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

Kazzandra: Right Where I Am 2016: 3 months followed by now

I suffered the loss of my first pregnancy in March this year at 5 weeks 4 days. Slipped away almost before I knew what was happening. I'm currently awaiting surgical management for the loss of my second pregnancy at 7 weeks 3 days (I should now be 10 weeks). I found out at an early scan yesterday that my baby's heart stopped beating at around 7 weeks 3 days. What a sucker-punch that was. We were so excited because we'd seen the heartbeat at 6 weeks, and I was sure everything was ok this time.

I met my new nephew yesterday. And I couldn't bring myself to hold him. Just couldn't do it, because that would have undone me. I put a brave face on you see, to help celebrate my father-in-law's birthday. How could I hold someone else's baby when my own was lying dead in my belly? No. Too painful. I smiled said 'maybe later' and was tasked by my other SIL to help bath my nieces. Kind, sweet, funny. They distracted me for an hour or so. Then I went back downstairs, and as the children went to bed, I couldn't stand to sit there anymore. Alone. I needed to be alone. And I felt so damn tired, it was a struggle to drive the two miles home. I crawled into bed at 8pm, fell asleep them woke two hours later, staring out of the window from the sofa. Finally went back to bed and slept from 3-6am.

Today I had it all again at work. The sympathetic faces, the platitudes 'It happened for a reason. You'll try again, don't lose heart.' I smiled kindly and thanked them for their concern, touched by the warmth of their hugs. Cake and a hot drink helped a bit, filled the empty space in my stomach and appeased the gnawing, raw hurt momentarily. The routine, getting through the day on autopilot, smiling a bit, laughing on cue at jokes. I'm not better yet, but I have come up a step from the dark depths of my pit of  sorrow. I'm raw, hurt and a bit stuck - the tears won't all come at once. But I've always believed that tears push out all the sadness and despair and make room for more happiness.

I want my husband, just to hold him and feel his solid, reassuring warmth, arms wrapped around me, holding me steady. Remind me I'm still a loving person, remind me I can still be loved without it hurting.

Will we try again? Yes, I think so. Underneath all the fear and pain, there is a heart still beating. That heart is strong and will keep on loving, no matter what. There's more than enough room to take what life throws at me, and enough love to love my angel babies as well as my take-home babies.

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

Karen: Right Where I Am 2015: 4 years 3 months and more

Have been meaning to do this since I was first introduced to this blog.

Not having a good day today, so thought it would be a good idea to get it all down & "self counsel" myself.

So where I am today? June 1st 2015.

I am 4 years 3 months from Angel one, my wee boy Dinky.

I am 2 years 3 months from Angel two.

I am 1 year 4 months from my second known wee boy Angel three.

I am 7 months from Angel four and a few weeks away from what was my due date.

I think that is why I am feeling particularly 'blah' today.

It is now June, the month I should be excitedly preparing for my fourth rainbow pregnancy to end and to finally meet my rainbow baby. I say ‘finally’ because my trying to conceive journey for baby number two began in September 2010.

I am fed up. Fed up of all these months of just wanting my husband for his sperm. Fed up of two week waits and then the tantalising 'am I?' when Aunt Flo decides to torment me & come a few hours or days later than expected. I am fed up of getting that exciting BFP and the subsequent nervous breakdowns I feel wondering if it will continue. I am fed up of seeing my wee bean wriggling on the ultrasound screen only for it to be snatched away from me within weeks. I am fed up looking at countless announcements on Facebook of people I know & of celebrity pregnancies, and I am fed up by passing three due dates and nearing due date number four with no baby to show & no pregnancy underway. Anyone get the impression that I am 'fed up’?

I have been diagnosed as having an under active thyroid with antibodies in January and I am on treatment now for this. My body more than likely had been attacking my wee babies and this is horrible. I am totally to blame. Nobody else. I am piling on the weight which is probably a lot down to the fact my thyroid is screwed, but also because I am eating as I am sad. I need to get a grip. If I was pregnant I would be putting myself & my baby at risk of all sorts being so overweight.

I know how lucky I am to have my gorgeous daughter who is six. I hear all the time how I should appreciate how lucky I am. I DO!!! I would actually be lost without her. I hear should we not just give up & accept what we have.  My daughter has kept me from spiralling into despair, but it does not take away the need I have to extend my family. I am not ready to give up. I do not want to let this beat me. I have spent money getting a uterine biopsy to check I do not have high uterine killer cells and, as far as I know, the only issue I am dealing with now is my thyroid which is under control. The main problem now is getting my husband and I in the same place at the right time.

When is enough enough though??

I am not ready to give up! Should I? Should I accept I am only meant to be a mummy to one & four angels? I don't think so, but can I go through more heartache? Is my head going to be able to deal with another loss? I'm getting older now. Am I too old at 36? Physically I know it's possible. I am a midwife, I see it every day, but will it be possible for me?

So while this is a 'fed up' post & I am sorry for bringing anyone down, I feel I need to continue. I think I will know when enough is enough. I am hoping that I won't get to that stage though. Is my rainbow take home baby out there for me? I hope so. I need to believe it.

(written 1st June 2015)