Strange, the Things that Hurt

Listening to 90% of the music on my iPod. All those hours spent playing music to the baby driving to and from work...

Seeing my favourite maternity shirt hanging in the cupboard.

The beautiful journal sitting on my bedside table that my husband bought me for our anniversary, filled with notes about the baby.

Being able to button up pre-pregnancy pants.

Watching the bulbs come up in the garden, knowing that the baby was supposed to arrive well after they bloomed.

Catching myself reaching down to rub my stomach without thinking about it.

My heart. Turns out that this grief is a physical, burning pain in my chest I never stop feeling.

The blue jumper I wore while walking in the evenings.

The normal route we take to walk the dog; so many conversations and dreams.

Having dinner at any place previously visited while pregnant.

Walking into the spare room, gutted and stripped for painting.

The ultrasound photos that seem to pop up randomly on my laptop.

Making small talk.

Holding the Kindle I was reading when I was called in for that last ultrasound.

For Want of Better Words, A Poem

I have been pregnant twice; the first ended within a few days of the first positive test. The second ended with the death of my son.

I'm not sure how to write about the latter; the below was written about the former.

I wish I could say

I loved you to

the moon and back,

an infinite loop of planets

and stars, but we both

know that wasn’t possible.

You were too new, too

fragile: you were already

slipping away before

the idea of you could

settle in. Your heart didn’t

give a single beat.

But here’s the thing, babe:

I would have loved you.

Through all the stars

in all the galaxies,

to the ends of time and space,

I would have loved you.

It Was Always Going to Happen

I went to the mall to buy a pair of jeans today.

I threw out most of my old pants when I outgrew them as my pregnancy progressed. They were a bit tattered and I figured I'd have a new body shape after the baby was born.

Now, of course, I am no longer pregnant and I don't have any pants to wear.

Ergo, mall trip.

I walked around for half an hour. I visited my favourite shops. I met Mum and Dad and they assisted in the search. Within a few short minutes, it all got too much. I burst into tears and left.

The upshot is: I don't want to buy new clothes.

I want my current clothes to fit because my baby is still inside me.

This is the Curse

Things I wish I'd known about my body after a stillbirth...


The bleeding. Oh my lord, the bleeding. I was eleven when I had my first period. I was twelve when I started using tampons. I was fourteen when my periods stopped altogether. For most of my life, I have been "lucky" to have only 2-4 periods a year. Even with the hormonal chaos during three years of fertility treatment and pregnancy, my periods generally have to be medically induced and are heavy, violent and painful.

As it turns out, so is the bleeding after childbirth. It's been ten days and I'm still regularly astounded by the volume of blood that is expelled on a regular basis - not to mention the pain associated with it.

Pads suck. I'm a tampon girl - no alternatives, that's it, the end. I use pads only when I absolutely have to (after surgery, or egg retrieval during IVF). Pads are messy, they move around, they stick to things they shouldn't. I have to wear underwear even to bed because hey, you can't wear a pad without underwear. And because of the aforementioned volume of blood, I have to wear the thick kind that feel (literally) as though I'm wearing a nappy. Put plainly: it sucks.

My boobs hurt.  Two days after Isaac was born, I looked down to find my breast were suddenly as hard as rocks and my nipples were shaped in a way I'd never seen before.  I poked my husband awake (it was 2am) and he grumpily informed me that never having seen a set before, he had no idea what lactating boobs looked like. He rolled over and went back to sleep; I staggered out to the kitchen to struggle with the breast pads we'd bought in anticipation of this happening.

I spent four days in a sports bra - 24x7. It resulted in lumpy, sore breasts which were alternately hot and rock-hard. They have calmed down since but they are still incredibly sore. Sometimes - for reasons I can't work out - they give a sudden stab of pain.

My abdomen is cramping. The midwife says this is because my uterus is trying to contract but there's too much blood in there for it to retreat back below the pelvic bone. It hurts. Sometimes Nurofen is enough, sometimes Panadiene is called for. Sometimes it makes me want to curl up and cry.

My nipples, breasts and belly are shrinking. And I hate it. Every time I look at my body - every time I look in the mirror or down at myself in the shower - I see fewer signs that Isaac was ever contained therein. I struggle mightily with the guilt that this body failed my little man. It makes it worse, somehow, that I can no longer see the signs of him. Each day takes him further away and I hate it. I hate it.

So That You Know

You will never hear me say "I lost my baby."

Because he was conceived with IVF, I have never been less than acutely aware of his location from the time the pieces that were to become him still resided in my husband and I.

