Lindsay: Right Where I Am 2018: 5 years 18 days followed by 4 years 11 months 3 days followed by 3 years 4 months 6 days followed by 2 years 9 months 10 days followed by 2 years 2 months 20 days

I'm finding writing this post much harder than in previous years. In the past I was just sad and over time I had worked out how best to cope and process those feelings. Now there's such a mix of emotions going on inside of me I can't pinpoint how I truly feel, it's such a jumble. On one hand I do know I'm happy, so that has to be a good thing. I have a lot in my life to be happy about as it's been 15 months and 7 days since we welcomed our third born daughter, Iris, into this world and 15 months 6 days since we brought her home from the hospital. On the other hand I'm not ok. I am not ok, but I don't know in which way. (I've typed, deleted and typed that again and again, but it's ok to not be ok, right?)

As hopeful as we were, after several years and so many losses...well it's hard to cling on to a thread of hope. It takes its toll. And the grief... The grief which comes along with that degree of heartbreak doesn't just disappear. I don't think it ever will go away completely and I'm fine with that.

The thing is, whilst I am happier now than I have been in many years, I still feel as if I'm grieving and I know to some extent I always will, but I don't feel as if those around me fully realise this. Apart from my husband everyone else was at least one step removed from the crippling pain that we went through after each loss. (If you're reading this and you've suffered your own loss(es) then you know the pain I'm talking about. The right in the middle of your chest, take your breath away emotional pain – often accompanied by the long silent sobs which can end up with you sitting in a crumpled mess on the floor...those ones. The ones you try for so long to keep hidden.) I still feel that pain sometimes and at the moment I feel as if I don't have a right to. It's as if everyone else thinks my grief is done with and everything is suddenly fixed because my daughter is here. She's amazing, but no child can ever replace another.

I love being able to mother one of my children each and every day, but I still get sad. Not because of her, of course not, but because of all the things I know I've missed out on with the others. That's natural, isn't it?

Some days the sadness doesn't affect me at all, even when I'm thinking of my children who aren't here – my son, Hunter (who would have been going to school this year), my two daughters, Esmae and Freya, and the two little ones I never got to meet - I think of them with a smile.

Some days are hard.

On the tough days I used to look on Pinterest for quotes that summed up just an ounce of how I was feeling and I'd share them on social media, almost as a cry for some support or a nudge to everyone around me that I was still going through this. I never wanted anyone who saw those posts to feel sorry for me. I just wanted them to remember (me), to understand. Each time I go to post something now I think twice as I can't afford to isolate myself even more from those around me (at least that's how it feels).

At the moment I feel as if I can't reach out in the way I need to to the majority of my friends or family as (I feel) it's hard for them to understand that the past has not changed. To put it simply, I'm still sad. Recently I tried to let a group of friends know via a message that I was struggling. Perhaps I was too subtle, but as I saw each one of them read and not reply to my message my paranoid self shouted at me “they are sick of this (you)”, “you have your daughter, just be happy”. I hope I'm wrong, I'm almost sure I am…

I don't feel like myself, although who I am these days I'm really not sure. I barely remember the person I was five years ago and after such a long time and after so many losses I feel as if it's become too much for those around me to bear. My conscious paranoia feeds the feeling that I have pushed so many people away to the point of no return. Firstly by avoiding them whilst they were pregnant (only in a desperate attempt to keep my sanity and in a strange way to try to keep the friendships intact) and secondly in the way I have been vocal about what I've been through and how I still feel. I know this level of loss, this level of grief is difficult to comprehend (the emotive subject of baby loss is enough for people to want to leave you alone) and as more and more time passes it gets easier for others to ignore, but it's isolating.

I feel as if I've lost my place in the world and I'm lonely. There are few who understand, and if they do then they're tackling their own grief.

My thoughts circle constantly – all the good, the bad and the ugly which I feel I can't control. Those thoughts never stop. I sometimes feel them getting out of control, racing around in my head and whilst I can slow them down a little they never stop. They are full of anxiety, paranoia, gratefulness, happiness, household tasks, guilt, annoyance, shopping lists, stress…

I have to bite my tongue and push down the anger and hurt I feel each time my daughter is referred to as our/the 'first'. She is not. How can I have given birth to, met and helped name four of our six babies and only have one child?

I struggle when someone else mentions their children, especially the children mine should have grown up alongside.

