6 months + 19 days

So I've been a bad blogger.
I haven't actually been online at all in weeks.
Aside from checking my emails, I've just taken somewhat of a hiatus. Not one I'm entirely happy with, I desperately miss my online community of support, but there are some things going on in my life right now that I'm not entirely comfortable discussing in 'public arenas' such as my blog, or message boards, so I've just been keeping quiet.

I did end up going out to visit Caden on his 6 months.
I wanted to be there for 14:41 - the time he was born, but at that exact moment I was driving there and actually, swearing at a car for cutting me off!
I got 6 balloons in his colours (orange and blue) and wrote some messages for him. I think I wrote a little too much on one of them as it exploded in my hands...I lay with him for awhile, then sent up his balloons.

It was the strangest thing, as I walked into the Children's Garden I got this strong smell, and it was JUST like he smelled on the second day after he was born (I think it was the laundry detergent they used to wash his gown and blanket overnight)
As I was walking out I had the same smell.
So I climbed into the garden and sniffed the blossom trees at the entrance. It was like smelling Caden. I still can't get over just how much it smelled like him. I did a naughty thing and broke off a small branch to take home for Kim (and to sniff on the way home)
Makes me sound a little insane doesn't it?

I have photos at home, will post them tonight.

Angry at the world, Angry at nothing...

I'm so angry. At times I am literally shaking from rage.
It's not directly anger at the deadbaby situation, but I'd have to be incredibly naive to say it's not indirectly related. Just everything is pissing me off at the moment.
In particular, 3 things.
I'm not going to go into it because that just increases the anger and doesn't get my anywhere - just gets me all worked up again!!!
*sigh* it's quite ridiculous really.

I had a sort of fight with Kim the other day.
Slept on the couch.
We're over it now.

But the other anger issues - still festering away. I don't know how to deal with it.
I think I need therapy.

"Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burnt" - Buddhist quote

*********************

Just so y'all don't get all worried about me...I'm not all doom and gloom.
Something cute from the other day.
Out of nowhere - R comes out with "Do you think God is letting Caden have rides on Danny?"
"Yes, I think so."
(Danny is our family dog who died of old age last year)
He can be so sweet when he isnt throwing a tantrum over eating his peas...


Wait a minute.

Isn't it funny how you lose perspective?
I decide to write something cute and not as depressing as I thought I was coming across (people have expressed concern) - and what do I come up with? My son asking whether his dead baby brother is getting to ride our dear old dog.

Fuck me.

You never really are the same after your child dies are you??

Never will be

Hey there - still here, still repressing.

Every night I feel the same sensation of tears pricking at my eyes and every night I swallow that lump that rises in my throat and change the subject in my own head. Every night it flashes into my mind. The minute when the doctor said those disgusting words. "I'm sorry (are you, are you really? or is it just your job to say that), your baby's heart does appear to have stopped" (no it hasn't. Check again. CHECK AGAIN).
The panic. God, the panic. My heart stops each time and I have to think of something else quick smart. I am just so fucking sick of crying. Is there no end to the tears we can shed. There should be. If I stop drinking water all together, will that help?

Everything I think of at the moment has an age attached to it. I think of anything we might do, any events coming up. Caden would have been 5 months old. Caden should have been 8 months old...

Should have been...
Would have been...
Isn't...
Can't be...
Never will be...

Adaptation

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide. No escape from reality

Is this really me?
Is this really my life now?
Did my child really die?
At times I find myself going about my daily business and I stop....as the thought hits me that "holy shit. My baby died."
Having been one of those overly dramatic girls who in the past caused many a scene in a high school drama queen fashion, it feels at times as though this is some story I have concocted. As though it couldn't possibly have happened to me because things like this DO. NOT. REALLY. HAPPEN. And I always considered that if anyone in my close family died, I would just not be able to cope. I would just fall apart and cry all day every day and just be entirely unable to function.

But look at me.

My baby is dead. The child I planned, desperately wanted, wished and prayed for, carried for nine loving months, dreamed of, and loved...well he died. Inside me. And I gave birth to him. Dead (that word still brings automatic tears). And yet my life goes on.

I have to visit my child at his grave.

Can you imagine that?

Can you imagine going along and taking toys, rearranging windmills and flowers at your child's grave?

How horrific. Who could ever imagine such a thing?

And yet...a quote I heard on tv the other day stands out to me. To paraphrase Nigella Lawson...the human ability to normalise the abnormal, the tragic, is astounding.

It has become quite normal to me to visit my son's grave. To take him little token gifts. To water the flowers other parents leave their babies who are also buried there. To read stories of other deadbabymamas. To look lovingly at momento mori photos of the loved little precious babies who were born too early, born still.

Hmm. Isn't is strange how we are able to adapt.

catching up

SATURDAY - Autopsy is a four letter word.
I had a challenging weekend. On Saturday L and C both separately asked Kim whether we had the autopsy reports. Hearing anyone use the word autopsy in relation to my son (except me, and my deadbabymamafriends) makes me ill...and angry. I simultaneously wanted to punch them in the face, throw up, scream at them and run away. Instead, I sat perfectly still and pretended I couldn’t hear them.

