Julz: A Mayflower's Rainbow

I began writing a journal not long after Melody was born, I wanted something for her and her brother and sisters to be able to read back, our journey as a family dealing with life in the NICU and life with a premature baby, a micro preemie.

I have always loved writing for fun and since Melody passed away I have focussed my new life in using my unclear head space for imagination.

I was confident that my journal was going to have a beautiful happy ending, the journal would come out at birthdays and special occasions, on meeting Melody’s first boyfriend, show him how tiny her little bottom was, to pooing every time daddy changed her nappy. A journal of happy, wonderful memories.

And it was for the beginning days.

“That sudden rush of love you’re supposed to get in the delivery room, suddenly hit and the realisation that I didn’t know just how long we would be able to keep her but I knew how much I loved her and I wanted to do everything I could to protect her.”

The days progressed into weeks, and I really enjoyed writing in my little book, even now looking back there are little things I can’t remember, but the book is there to help me remember, how old she was, how we felt.

Then out of nowhere, she left us.

The journal became my haven; I could write the pain the shock. Admittedly it took me a long time to go back to the day before and the day after, reading through it deems as painful as living it. Of course it is its Melody’s story.

I was going to stop after her funeral, then I came to realise the funeral was really only the beginning. So with encouragement, I carried on, discovering my rainbow pregnancy, the fears that come with a rainbow pregnancy, most certainly far away from a normal pregnancy, right to her birth.

Where I paused the journey.

The grief journey will never, ever end but I felt comfortable at ending it at this point.

I want to be able to share her story and to raise awareness on parts of pregnancy that is so rare, there just is not a lot of information on.

The title come from a birth board I was on when I was pregnant with Melody.

With thanks to blogs like Loss through the looking glass.

Thank you for reading.

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Julz book is available to buy on Amazon:

A Mayflower's Rainbow

Francesca: Right Where I Am 2014: 60 weeks 3 days

Exactly a year ago I submitted a blog post for 'Right Where I Am', 8 short weeks after the birth of our precious, sleeping bundle. Today I read back that post for the first time, and suddenly the present disappears and I am catapulted back. A time of such grief and loss, of feeling like I had fallen into a huge black hole, searching for some sort of link to 'normal’.

The most difficult year of our lives started at that point - dealing with such raw and gripping grief, coping with a difficult and stressful rainbow pregnancy, the loss of our home and DH's job.... Wondering if there would ever be a 'normal' again.

The loss of our Angel is no less real and present now, the tears are still forever close by, the 'what ifs?' always on our lips. We are just 6 days away from the first anniversary of her original due date. Our Rainbow daughter should be our second, a little sister for our eldest to love.

But for now, I sit in a darkened bedroom, with a 12 week old infant laying on my lap, lazily feeding. She suckles quietly as she drifts off to sleep, a tiny hand wrapped around my finger. I can feel her breath against my skin, see her eye lids flutter, hear her whimpers as she heads towards dreamland.

Here is my new normal.

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You can read Francesca's post from 2013 here:

Right Where I Am 2013: 8 weeks 2 days

Julz: Right Where I Am 2014: 2 years 2 months 3 weeks 4 days

Today you should have been 28 months..

Where Do I begin?

I was always under the strange illusion that once our rainbow had arrived, as time progressed forward, that although Melody was missing, I would return to normal. The person I was before Melody was born.

I could return to my old job, the old giggles, even the old friends.

The old me, because time is a healer, a rainbow makes life perfect again.

Right?

It is a strange thing having a rainbow baby close to your ‘lost’ baby, we should have had two toddlers in the house, and some days I forget that rainbow is only 15 months and not 2.

I’ve searched for a part of me that is lost, the part I used to know well.

Warmth, the caring isn’t as predominant any more…

Lost, to the point of no return.

Watching helplessly as your child loses their fight does that to you.

Knowing that there is something not quite right with the world, that not only can you not protect your children from death, but protect your living children from the awful truth.

Children die. To have them talk and touch their sister, to be told she was coming home one day to the next she had died. No heaven, no hell.

Just gone.

All hope shattered.

“At least we have other children” Is comfort for nothing.

Why us? Why them?

Time, I’m not for one to believe, that time heals all wounds.

Time has made it hard to comprehend that we’ve moved away from her, a year or so lost in tremendously dark days. The further away in time we go the more I feel she’s fast becoming a distant memory, a memory that in this point in time, I’m finding hard to keep alive.

Nobody wants to hear of the lost girl all the time.

Those who have no way of understanding, wondering why I am STILL saying her name.

I will say I have begun to find a slightly comfortable way to where this new skin.

It does dig in and pinch a little at times, but with a pulling and tugging, it fits reasonably well again.

The imperfections make it more accustomed to me.

There are certainly days when it becomes nothing but unbearable to wear, but these days are few and far between.

The smiles certainly doesn’t mean I am over her or forgotten her, just adjusted the skin a bit, so as not to feel so heavy.

I completed the 100 happy days challenge in Melody’s memory, beginning on her 2^nd birthday it was something that has helped, with February through to May being terribly exhausting.

So right where I am, I’m still unsure of who I am, I know I am not the same.

I’m not the same as normal parents, but that I can live with.

I miss her, I miss her so much, she may have only been here for 5 weeks,

She was our beautiful daughter.

I am a lot more sensitive, and take a lot more things to heart which I am trying to work on.

At times I do dislike who I have become. But the people around me, who genuinely love me understands this.

I’ve learned to smile and not feel as guilty about it anymore.

Being a bereaved parent isn’t about being brave, strong or amazing.

It’s learning to live, to breathe without it hurting so much,

Simply because I have no choice.

Miss you Melody

Xxxxx

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You can read Julz’s post from 2013 here:

Right Where I Am 2013: 1 year 3 months 4 days

Natalie: Right Where I Am 2014: 59 weeks 5 days

Wow, what can I say, after re-reading my blog on 9/7/13 I can say I have come a long way.

I am now 59 weeks and 5 days since my loss. I'd like to say it gets easier and whilst most days it does seem that way I do have days when it hits me like a ton of bricks and I'm grieving all over again.

Where I am today...I am half way through my final placement of my first year of nursing I managed to return!

I am with someone new after the split with my ex; Angelica's sperm donor, he doesn't deserve the name dad. He is a great guy, makes me realise how I should be treated and I feel really lucky to have found him. I have managed to tell him about my BT which I was dreading and he has taken it really well so when the time comes for IVF PGD I know that should we still be together I will have great support from him!

I am planning on travelling to Australia this time next year to gain nursing experience hopefully in genetics or IVF nursing which should be really exciting.

I can finally tolerate being around other babies that would have been a similar age to Angelica and can finally feel happy for people who are pregnant.

The monsoon has finished and the sun is bursting through the clouds finally and I can even make out a rainbow.

There is a life after loss and I am finally living it!

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You can read Natalie's post from 2013 here:

Right Where I Am 2013: 8 weeks 5 days