I still get that lurch in my stomach when I hear about friends' pregnancies – I don't know if this is fear, anxiety, jealousy, an involuntary reflex... I am happy for them, but the news makes me think of my own pregnancies and this in turn makes me feel so selfish.

I cringe (and then immediately feel guilty for doing so) each time I bring up my previous pregnancies or my other children with the new mum friends I have made. I hear them in my head saying 'she's not going on about this again…’

I feel guilty each time I breathe a sigh of relief when my daughter (the child I so desperately, desperately wanted) takes a nap just so I get some much needed time to catch my breath, to gather up some of those whirring thoughts...

I'm already worrying about how anyone reading this who has no living children has taken that last statement.

I worry about a lot of things - too many things perhaps.

Even with all of these thoughts going round and round I feel numb an awful lot of the time and that's the worst feeling. I stop and think about something and often there's just nothing. Maybe I developed such a good coping technique of blocking out so much of the world that it stuck.

I used to calm myself by writing down how I was feeling, but I haven't made enough time for that recently and it shows. This piece is all over the place. And maybe that's where I am right now...all over the place, but ironically almost always here...stuck inside my head with the many, many frantic thoughts.

~~~~~

You can read Lindsay’s previous posts here:

Right Where I Am 2018: 2 years 11 months 1 day followed by 1 year 2 months 20 days followed by 7 months 24 days
Right Where I Am 2015: 1 year 11 months 18 days followed by 14 weeks 1 day

Lindsay: Baby Loss Awareness Week

Before I lost my first baby I didn't understand what real grief, real loss felt like. I could only imagine what it might feel like to lose a much longed for child.

I worried each day through my first pregnancy that something would go wrong. I was one of four friends who were pregnant at the same time, due a few weeks apart, one was even due on the same day as I. I had heard the statistic 1/4 and this played on my mind every day.

As the days ticked by I started to look forward and although the worry never left I started to get excited.

At 17+6 weeks I gave birth to my son.

Nothing could have prepared me for that experience. Nothing could have prepared me for the emotional pain that lingered far longer than any of the physical pain. The emotional pain is much duller now, but it'll never fully go away and I'm ok with that.

After we lost our son friends and family didn't know what to say, but they tried. 'Everything happens for a reason.' 'At least you got pregnant quickly.' 'You can have another.' 'At least...' 'At least...' I quickly came to understand that there is no 'at least' when it comes to the loss of a baby. The deep feelings you experience can't be fixed or summed up in a few words.

I cringe thinking about it now, but I clearly remember saying the usual cliches to one of my friends, some years before, after she suffered a miscarriage. I didn't know any better. I had no frame of reference. I knew these things happened, but it's not something that I'd had the chance to openly discuss. I had no knowledge. I was unaware of what she was going through and how she was feeling.

When I lost my son I didn't know there was a Baby Loss Awareness week. I had no clue what the pink and blue ribbon signified and had never heard of the Wave of Light.

In the weeks following my loss I joined various online support groups and my understanding of how baby loss affects people grew. It grew beyond my own experience. There were people out there who were talking about their babies, just as I longed to do with anyone who wished to listen. There were many different reasons and the stages of the losses ranged from a few weeks to neonatal deaths, but regardless of the circumstances each baby mattered. It was truly terrifying to realise all the things that could go wrong, but having access to those who understood, who were walking the same path, helped me immensely.

Through these groups I learned first about the 'Wave of Light' and then how this marked the end of Baby Loss Awareness week. If I only found out about this week after experiencing my own loss, then others could be forgiven for not knowing about it. Being open about my experience was important to me and I wanted to help raise awareness.

Over the past 4 years raising awareness has become increasingly important to me. You see, just over a year after losing my son I had an early miscarriage at 7 weeks. Eight months after that I lost my first daughter at 21+4 weeks, seven months later a second daughter at 13 weeks (we had to end my pregnancy with her due to a fatal fetal anomaly) and after a further seven months another early miscarriage at 5 weeks.

Five babies lost in less than three years. Each loss unrelated and unexpected.

It's important for me to keep the memory of my babies alive. It's important for me that my friends and family remember them. I share how I feel, I blog to express the jumble of emotions I tackle on a daily basis. I raise money in my babies' names for Baby Loss charities so others can access the much needed support I received and also to raise awareness.

This, for me, is still a work in progress. Baby loss is still a taboo subject, but when it affects so many of us, so many of our friends, family, colleagues etc. why is this still the case?

It's a subject which makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I have friends who have silently gone through miscarriages and don't feel comfortable openly talking about their own experience. I know my openness about my babies can make others feel uncomfortable, but with increased understanding this will hopefully change.

That is why having a week designated to raise Baby Loss Awareness is so vitally important. It's affects so many it's something we should all eventually feel comfortable talking about.

By talking about my babies, my experiences, my grief, I was able to keep going.

