This is a blog about a dead baby. I started it solely because my baby died. The bulk of my readers have also had a baby die and for most of them, that was relatively recently. They hurt, I hurt, so we all come here to this community to hurt together.
But of course my hurt isn't as acute now. I spelled that out for all to see just two days ago. But that doesn't mean that I don't still hurt. I hurt. I am hurting.
This past few days, I've really been struck by a few ironies in the different ways I communicate online. Now that I am well and truly back on the facebooks after an 18 month hiatus straight after Hope died, I can't help but notice the way my "friends" react when I post about Hope. I am a mother, Hope is my daughter. She's as much my daughter as Juliet is and as Angus is my son. When posting stuff to fb, I strive for a balance to make sure I a) don't share too much b) don't post too often so as not to bore and bug people and c) post about all three of them - the dead one, the toddler who challenges me and the not-so-newborn who keeps me up all night. When I post about the dead one, I'm not after sympathy and I'm not throwing a pity party, it is generally just because I have something I want to share and I want people to remember she's still a part of my family, and when I talk about the living ones, I don't always want to gloat about how utterly wonderful they are, so as not to upset any of my more fragile babyloss friends and I also never want it to sound like I am whinging about them, making me seem ungrateful. It is a fine line, and I do my best. Anyway, I digress...
With Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day this weekend, I posted about Hope a little more than usual. I had links to articles I thought people *should* read. I changed my profile picture to some candles spelling out her name and I generally talked about how much I missed her and how much it sucks to live without her. And I couldn't help but notice my friend list shrink by two or three. I have no idea who the disappearing friends are, but they are gone nonetheless (good riddance I suppose?) I know this is not a new phenomenon and other babylost friends have spoken about this before. And the other thing? When I do post about Hope, it is really only ever the babyloss people who respond. There are of course a handful of very special real life friends who comment, but they are the same ones. Every single time. I could post about her right now and be able to tell you who those people will be, without even thinking. It gets tired, and honestly I wonder why I even bother. It is a stupid shiny-happy place and a lot of the time these days my life is shiny and happy, but when it is not, and when I find the time, I come here. To blog...
So two days ago when I posted again after a fairly long break, I spread some of that shiny-happy around. The sort of shiny-happy that probably doesn't belong here at Tuesday's Hope, this sacred place I created in the depths of my pain. If nothing else I guess, it made for a nice change from the sadness and heartache I am normally spouting off about. But of course comments were down. Who on earth wants to read about how wonderful and happy life is, when they are the depths of their own pain, trying to endure their own child's death? I know three years ago, that sort of stuff was hard for me to read about, if I'm being totally honest.
I think all of this has just left me feeling... a bit left out. The people I know in real life who reside in the happy place that is facebook, don't want to keep hearing about the one who is no longer here and the shitstorm that my life turned in to when she left. And those who mourn with me here in this awful land of dead babies don't now want to read about me merrily meandering along life's path, smelling the roses with my two healthy cherubs in toe.
When Hope died, I broke. Her death broke me. I was totally and utterly broken. A sad and lost broken woman. And what I want to say is this: I am still that woman. It is not always obvious and "broken" is not always the first thing I feel when I fall out of bed these days, but on the inside, I'm still smashed to pieces. My heart has been liquidised. At any given moment, on any given day, I can take myself back to the latter months of 2008 and feel that pain. That searing, desperate pain. I don't just remember it, I feel it. I can practically taste it. It is woven in to the fabric of who I am now. Those raw early months will forever haunt me. I both want to forget them and want to hang on to the memory of them forever, as the intensity of the grief in those early days will always connect me to her. When things were at their worst, she was closer. Back then, I could practically still smell her.
Just yesterday, we were in the car heading to our city's memorial walk for lost children that we were taking part in. Then a silly 1970s disco pop song came on the radio, and I started giddily singing along. As you do.
"You see we're born, born, born to be alive (born too be alive)."
