Nicole: Right Where I Am 2016: 4 years, 11months, and 4 days

It seems like I am being caught up by grief again.  Not the gentle, ever-present lapping of sadness that has been with me since your death and birth nearly 5 years ago.  Nor the huge, crashing, might-just-swallow-you-up waves that nearly drowned me when we first lost you.  But a constant pulling feeling; like I’m always in danger of going under.  I’m swimming, just coping, just managing to get from one place to another.  But the threat is always there – one false move and that’ll be it.  It scares me.  I think it scares me because, in true ‘me’ style, I feel like it shouldn’t be happening.  I should be okay.  This bit of grieving should be over.  I remember when we lost you, after the first few terrible weeks, grief settled around me, making it hard to move through life.  I felt slow, heavy; the waters were thick like sludge, and it was hard to walk forward.  But over months and years, that started to change.  The waters became gentle, and it was easier to walk again. 

But lately, I don’t know why, but I feel it again.  Everything is taking effort.  I think of your birthday coming up, and I can hardly say the words, ‘he would have been five’.  Why does five feel so significant?  As an August baby, you would have gone to school last year, so it’s not that.  Maybe five seems like you would have been a child, not a toddler, not a pre-schooler. Perhaps it’s simply because it’s half a decade without you.   

When we talk about baby loss, we often talk about how you don’t just lose the baby – you lose all the stages your child would have gone through.  I have talked about that in such a matter of fact way, to so many people, but I can really feel it at the moment.  I have lost you the baby, you the toddler learning to walk and talk, you the big boy going off to school, you the teenager with your own angst and worries.  You the university student, you the worker- proud and possibly miserable at your first job.  You the young man, falling in love.  You the husband, you the father.  I have lost your children. 

I’ve lost your voice, your laugh.  I’ve lost holding your hand, kissing your face.  I’ve lost comforting you when you’re sad, and looking after you when you’re ill.  I’ve lost being frustrated at you because of your tantrums, and I’ve lost you telling me you hate me and refusing to speak to me.  I’ve lost you telling me you’re sorry and that you love me.  I’ve lost feeling useless because I can’t make everything wonderful for you and I’ve lost the guilt of feeling I’m not doing enough for you.  I’ve lost the pride in you when you get a sticker at nursery, a certificate at school, an award for sport or art or drama.  I’ve lost knowing what you’re good at, and what taxes you.  I’ve lost wiping away your tears.  I’ve lost knowing the colour of your eyes, stroking your hair.  I’ve lost knowing what it feels like to hold you, to feel the weight of you in my arms changing as you grow. I’ve lost having to tell you to set an example for your younger brothers and breaking up your fights.  I’ve lost the chance to photograph my three boys, all together.