Last night I was fortunate enough to tuck my 6 month old daughter into bed. That is something I thought would only ever be a dream. Even on my better, more hopeful days, I could hardly imagine it.

Having one of my daughters with me changes nothing and everything all at the same time. It doesn't mean I will forget my other five babies, they cannot be replaced. It doesn't mean I will stop blogging about baby loss, sharing quotes and posts from Baby Loss charities. Having her here makes me even more determined to 'break the silence', to remember her big brother and sisters and to increase awareness amongst my friends and family. It is slow progress, but as always I'm hopeful.

This Baby Loss Awareness week I am blogging about my babies and encouraging my friends and family to join me in the Wave of Light at 7pm on Sunday evening. I hope they will share photos of their candles so awareness of baby loss can spread.

Lindsay: Right Where I Am 2016: 2 years 11 months 1 day followed by 1 year 2 months 20 days followed by 7 months 24 days

I find this a difficult blog to write as there are so many different dates to consider. The members of my invisible family seem to be growing at an alarming rate, yet to an outsider it looks like it's still just my husband and I.

At the time of writing this it's been 2 years, 11 months and 1 day since my first loss – my son, Hunter. It is 1 year, 2 months and 20 days since I lost my first daughter Esmae and 7 months, 24 days since I said goodbye to my second daughter Freya. In between losing Hunter and Esmae I had an early loss and since losing Freya I've suffered another early miscarriage. Whilst those two little ones were no less important than the babies we got to meet, hold and name, I somehow seem to cope with the early losses much better. I grieve for all my babies as a whole and I try to see each pregnancy, no matter how short lived, as signs to not give up.

Last year when I wrote my first 'Right Where I Am...' blog I was trying to look forward and to be hopeful. Since then I've been fortunate enough to have fallen pregnant twice more, although I still have no living children. Whilst I'm still just as hopeful that things will eventually work out for us, I feel as if I'm only just clinging onto that hope for dear life.

Over the past three years my life has changed in ways I never could have imagined. I have felt my heart shatter, more than once, unleashing an unimaginable, indescribable pain and I feel alone in it all. My husband and I feel alone in it all. We feel more and more isolated from those around us. Sometimes it's as if everyone has forgotten, or they just don't dare ask how we're doing because they don't know how we are managing to cope, but somehow we do.

No matter how cheated I feel, I never feel angry at the world for the hand we have been dealt. I do, however, find myself feeling increasingly bitter and envious of those around us. Those who seemingly sail through their pregnancies without a care and then get to take their baby home at the end of it all. They get to experience it all as it should be. I tell myself that deep down I am happy for them, but I honestly don't know if that's true. I get so angry at myself for not feeling truly happy for them and for having to distance myself from them, but it just hurts too much.

Pregnancy and birth announcements can reduce me to tears, probably more so now than a couple of years ago. I remind myself I'm not crying because they are happy and I am not. I reassure myself I'm crying because their announcements remind me of what I once had and have lost. There have been so many announcements in recent years I've lost track. It's far easier to count those around us who don't have children or aren't pregnant at the moment. I can count them with one hand still firmly in my pocket. I feel as if my husband and I are being left behind.

The spells of feeling 'normal' seem to be lasting longer these days, which is nice. I've even caught myself having the odd fleeting moment where I've forgotten any of this has happened. This isn't necessarily a bad thing and I don't feel guilty for momentarily forgetting. It's strangely comforting; to know this will always be with me, but I can live with it more easily now. I know there will always be reminders of what my husband and I are missing out on and they will always be hard to deal with. The other day I was walking home from work and there was a little girl, no more than two years old, and her mum walking slowly down the hill towards me. The little girl wandered off course and her mum called her name to stop her from venturing too far – she called out my daughter's name and it pulled me right back to reality. Little jolts like that are hard to prepare yourself for.

We've been through so much I sometimes think it seems almost fictional. Yet, I live each day with pieces of me missing and it doesn't matter what the future brings, those pieces will always be missing from me.

At this point last year I was hopeful to start trying again and I will feel that way again soon, but for now, a little over a month on from my last loss, I need to focus on myself. Even just for a few more weeks so I have one less thing to worry about. Whilst I need to keep going, keep trying and keep moving forward, the tally of pregnancies which have been cut short, due to a whole host of separate reasons, sticks with me.

Our family is growing more quickly than anyone else's around us, but I'm the one still sitting at the computer in our spare room desperately wishing it was the nursery we had planned, pictured and shopped for. I'm the one who can't look at another little baby for fear of forgetting what my own babies looked like or in case they snap me back into reality and make me remember the raw pain that can only come from loving so strongly and which I try to push deep down each day.

Sometimes I think it's a good thing we can't predict the future. I am here, almost 3 years on from losing my first baby and I'm glad that I didn't know then what I know now. I'm so glad I didn't know what was in store for us. In a strange way I wouldn't change the past, but I could never have pictured this would be where I am right now.