From seperate components in their seperate dishes to one cell, two cell, eight cell, blastocyst...from petrie dish to tube to transfer into my uterus...from heartbeat to stronger heartbeat to movement...from the tell-tale growth of my breasts to the swell of my belly...there has never been a time in his short life when I didn't know exactly where he was.

And I haven't lost him now.

My baby died.

People don't like to hear it. People prefer the the softer phrase "I lost my baby."

But now, as always, I know exactly where my baby is. I knew where he was when he slid out of my body...when the nurses took him after we said goodbye...when the pathologists examined his tidy body...when he rested in the funeral home...when he lay in that small white casket...when he was cremated...and now, where he rests in the Babies Rose Garden in the cemetery.

I did not lose my baby.

My baby died.

I lost my dreams for his future. I lost the vision of the way our family was supposed to grow. I lost my care-free expectation that pregnancy ends with a baby. We - my husband and I - have lost the relationship we dearly wanted with a child who was dearly loved.

We have not lost our baby.

Our baby died. 

And if you think it's hard to hear it, try living it.

Sleep Well, Little Man

This afternoon we laid our little boy’s ashes to rest in the Babies Rose Garden of Gungahlin Cemetery. 

It was pouring rain. My husband and I joked that it was Isaac’s half-English heritage coming out.

Peter gave us the little pottery urn from the crematorium; it was cream with teddy bears painted on it. The lid was blue with a gold knob. It weighed more than Isaac did when he was born.

I carried it to the open grave. My husband – thank God for his strength – knelt down and placed the little urn onto the straw at the bottom of the grave. Then he carefully covered it with a few shovels of dirt. We held each other. We cried. We shared our relief at completing this last tangible thing we could do for our son.

Sleep well, little man. We love you so.

One of Many Reasons I Love my Mother

When it became clear that we'd have to say goodbye to Isaac, my mother made him a little quilt. The hospital has a program through which the local quilting organisation donates handmade quilts for stillborn babies but I wanted something personal - something made with love, just for our baby.  In between the many hours at the hospital with us and her own grief, Mum managed to make a smaller version of the full-size quilt she'd just started working on.

The quilt lived in the hospital bed with me for the two days before Isaac was born. I had some insane notion that if it smelled a little like me, it might bring the baby comfort.

Isaac was born at half past midnight. The nurse wrapped him in a soft cotton blanket, then in the knitted blanket we'd brought with us from home. When he was passed to me, I wrapped the quilt around him as well.

When it was time to say goodbye to Isaac, we decided to keep the quilt with us. Mum made a small replica square of the quilt and we placed it on his casket during his service.

My husband says it will make a great "Big Brother" quilt - something to remind any future children that they have a big brother watching out for them.

Me, well, I take comfort from being able to touch something that once touched my son. I sleep with it atop my pillow; I'm sure it's stained with tears.

Mum mentioned yesterday that when we're ready, she'll take the quilt back and put a label on it. I said that I was sort of using it as a pillow at the moment and we both cried a little and Mum said that was nice.

Then she thought about it for a moment, and added "But it will be bat-shit crazy if you're still doing it a few months from now."

It made me laugh, and it made me feel okay - okay that I was still attached to my son's quilt, okay that the time would come when I could let it go.

God, I love my mother.

The Breath, Smiles, Tears of all my Life

We held a small service today - just my husband, myself, my brother and my parents.

Such a tiny, tiny white casket.

We lit candles. We placed a bouquet of white flowers - roses, baby breath - on the casket. We rested a card from J's parents against the knitted blanket we wrapped in him the night he was born. My mother placed a single square from the quilt she made for him when we knew we'd lose him.

I have the quilt itself on my pillow; I sleep on it every night.

We prayed silently. At least, I did.

I wept silently.

We sat: Dad, Mum, my brother, me, J. We held hands.

J read Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43 - a request from his folks and the only words we could find.

The others left us for our last goodbye.

I didn't know how to leave.

I clutched J's hand. I bent down to kiss that small white casket. I thought my heart had already broken. I was wrong. I heard the crack of it as my lips touched the wood.

Goodbye, little man. Goodbye, my beautiful, beautiful boy. 

I love you.

The Beginning is the End

My son is dead.

Somehow, everything comes back to these four words.

Eight days ago, I did not know I had a son. I had a baby - a much-wanted, hard-won baby. I had a growing belly and sore breasts and two drawers starting to fill with soft white towels and little white jumpsuits. I had dreams of the three of us, my husband and my baby and I, and the future we were going to map out together.

And then it all changed. The how is a story for another time; the why is something I may never be able to write. But it changed.

My son was born.

He died.

Nothing will ever be the same again.