I thought that these losses became easier to bear as time went on.  I thought I could compartmentalise my grief; that grief was a small but significant part of who I am.  That the waters would remain light and easy to wade through.  But I realise that sometimes it’s more than that.  Sometimes - for an hour, a week, a month  – the grief over losing you is almost everything to me.  And maybe that’s okay.  Maybe it’s one of the ways I can ensure you are as present a part of my life as your brothers are.  I just need to work on coming to terms with that.  Accepting, if I can, that the loss of you – of everything you were and could have been – is simply too great a loss to ever have it feel manageable for long. Maybe the pull of the water is the pull of not just my grief, but also of my love for you. Maybe I need the space and time to sometimes, just for a little while, close my eyes and go under.

~~~~~

You can read Nicole's previous posts here:

Right Where I Am 2015: 4 years exactly
Right Where I Am 2014: 2 years 10 months 25 days
Right Where I Am 2013: 1 year 10 months 25 days
Right Where I Am 2012: 9 months and 4 weeks

Nicole: For my boy on the eve of his third birthday

I can't believe we're about to hit your third birthday tomorrow.  Like so many life-defining moments, your birth seems like it was yesterday, and yet also like it was a lifetime ago.  I normally write to you on your birthday, but this year I felt moved to write today, the day before.  I can't explain why, but I've learnt to stop questioning myself and go with what I feel when it comes to you.

I have been tired and short-tempered today.  I always struggle with this day more than your birthday.  Because your birthday wasn't the worst day of my life.  It could never, ever be that.  No, the worst day of my life was the day before.  Because that was the day you died.  I don't know when, but sometime after 2pm - when I heard your heartbeat, steady and true - and before midnight, you died.  Your heart simply stopped.  I hate that I don't know where I was when it happened.  Was I on the sofa?  In the bath? Moving around on my birth ball, trying to get labour started?  Was it when I was laid in bed, feeling so ill? Or was it on the way to hospital - did your life stop just as I arrived in the car park or laid on the hospital bed?  It does feel like a lifetime ago, but remembering a few short words can take me back there instantly, 'I'm sorry, but there's no heartbeat'. 

I have often told women who are at the start of this journey, who say 'how will I cope with the funeral, or the first anniversary, or telling people, or my friend's pregnancy?.  To them I say 'you have survived the worst already.  You had the news that your baby has died.  If you lived through that moment, you can get through anything'.  I stand by that, but I still think that everything else is horrible, and beyond difficult.  Telling everyone was hell.  Registering your stillbirth was sickening. And your funeral was utterly and totally heartbreaking. 

My nana, your great-nana, died a few weeks ago.  I adored her.  We had always been close and I miss her like crazy.  But her funeral was the first I had been to after yours, and it was poles apart.  Though sad, and moving, the funeral of a 97 year old lady, who had lived a good life and was mourned by her family, has a feeling of completeness and closure about it.  It is sad, but it is right.  The normal way of things.  I found myself smiling a lot during her funeral, thinking of her and how wonderful it had been to have had her in my life for so long.

Your funeral, my darling boy - there was nothing right about that.  We chose songs that felt appropriate, readings that fit, and we wrote a piece to be read out that so well expressed how we felt that we could never have written anything different.  But a child's funeral can never be right.   Everything about it is jarring, and wrong, like a horrible screeching flat note that ruins a piece of beautiful music.  I remember that note.  It sickens me to think of it even today.  I feel it, and I feel your loss, like a physical pain, every day.  Like someone cut part of me away, never to return it. 

But your birthday, my love? That could never be the worst day of my life.  That was the day you finally came into the world, after 9 long months, and 3 years of waiting.  You were amazing, and beautiful.  The memory of you - the wonderfulness of those 9 months we had together - and the lack of you - the way I miss you every day - has moved me to do so many things that I would never have done otherwise.  You know I wish you were here, more than anything.  But those memories of you sustain me.  The legacy that you have left - the new things, the shared blog, the forum I was part of and the support group I'm about to launch - they keep me going.  And the relationships I have developed - the friendships that grew stronger because of the people who simply listened to me, the individuals who remember you through cards, messages and doing new things, and the bereaved mums who are so integral to my life I don't know how I lived without them - well, that's all thanks to you.

I'd give anything for today's anniversary not to exist, but tomorrow?  Well, no one can take that away from me, or from you.  Happy third birthday, my beautiful, wonderful son. xxx 

John: Shield

Firstly, this is how my wife and all four kids make me feel:

This is how Wikipedia defines a shield:

“A shield is a type of personal armor, meant to intercept attacks, either by stopping projectiles such as arrows or redirecting a hit from a sword, mace, battle axe or similar weapon to the side of the shield-bearer.

Shields vary greatly in size, ranging from large panels that protect the user's entire body to small models (such as the buckler) that were intended for hand-to-hand-combat use. Shields also vary a great deal in thickness; whereas some shields were made of relatively deep, absorbent, wooden planking to protect soldiers from the impact of spears and crossbow bolts, others were thinner and lighter and designed mainly for deflecting blade strikes.”