SUNDAY - Shadow baby.
On Sunday all the kids from the street were playing together in the street. We pulled the basketball hoop out to the footpath and they played for hours. The neighbour with a baby came out and introduced herself. Her baby is 6 months old.
“I so hope there is this kind of community for Joel when he is older.”
I wanted to throw up. I wanted to tell her my baby would have played with hers if he didn’t die. She left, then came back with her baby. I saw her coming. I went into the house and hid. Apparently she introduced the baby to Kim. Kim wanted to tell her about Caden but didn’t know how. I want her to know. To know why we aren’t being nice and friendly with her and her baby. To know that we had a baby, almost the same age, who would have grown up with her Joel and played with him. I need her to know.

WEDNESDAY - I Cried

Today I cried. I cried as I lay on the couch talking to Kim. I cried when I hung up. I cried when I got up to switch on the light, and sunk to the floor wailing at how unfair it is. I cried as I walked to the kitchen, I cried as I opened the cupboards, and couldn’t see a thing for my tears. I cried as I opened the freezer, and sat in front of the open doors sobbing. I cried as I looked for lunch, I cried as I made my lunch. I cried as I ate it.

I’m so fucking SICK of crying. I’m sick of this life of shitty things happening.

2 months without Caden

ho hum

Despite the overwhelming negativity of the past two entries, I'm doing ok.
I hit a rough patch at work yesterday (which I'm sure I will write about another day).

Despite running on three hours sleep and a ton of coffee (and not much else) I feel okay today.
I did have a moment this morning when I was dropping off Rory at his Vacation Care while I'm at work, there was a cheeky little boy saying goodbye to his big brother and for the first time I had a glimpse of what we will miss with Caden. I could see him for the first time as a child rather than the baby I always see him as. It's making me tear up a little to write, but I was surprised at how the thought didn't upset me like I thought it would.

I'm keeping myself really busy, editing a newspaper, getting ready for the long weekend where I get to meet my SIL's new partner (v. exciting) and going to work. All I want to do though is go home and lay on the couch with a box of chocolates.

So I guess I've settled into a sort of melancholy rather than the deep grief I was feeling a few days ago. Hmm.

Don't know which I prefer to tell you the truth.

hate this. want it to go away.

I feel so sad today.
So fucking sad.

Last night I cried again. And when I say cried, I dont mean quiet tears, I have them every day. I mean gut wrenching, clutching my chest, screaming tears.
It always hits me at about 1:30am-2am. And because Kim has to be up at 5:30am to go to work, I was trying so hard to be quiet. I even went out to the lounge room to avoid waking her up. I gave myself one hell of a headache holding in my really loud sobs. All I wanted to do was wail.

I thought I had it out of my system, so I went back to bed. Kept sobbing quietly. Eventually Kim woke up and grabbed me into a hug as she does. And it broke out of me. I wailed so hard and so loud, I nearly threw up. I sobbed and wailed for a little bit and then was so close to being physically ill that I forced myself to calm down. It felt fucking good to make so much noise though.

And today I'm off work, eating pizza for lunch, lying on the couch with a killer headache watching tv and drinking bourbon. And feeling utterly sorry for myself.

I fucking hate this.

I FUCKING HATE THIS.

I thought I was doing well seeing babies around and stuff, but I have found my biggst trigger. Seeing families like ours. Two mums and a baby just does.me.in.

I FUCKING HATE THIS.

new guilt

I feel a new guilt.
I'm back at work.
And I don't think about Caden all day. I have huge photos of him plastered all over the walls of my desk area and I stare at him all day. But I don't really think about him.
I havent cried in days.
I read the heart wrenching blog entries of the other women living without their babies and I'm jealous.

I wish I felt their pain. I wish I could do nothing but cry all day.
Then I would feel like I was doing him justice. As it is, I feel like I'm failing him more every day that passes. That I'm not enough of a mother to love him so much that I cant live without him.
I wish so much that I didnt have to live without him. I wish he were HERE where he belongs...

and now I'm crying. It seems that all I needed to do was write about him


Baby boy I miss you. I wish you were here with your mamas where you belong. I wish I had more than a blanket and your name on my foot. I wish I had you...

tired

I want to sit down and write a thought-provoking, heartfelt entry about how I am these days. how much this life sucks. How I feel like I am barely existing rather than living. But I am tired.

I am tired of emotion.
I am tired of writing.
I am tired of coming up with new awful scenarios in my mind.
I am tired of waiting.

I am tired of pushing thoughts of Caden out of my mind because I know that when I let them in it's bad, awful, hurtful, horrific.

I know that pushing these thoughts out of my mind is unhealthy. That I'm not 'letting myself grieve'. I dont want to grieve. Grieving fucking sucks. I want to feel better. I want to be better. I want to enjoy life again. I want to feel hope again.

I want to be 'over this' even though I know, fifty years from now I will think of him and cry like it happened yesterday. I can't get over this. I'll never be 'over this'. I just want to sleep. I just want it all to go away and have some peace.