"It's good to be alive, to be alive, to be alive.......
And after those shitty lyrics tumbled out of my mouth, and I realised what on earth I was saying, I nearly lost it. I stopped singing, pulled my sunglasses down and hoped to hell Simon didn't notice. Singing about being "born alive" when you're on the way to do a five kilometre charity walk for your daughter who was BORN DEAD - it was one of those ghastly black comedy moments where if you didn't laugh, you would most certainly cry. And you see I didn't really feel like crying, because I knew on a day like that, I might find it hard to stop.
I don't want to attend stupid bloody memorial walks for my dead child. I don't want to be part of this awful club. Quite simply, I don't want to have a child who is dead. I'd just love to get another shot at that former life, where things were simpler and I didn't feel like I was having to keep such conflicting emotions in balance. But that's the thing. This is my life. I am living it and I am trying to do the best I can. Yes, happiness has found it's way back in. By the truck load. But I am still a bereaved mother and I will always be a bereaved mother. I just wish I knew where I fit in these days.
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You've said it well Sally. I'm not in that place of raw, searing pain all the time anymore so my blog paints a different picture to what's really going on. But I don't go there to post about all the wonderful things that are in my life because it's about Matilda. I still cry regularly but generally I'm happy and blessed in my life.
ReplyDeleteThe Wave of Light service took me back to all that pain and I remembered what it was like back then.
I post about it on fb too because I want people to read and understand but I guess it's just that ever deepening realisation that they never will and those that read the things I post are very likely the friends that don't really need to ifkwim.
I'm always here if you want to email.
Maddie x
PS - there's a post over on glow that could do with your input if you want to share.
I liked your post from the other day but I'm a habitually tardy commenter. So I'll just comment on both of these related posts here.
ReplyDeleteI've struggled with the balance of happy and sad from day one due to my particular circumstances. I can't really separate my girls from each other no matter how hard I try. I think it would also be a little insulting to people who arrived in babyloss land with 100% no babies to pretend otherwise.
We're all different in the way we react to things and process these changes but sometimes I almost feel like R's death has made me better able to appreciate happiness. It took me a long time to get to this place but I can see that R's place in my life is also filled with a certain kind of light. You are part of that light and so is Hope and the rest of your family.
In short, I'm happy that you are happy. I wish this could all be easier for you and everyone who reads here but, I think that it's helpful to share the positive with this community every so often.
I love the shiny happy Sally, and the alternative to that. It shows life as it is. Befeft and broken, but healing and happy too.
ReplyDeleteI rarely put personal stuff on FB about Joseph. Sometimes links but that's about it. Because for the most part, I know people (non BLP's) just don't get it and to have no response is such a let down. My own closest friends have never once responded to anything I've put on FB (that sucks). And the ones that have, have really surprised me. Changing friendships and expiring relationships...hmmmm.
Not that it's about wanting responses, but jeez, if it was one of my closest friends! Maybe that's for my own blog post.
Love to you & Simon and your beautiful three. xo
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI don't belong in either category you mention in your post, but I like to read what you have to say.
Shortly after my daughter was born (dec. 2008) I found your blog. It makes me appreciate a lot of things that I probably would have taken for granted otherwise (e.g. the smooth pregnancy and birth of my lovely boy three months ago).
It also makes me think before I open my mouth since things may not be as they seem on the outside.
Since I wish you all the best and don't 'know' you on facebook or in real life, I like to read that you're feeling happy. But if you want to write about feeling down, obviously that is fine too. I'll keep on reading your blog either way.
I like the way you write and am intrigued by what you say.
It is a good thing to make people think, and you do exactly that.
The balance is tough, but I find like everything else it gets better to manage with time. I personally find that *I* don't have a problem being mostly happy (and grateful and blessed and fortunate and all the other goofy irony I tend to feel these days) with the occasional downspot -- and I find that my friends in the computer completely get that. What I worry about are the outside people -- the dumbass family, mostly -- who will read my happiness as "all better." Who will read my son as "problem solved." Who will read my weight loss as "over it, back to normal." When we all know that's not remotely the case.
