Miscarriage

It’s not a word that I ever thought would become part of me. There are lots of other words that I had readily accepted as part of my life: death, grief, cancer, failure, pain. Words that fill us with dread. But miscarriage isn’t one I saw becoming part of my landscape, part of my history. Part of me.

And it’s a part of me that is being lost. Right now. Waves of pain crash into an emptying void where, just three days ago, bright hopes lay. I cannot sleep and so I write this.

Utter hopelessness was my first reaction. I am a doer. When the doctor shook her head and said “Oh dear” I wanted there to be something I could do. But there wasn’t, and there isn’t and so I am losing this little life, living through this process as nature decides and my body responds.

I am OK with that decision. Nature has its reasons and I understand that it is for the best. But it is a decision of such sorrow. It is a decision where light and laughter and fun and wild times of a growing family are snatched away before you had the chance to see them properly. It is a decision which is an aggressive attack on me as a woman; a decision which rips out what it means to be female. I can no longer nurture or protect that little life as I should.  

And it is a decision I have no answers to. There can be no whys because there are no answers.

Just silence.

So we hold hands and we savour every drop of our beautiful young son, so full of life and love and curiosity and mayhem that being with him you can forget, just for a minute, the dark hole of loss happening right now. We are lucky to have him. We are grateful that he came first, before this, so that we know the possibilities when nature is on our side.

And we wait. We wait for the storm to pass and peace to descend. We know it will, eventually, after the swells of sadness. And then the sun will rise over tranquil waters and we will keep sailing forwards. Together.

Because that is all you can do.

I have had lots of love and support from friends and family for which I am extremely grateful. Also, reading the information here has helped tremendously:  http://www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk/

Newborn

In the quiet space when my baby is asleep I have a moment to reconnect to all that was before. So, here I am again, writing a little for the grand folks over at Studio 30+ with one of their prompts, "best hidden away". Forgive me for changing its punctuation!

Please click HERE to be taken to some great writers, who are way more regular than me!

Newborn

You were my best, hidden away for nine months in a chamber of secrets, dark to the stars. Like an unfurling pink petal you rose from depths I knew not I had; unflinching at this world, a conqueror, and smooth as sea worn pebbles. You, so rounded, so complete, so nestled into your role: you, my love, are the bridge between then and now. 

Flash Fiction - Hello World! Hello...??

Julia is feeling indecisive this week over at Julia's Place so the prompt we're given to write in 100 words or less is: DECISIONS, DECISIONS, DECISIONS.

It was easy to write a story for this week, considering what's happened (see below!)

Hello World! Hello...??

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t planned it. All that practice. All that work. All that preparation. All that excitement. The expectation building until, finally, it overflowed one long day that turned into night that turned into the next day and in the cold, yellow light of morning, at last, he was here.

Their son, gurgling and smiling and wrinkly and cute.

They covered him in love. They covered him in kisses. They covered him in tiny blue blankets. 

But, decisions, decisions, decisions…

They didn’t have a name. 

This week I became an aunt for the second time, but the first time on my side of the family. My little brother became a dad and his son was born. It was all very exciting but boy did they make us wait for his name! Three days later, we eventually got it and I cannot wait to meet Samuel Alfred! 

Please click on the icon to read more entries.

The 'b' word

Baby.

I've been thinking about babies recently: the when, the why, the how. I guess it's been more in my mind as friends of mine have given birth over the last twelve months; and as I sail off into my own marriage the annoying questions about babies are likely to follow. Actually, they've already made it out of the mouths of many. 

I am not a person who loves babies. I find them boring, and most people who have them even more so. I like to think of myself as a creative and interesting person, with funny stories to tell, about all sorts of things. Does giving birth mean I will only be able to converse in buggies, nappies, feeds and post-birth body effects? Does it mean all my stories will revolve around impressions of my ever-growing baby; giggles at things only I have seen. Other sane non-baby people will lose their faith in me and my stories. They won't understand me. As I lose blood, my hair, sleep and sanity will I also lose my passion for the written word; lose my desire to do exercise and run the streets of where I live; my love of travelling; my want to cook; my need to be with my friends, just them and to also have time alone? Really alone.

As I was growing up, having a family was something I saw in my future. Then I stepped into my twenties and life passed in a whirl of studying, teaching, partying and lots and lots of travelling. That future family got pushed further out to the horizon. I was having too much fun living to worry about giving life to someone else. I was selfish and independent. To some extent, I still am. Though now my selfishness includes other people. Progress I think. 

But I was a baby once and I grew up, so they don't stay that way forever. I think I'd be better with little people, teaching them art and words and dances and place names. I'm not sure how I'll be with teaching a baby not to put Petits Filous pots in their mouths. Babies grow up and become fun sponges: learning, experimenting, experiencing and retelling the world in their own way. That's another fear, though - it has to be their way in their new world. The world is not the same, and I fear for the children I don't have and their ability at 18 months old to search for photos on an iPhone and their knack for scanning multiple screens while never actually reading anything. 

Ideally, I'd be able to take my future children to an island where tree-climbing, shell finding and digging holes for no reason are the order of the day; where browsing means wandering the aisles of a shop; and surfing is something mum is rubbish at, but we're great at standing on our boards and riding the waves. Now, I'm a  romantic. I know, I know, if that's what my children are going to be able to do when they're grown up, I'm setting them up for failure in this world - something we're not allowed to let kids do these days apparently. Shame. 

Yet if I want a try at it, I need to have a baby: that same need that means responding to those prying you've-just-got-married questions with a "not yet". Some time. Soonish. In the not so distant future. I'll never be prepared. How can you be? The 'b' word is big, it's breathtaking. I still need to make sure I can Be. Me.

And when the time comes and my husband holds my hand, reads my eyes and says, "Let's do it" I'll have to not answer with that other 'b' word.

But.