For me, and for many like me, shields are what we show the world.

The smile that everyone thinks I’m alright.

The easygoing manner that covers up the incredible pain and suffering.

The hand that covers the yawn because I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since Julie told me she was pregnant with Melody, the fear of losing another stopping me from ever truly sleeping fully.

Today two years ago we lost our little girl, Melody Caitlyn Scott.  She was born early, but she was born healthy; she was a fighter like her dad, like her mum.  She was a Scott through and through.

And yet, through a whole list of things, she didn’t survive beyond 35 days.

To walk in to the Neonatal unit and be told “I’m afraid she’s not expected to survive.”  To watch the nurses and staff helping her breathe, just so we could say goodbye.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to feel.  I didn’t cry, but my worst nightmare had come true for a second time, and once again I had to watch a daughter die in my arms.  The only time I really cried that day was when I phoned my mum and dad and told them what had happened, and I started welling up, because my brain was starting to catch up with losing Melody.

The next day was a blur, I was in shock, could barely speak, could barely do anything except vomit all over our bathroom at 5 in the morning.  The registrar didn’t help matters, neither did the chaplain at the hospital, when we had to go back for the death certificate.

That was two years ago.

Now, I don’t cry, not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t.

I don’t know why, maybe it’s a man thing.  Maybe it’s something worse, something darker like Batman.

Not sure.

Now, I’m off work for ten weeks, and people assume I’m fine, that I’m just doing it because I can.  I don’t really have any friends anymore besides my amazing wife Julz, because I’m tired of losing friends to the reaper, and have a hard time making new ones without that thought in the back of my mind, especially in the last two years.  Nobody asks me if I’m alright except Julz and the health visitor; no organisation is bothered with helping me through my pain except for a locum GP at my surgery.

Kelsi is not a replacement, she was planned only a couple of weeks after Melody was born.

All I’m saying is we miss her.

I’m not alright.

But the shield will always be there.

Julz: An Anniversary

How has it been two years?

How was this the last thing I remember about being normal?

A simple photo that would become a favourite, but also the hated. The one that we took for granted the we thought we could repeat as a whole family, as her biggest sister was missing that day. The photo we so naively thought everything was perfect.

Only for the next one, taken less than 24 hours afterwards to be the exact opposite.

The ones that followed would become the faces of bereaved parents, not just a happy couple. From the numb and speechless.

Our changing eyes, less heavy than the one before, yet the pain is still as heavy as the first.

Showing the world that we aren’t beaten, if at times we feel nothing but.

We never envisaged that walking through the unit doors two years ago, to be greeted by the words, “She’s not going to survive”  would be anything but a nightmare, an April Fools’ joke.

Broken, beyond repair, no easy fix solution.

No faith, no beliefs would ever put this right.

No believing that she is all around us, or visiting every body else.

No fluffiness or making the sun shine.

No finding feathers, or the butterflies floating by.

The only place she resides is in her mum and dad’s hearts.

My damaged mind searching for why people think they can “feel” her, when all I feel is numb. When I’m told that she can be felt by other people it makes me then wonder does Melody blame me? Does she STILL not belong to us? Our Daughter, but not our own.  Was she ever ours in the first place?

My shattered thoughts searching for a way to go back and change things, when indeed that is impossible.

No believing that everything happens for a reason,

(neither do I believe that Melody died so we could have her sister).

I cannot think why we were allowed to get to know and think our baby was ok.

Then be taken away. What would ever be a good enough reason for this? I sometimes wish I could believe in a reason, maybe it’ll appear one day, maybe it won’t. I won’t get, lost looking.

I have changed, I don’t know who I am any more I don’t want to forget her, of course I don’t she is part of my life, my daughter.

But now sometimes I feel as though I am living for the next milestone.

The next person to walk away from me.

I just want to feel human again.

I’m slowly regaining a social circle, but am petrified of getting close to them,

or letting on too much about Melody or doing something

All trust lost.

I feel awkward in the way I am.

Still having people tell me they don’t know what to say to me.

How do I find me again?

How can I learn to be normal again?

To the outside I put up a mask, a very good one at that.

I’m done with grief,  and watching others grieve for her, when I can no longer cry, “Melody doesn’t wanna see mummy sad” So she won’t…

I want to learn to walk as high as 10 feet tall, rather than the 10 inches I feel at times.

I want to be her mum but not like this.

I miss her so much.

When I look back to see where I had come from to where I am,

I feel like I have paused and feel the same as I did then.

I miss her, there is nothing that will ever change that, and I will speak of her often, maybe now not as much. My heart will always feel that Melody sized heavier.

But learning to live a new life moving forward, but without leaving her behind.

I hope I can stand as strong, tall and as inspirational as the other parents in this community.

I am now a little more than existing, which feels better than it was…

Two years since we said Goodbye.

“As long as I am living, forever my baby you’ll be”

26.02.2012 – 01.04.2012