ReplyDeleteThat's the juggling I find difficult, and at some point I suppose time will let me jetison wtf I care about what someone else thinks about me. You'd think I could've let that much go by now.
Sending you love. You can always put those contrasting feelings that tend to happen within hours of each other right here, because I think this space is exactly what can contain it, and where the readers will totally understand.
Sally, I love you no matter how you come, sad, happy/shiny, bleak, hurt, radiant. Here, abiding and sending love across the ocean. And I get it. I really do. I constantly walk that line.
ReplyDeleteYou know what? This is your blog and your space, and if you can't even write unflinchingly of what you feel, then what's the point?
ReplyDeleteYou started the blog in deep pain, and three years on this is just a story of evolution.
Hope is not forgotten, and there is Angus to contend with and Juliet who is the new ray. Just say whatever you want.
BTW, my experience is that tragedy always attracts more hits/followership than those happy endings kind of thing.
My 'followers' actually doubled in January, and post-migration to the new abode, I am back to the more realistic figure that was there to begin with. Why did my blog become suddenly desirable with my daughter's death is something I fail to understand.
I keep sharing links and such on FB, because I hope that atleast one person in my non BLM/blog pal list will also find out what it feels like to be in this place.
But then I cut out on sharing stuff too. I am yet to 'come out' about my pregnancy there.
This shiny-happy person is you, and that sad person is you too.
Just be.
I know that when I was newly pg and someone else (another B name) was newly babylost, I said something to her along the lines that she might find my blog hard to read at that minute. She said no, that it gave her hope for the future, that things might not always be that bad.
ReplyDeleteYou might be giving hope to people even if they don't comment. But I can understand the feeling uneasy. I feel very odd about my blog atm. I feel like I'm betraying my little lost one to be all happy there - but my reality is that I *am* that happy right now. I suspect that over time the sad will return and it'll all balance out, but right now I'm still on the high of 'I made a living baby and didn't go completely and permanently insane on the way'.
Your profile pic took my breath away.
My number of fb friends fluctuates regularly anyway, whatever I talk about.
I understand 100% of what you are saying and it can be so frustrating. You posted what you were feeling the other day and seeing as this is your blog, you have every right to do that. I am in the same boat as to where do I belong b/c so many want to say to me, "Well, you have 3 kids now - what's the problem?" I know that's what they are thinking but a piece of me is gone and will always been gone.
ReplyDeleteSally, I'm so glad for this post (and the last one), you have put into words so much that makes perfect sense to me.
ReplyDeleteThis is how we are, we are happy/sad we always will be, sadly there are many who just can't understand that, and many more who don't want to.
Even though my dead baby is still my most recent one, I loved the post you wrote.
ReplyDeleteSince joining this community, I have realised that there were going to be some people who would 'meet' me but not read my blog, because I have living children. For a while I thought maybe I should keep those posts on a different blog, but quite simply, that is not for me. Freddie and everything about him IS part of my living life and the one I live with my other children. He colours all aspects of our family life. To separate him would be to dishonour him.
To only ever be sad about him would dishonour him. I love that my children have funny Freddie's pregnancy stories. It helps.
As for the shrinking friend list - ah well, their process. Maybe it just hurts too much for them in some way you happen not to know of. Or maybe they are rubbish. Either way, it's not you that made them leave, it is their ability to deal with your reality. Not your fault :)
What St. Elsewhere said is right on. But I understand the desire to want to shield your readers from things that may be painful for them to see. Still, how can it be bad to write about how life is still good for you even after experiencing something so tragic? People need hope too.