~~~~~

You can read Lindsay’s previous post here:

Right Where I Am 2015: 1 year 11 months 18 days followed by 14 weeks 1 day

Lindsay: Right Where I Am 2015: 1 year 11 months 18 days followed by 14 weeks 1 day

As I'm writing this it's been 14 weeks and 1 day since I lost my daughter, Esmae. I'm sure it's the same for everyone, but I shouldn't be here right now. I should be on maternity leave getting ready for my baby's arrival. It wasn't supposed to be like this. It's as if everyone else around us has moved on and has already forgotten about our little girl. Meanwhile those who were pregnant alongside us are still the centre of attention. But that's just life I suppose.

I seem to be moving forward through my grief much quicker than last time. You see it's been 1 year, 11 months and 18 days since I lost my son, Hunter. Three months on from losing Hunter we still didn't quite believe what had happened, we still don't believe what happened with Esmae, but it's different this time. Grief doesn't have a set path you can follow. You just take each day as it comes and you have to accept there will be some really dark days, when you feel as if everything has just hit you all over again. There will be good days too however, and you need to learn not to feel guilty about having a good day.

This time round my grief hasn't taken me on the same path, but it's a familiar one, it's easier to navigate. I'm not suggesting for a second losing my daughter has been easier than losing my son, in many ways I feel more cheated this time. What I mean is I generally do find it easier to get through each day, to find my way. I think this is true only because I know better how to cope. I've been learning how to cope each day for almost two years now, but at least this time around I already know how I'm feeling is 'normal'. The new 'normal'. In all honesty I don't remember what it feels like to be the old me. I'm not the person I was two years ago, I'm not the person I was fifteen weeks ago, before I found out my pregnancy would not go full term. I sometimes feel I'm just a shell of the person I used to be. I'm nearly always anxious about the most stupid of things, I've become extremely paranoid and I have lost nearly all my confidence.

I know my limits, I know what I can and cannot manage. There are times though when I think I'm being silly by not being able to lead a full and 'normal' life – going shopping in town on a whim, being around large groups of people I may not know well, going out for drinks to a busy bar. These are things I took for granted before and now the thought of putting myself through situations like those can bring me out in a cold sweat, sometimes it can even feel as if I'm paralysed with anxiety.

Surprisingly though things actually improved a bit whilst I was pregnant with Esmae. My husband even said he was beginning to see the old me again, but since losing her I feel like I'm back to square one – some days I don't even think I'm on the board! I sometimes feel as if I'll only fully get that confidence back when I'm proudly pushing a pram in front of me. Maybe that's because I'll finally feel like I have a purpose in life, something to live for.

I have spent all the time since losing Hunter building an emotional wall. Since Esmae I've had to build it a little higher, but it is helping me get through this all over again. I both love and hate my wall. It shelters me from most of the things in the world that I suddenly started noticing – baby adverts on TV, pregnant women, prams, toddlers, baby aisles in supermarkets, the list goes on...but it also blocks out a lot of the rest of my (old) world. I sometimes feel as if I'm only half living. My more recent memories all seem a little dull, they're all in the dark shadow of the wall. It's as if everything has lost it's colour since the wall went up. I don't dare take it down though.

