try and give something back. I was going to attempt to light 2000 candles to represent all the babies stillborn in Australia every year, but I probably needed to give it a test run and Simon did joke that by the time I had lit the 2000th candle, the first ones would have burnt out. Not to mention it probably would have taken the entire hour. But I would like to try and light a candle for anyone who leaves a comment here for the baby or babies they are missing. I might be shooting myself in the foot if I get more than 2000 comments, but given how long it has been since my last post and that the big day is tomorrow, (not to mention Australia being ahead of most of the rest of the world), I doubt it!

I will include all the babies I already know of and read about and if you are not sure if your baby is one of those, please leave a comment.

In any case, I am looking forward to doing my bit, contributing to the wave of light, giving back and remembering all of our babies.

They will never be forgotten.