ReplyDeleteSally, even though I started blogging about Henry after K. was born, and even though I started writing there (instead of the CarePage I kept when Henry was in the hospital) so that I could write about things that weren't necessarily related (or obviously related) to him, I found it didn't work that way for me for a long time. I sometimes found it hard writing about K. because, like you, I knew there were people who hadn't had or couldn't have or weren't even at the point of thinking about having a new baby. I still don't write about K and E a lot (or maybe I do), but I find that evolving. Angie's Right Where I Am project kind of helped put that in perspective for me, because where I am now is dealing with two living children and all the joy and challenge that brings and noticing the changes in my grief and relationship with Henry as time passes. I also remember needing to see what the future might look like both the joy and the sorrow and the places those intersected. It's harder to write now and perhaps not as necessary, but the change is worth talking about too. I love that you are having the joy and I know it doesn't mean that you all "better," but I look forward to hearing from you as Mama to Hope and Angus and Juliet.
ReplyDeleteYou fit in with all of us who are also finding the happy/sad balance. It's a good thing to have happiness back. You have to remember that those people who are still in that terrible dark place will eventually find the light again too, and they will understand.
ReplyDeleteI know exactly what you mean about FB. It is always the same handful of people that comment on my posts about Layla (which are usually limited to anniversaries and 10/15 these days). Sometimes a couple will surprise me, but most are silent. I just chalk it up to them not knowing what to say. Of course, I used to invent terrible things they *must* have been thinking about me, but I had to give that up. ;) I'm sure some people don't understand why I don't just get over it/shut up about it already, but in that case I prefer their silence. :)
p.s. I added you on FB! :)
Another late poster here--I find my time to read and post lately is so small it's really frustrating. I loved your post the other day, and I get where you're at, too.
ReplyDeleteAs you know I posted a lot about babyloss on the eff beez this past weekend, and I kind of felt like, by Sunday night, people were like, "ALL RIGHT ALREADY. WE REMEMBER." I mean, I guess not really, but a little.
This too is a festering blog post which, again, I've run out of time to write. You're the bees knees, Sally, and I completely get what you're saying.
xo
I commented on your other post and then came to this one - I was a little late catching up because - well, it's my weekend of sad. I thought both posts were brilliant and together capture the complexity of where we are now, post loss and with subsequent children to bring light back.
ReplyDeleteI cheat on FB and only have babylost friends and most of my updates are to do with Emma. I never did get it really when I had my old "normal" account -it seemed such a strange place. Now, it's an extension of my blog really and I've finally got comfortable with the mixture of joy and sadness there. I hope you can too Sally, because you are such a brilliant writer and offer such a lot to this community.
You know..it sucks that you have to make excuses for anything you feel. It is funny that I have all kinds of guilt about Camille's death but I never felt guilty about laughing after she died. Hope was your first baby and so in a way your experience is different than mine. Kai is alive and needs to be loved and laughed with...he needs to be mothered and fathered and you know what? There is a lot of love and joy to be had in this life. There is also sadness and despair and grief. Right now I'm in the pit of it, BUT I know how glad I am to be alive, and have my family be ALIVE. I just wish Camille was too. You should rejoice in Angus and Juliet...they are your children who need love and joy and to be mothered and fathered. It is hard, the living both sadness and happiness simultaneously, but that is what we do when our child dies. I was talking to my mother last night about the memorial I went to and blogging and support group and therapy and ALL THE CRAP I wish I wasn't doing...I just want my baby daughter. Walks, and candles seem cheap and cheesy to me. I do them and appreciate them but they suck you know. My mother started crying. She didn't know about Oct 15, but you know what? she was crying because her son Skipper (my little brother) died 27 years ago after living for 4 hours. She has had a lot of love and joy in her life, and 27 years later she cries about her son. That sounds about right to me. Always sad for the baby we don't get to love and watch grow and thankful for the child or children that we do. You keep being true to yourself and your feelings. I am sending you light and love.