My wall is not impenetrable however, there are some things such as seeing/hearing new born babies which it cannot protect me against – they filter their way through the cracks. At the same time it's not so high and solid that it doesn't let people in, or my emotions out.

I find it easy to talk to most people about my babies. I want to talk to anyone who asks and wants to listen about my babies. That there is the key point – I will talk to anyone who asks and is willing to listen. It's not a subject everyone is thankful you bring up and then there is the odd time when I don't want to talk.

I thought after losing Esmae that I might be able to open up more to my parents about how I feel, but up until now this hasn't been the case. This time I tried to tell them straight out that it helps me to talk about my babies, their grandchildren. At first this didn't seem to work, they were still looking for my lead all the time, but I had long since given up as my previous attempts to let them in had failed. I assumed they wanted to protect me, but by not mentioning my babies at all they left me doubting how they felt about their grandchildren. Hopefully since writing them a letter and sending them an earlier draft of this blog, which sparked a very tearful (on my part) conversation with my mum, things will become easier for all of us.

It had got to the point where my wall was always up around them, blocking them out, and I couldn't work out how to let them in. I didn't think they truly wanted to see what was the other side of my wall and although I thought I'd tried various ways to let them in, nothing worked, perhaps I was being too subtle. I was trying to find a way of letting them know I needed more from them without causing them unnecessary pain. (I say unnecessary pain, because there's no magic pill that will make this painless for any of us.) I think I still need to help them realise that pain is a natural part of the grieving process though and it can be cathartic. Exhausting, but cathartic. I don't see feeling pain/showing your emotions as a weakness, it just demonstrates you are strong enough to endure each day, strong enough to get out of bed and try to get on with what's left of your life. For the last couple of years I've really needed my parents to realise this. They've been trying so hard not to upset me, but they never fully understood that there is nothing they can do or say that will make me feel any worse. Saying nothing at all is the only thing (for me) which makes it worse.

I'm hopeful after talking openly with my mum that things will change. I still need to work on showing my true emotions in front of her and my dad, but I need them to not feel as if they are walking on eggshells around me and my husband all the time. Saying my babies names might bring tears to my eyes, but I love hearing people talk about them, it reminds me that they mattered. I still need to help my parents realise that it's ok for me to cry, it's ok for me to breakdown, to not be able to breathe because there's a pain in my chest which takes up all the space for air. These are all natural parts of grieving, it's not something I can suddenly switch off and get over. All those things are normal to me now.

Although they'll already know, from this blog, we've started trying again, I think it'll still take some time before my mum will feel comfortable discussing that with me. I want to be able to confide in my mum if I take a test and it shows up negative or tell her how depressing it feels when you don't even get as far as taking a test. I think she feels a bit useless though because she can't just wave a magic wand and fix everything. She has no frame of reference as she never experienced any problems during her pregnancies (although my birth was pretty traumatic, but she took that in her stride!) Sometimes I just need someone to listen, even if they can't tell me everything will work out fine in the end.

Trying to conceive again after a loss is so tough. It can consume your life. We felt last month that we were ready. I think we both sometimes feel the months ticking away and although I feel guilty saying this, I do feel as if we're another year down the line and many more months have been wasted. Unfortunately our first month of trying again didn't work and I thought I'd be ok with it, but during those few days last week I just felt in limbo and it brought back memories of how desperate I felt all those months after Hunter, trying without success. It just hits home again that I should be heavily pregnant right now with Esmae and getting her nursery together.

Perhaps some would say if I feel this way then maybe I'm not ready to start trying again, but it's hard to explain the overwhelming urge to keep on trying to someone who hasn't suffered the loss of a baby, the loss of three babies. We started trying again about three months after losing Hunter and to be honest I sometimes felt a little relieved when we didn't conceive (just for those first couple of months though). I realise now this was probably because we were still so deep in our grief that we weren't quite ready. When we eventually did get pregnant it unfortunately didn't last long. Finding no heartbeat at 7 weeks and then passing the baby three weeks later. The 'Little One', as we refer to her (we feel she would've been a girl), had given us the hope we needed, a definite sign not to give up. We were then lucky enough to conceive Esmae almost straight-away – it was like she was meant to be…

We are now two and a half years further down the line from where we began and although I don't know what the future has in store for us, I do know I'm ready to try again. I'm ready to let it consume me again, to become my life again. It's the only way I can keep getting out of bed each morning trying to move forward.