ReplyDeleteIt's been just over 10 months for me and I am 11 weeks pregnant with baby no. 2. I like reading your blog because you are a bit further down this grief road than I am. It is important to read that life can be happy and good so I need that, but I also understand it will never be whole and I will always have an Addi size hole in my heart. I never quite know where I fit in either...I think it's the nature of the beast. I am no longer a first time mother and yet I have no real experience with my child at home...I also feel like being pregnant gets me kicked out of the original BLM club and now I am somewhere in the middle...still grieving, but also trying to find joy in this pregnancy with this baby...it's all so messed up. I think it's important you write whatever it is you feel at the time, this is your journey and no one else's. Thanks so much for sharing!
ReplyDeletehi sally,
ReplyDeletedear friend, you belong in my life both here and on the facebooks...through the happy and the sad. I enjoy and find comfort from seeing and knowing what life is like for you now - both the joys of having juju and angus here with you and the sadness of not having hope here. I appreciate the full spectrum of it. I realize I can only speak for myself, but please know that I truly appreciate having your voice in my life, and having you as a friend as we navigate this tricky path of life after loss. my lack of commenting was purely from not having two hands to strike a keyboard.
love to you, xo
Oh my darling friend.. I think you fit right where you are. Right here of course, even on the days when you may not feel it inside.
ReplyDeleteIn my world the face is just a bunch of shiny happy BS where there never seems to be any reality. I feel far more real, open and honest over here in blog land.. but that is just me.
This is your place to say whatever comes to mind.. in whatever form. My hope for you is that you will continue to share the moments of your life- both light and dark. That is after all what life 'after' is often defined by.
Love to you mamma....
While I could never truly compare my situation to your own - I have had early pregnancy losses, but not the MUCH more painful loss of a real child - I think I get where you're coming from on this. I now have a baby, but after so many years of trying and losses I am not the person I was. Partly that's for the good - I am better for it in some ways - but bits of me are broken. And the rest of the world expects that now that I have a child, the past is wiped clean and I will join in with the other "normal" new mums. I find I feel most at home with others like me - I am meeting a friend tomorrow who has a baby one month younger than mine after the same amount of losses. I am lucky to have been a member of an infertility support group, all of whom have gone on to have babies one way or another, and when we meet as a group I get to feel normal. It is beyond me that other parents are not more sympathetic to pregnancy and infant loss - two seconds thought about what life might be like had it been THEM it had happened to should surely give them more insight. Old-fashioned, superstitious fear, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteMe too Sal, me too. xx
ReplyDeleteEven though I'm still double deep in the mud, being only seven months out, I really needed and appreciated your last post. Personally, I like reading about ALL of it. The hope and joy, the pain and suffering.
ReplyDeleteLove to you and your partner and the kiddos.
Josh
Hi Sally - I tried to post a comment on the evening of your last post but my iPod kept freezing so it never made it through.
ReplyDeleteI came across your blog after friends of mine lost their little girl and I wanted to know how I could support them.
What I was going to say was, "Thank you for sharing all of your story Sally. By sharing your Hope and your journey with so many people I am sure you have brought hope to others."
I don't think you should ever feel guilty about sharing your joy in Angus and Juliet nor should you ever feel you should shy away from speaking about Hope. They are all part of who you are here and there. xxx
I know exactly where you are coming from and your words hit home.
ReplyDeleteI feel out of place with my babylost friends and those who haven't lost a baby don't understand.
Existing and finding our place in the middle is hard.
Thank you for posting this.
My dearest Sally. I grieve with you and am hurt by your loss. I dont have a dead baby, but I have a dead mother....and I can feel the pain of losing someone most important.
ReplyDeleteI too get flashback of the day I lost her. And its been a year and a half..but still feels like today.
I grieve with you.
lots of hugs
childwoman
Hopefully this didn't post twice...but I'm late to this post and comments. I sooo get this though. I'm glad fir the truckloads of happiness amidst the heart broken moments too. I'm glad for you and your willingness to share with us. Much love to you.
ReplyDeleteI am only three months out and not really in the happy stage at the moment. But seeing what you write like all the others said, well it gives hope for tomorrow. And isn't that what your blog should do bring Hope back for those who read. By posting here your happy and your sad you keep your darling Hope remembered.
ReplyDeleteYou have given me hope, for a better tomorrow and maybe some smiles and good days where I can cuddle with my kids and just feel happy for what I am so lucky to have. You should always write what you feel.
You write so beautifully... and your words are so true. It was lovely to read about your happy and optimistic post... it gave me inspiration to keep going on my TTC journey and I'm sure it did for other too. You are an amazing mum. I wish others understood our journey better... or at least too the time to listen. Love to you always xoxo
ReplyDeleteLike TracyOC, from a couple of months out, when it looked more likely that J would live, I've had the happy to balance out the sad.
ReplyDeleteFacebook is just for fake me, you know that most of my posts consist of happy, shiny photographs of my living children. I've started to feel self conscious about posting about Georgina and that makes me hate myself. Like you, I view her as one of my children and she should be given equal 'air time' and importance. But other people won't see it that way I'm sure. I'm fairly sure some people have befriended me on facebook solely to come look at the 'carwreck.'
If it helps, I'm meandering alongside you (albeit on the other side of the world) with my two rosy cherubs in tow and I'm fairly merry for the most part. But I know that you're still broken. Because I am too xo
I am glad you are finding happiness. You certainly deserve it.
ReplyDelete...and you have an eloquent way describing how you feel... of describing how the balance in your life is growing.
Said amazingly well Sally, thank you for putting into words what I have been struggling with in my own heart to even articulate to myself and my husband. I hope you don't mind if I share your post on my blog? I have to say that there is no other blogger I enjoy reading more than you, your raw authenticity is simply amazing and it is refreshing and so helpful xx
ReplyDeleteI saw your comment and had to come over and read the post you were referring to. How amazing that we should find ourselves on the same wavelength at the same point in our grief. I felt such a connection to your writing here Sally... especially when you said " I also never want it to sound like I am whinging about them, making me seem ungrateful." Sometimes I put wayyyy too much thought into how I will come across if I mention that this one kept me up the last seven nights, or that one is into biting during feedings. I think of how I felt last year, the year before, and how to hear anyone say anything about their rainbow other than 'i am so lucky. i am so lucky. i am so lucky' made me want to spit at them. it is hard, this balance. but the reality is that you are both a broken woman and an overjoyed woman depending on which way the day flows, and neither emotion discounts the love you feel for any of your children. missing hope, does not make angus and juliet any less loved. loving them, does not make hope any less missed. i have been working on this a lot lately and think i have finally 'nearly' come to peace with and accepted that. love to you. i am so grateful to your comment for having me come over here and read. i have missed blog reading these last few months and your words are always so special to me.
ReplyDeleteLove you sweet pea. xx
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness Sally, wow.
ReplyDeletePlease don't ever stop writing, especially here. You have a gift with it, you cut through stuff with a precision and truth that is just beautiful. People need your honesty. I don't know why I know that but I just do.
Hope was (is) just a gorgeous, precious wee girl. I have goosebumps from reading your bio.
So nice to meet you.
Eden x
I agree with St. Elsewhere - this is a story of evolution. I am so glad that you can experience happiness - it's been hard earned and well deserved. That doesn't for a second mean that I think you are 'fixed', 'healed' or 'over it'. I know you are still broken - just as I know I always will be, but I hope that it won't always weigh so heavy, and that joy and broken-ness can somehow coexist.
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for everyone else, but having experienced the worst kind of fairweather friends after losing Seamus, I'm not about to do the reverse and scarper when someone seems to have found happiness. Share it all, as you have been doing from the start... it's a wonderful tribute to your beautiful Hope.