Nearly there

Slowly minute by minute hour by hour the day gets closer the date 5 years ago when I was lying in a hospital bed waiting for J and at to visit after spending weeks in there with high BP but a baby that wouldn't grow.  I was on a CTG machine waiting for her to kick but there was something wrong and instead of a nice steady strong heartbeat it started to decel and they decided to induce that night.  I met T and J as I was being wheeled into delivery, 2 hours later and my gorgeous baby girl was lying in my arms.  Everything I needed for my world to be complete.  Now 5 years on my life will never be that complete she will always be missing

It's been a long time

It's been a while since I posted ..   A long while and in that while nothing has changed and everything has changed. 

I guess the biggest change is that we have moved home.  It started as a conversation back in May about the fact that my parents were moving and how upset I was at the thought of them being 4 hours away instead of over the road.  How I would miss them. Tom questioned why we didn't move as well and before I new it 3 short months later we are here living g in Norfolk away from the familiar and the faces, away from the glances and the whispers and the rumours a new start.

A start without B.  we are here, are memories are there the constant reminders of where she jumped in puddles where she drew on the wall where she laughed and cried and played, and where she rests. In some ways it's easier to be here in others I long to be there.

As we pass into this new yeary gorgeous girl should be celebrating her 5th birthday on Tuesday,  my sweet sweet girl how can this be?

B

My gorgeous girl, just how, that's my only question just how can you not be here. How can I not touch you, how can I not here your giggle your cheeky 'how are you' how come your not here eating my chocolate buttons behind my back.  Why aren't your fingers in my cake mix.  Why can I only see your beautiful smile when I close my eyes?  Why aren't you jumping in puddles in the rain? Why all this pain? My darling girl if I could do that day again, I love you

Looking for the similar

OnApril 22 Rhys at 10 months took his first few tentative steps unadded, we eventually got it on film and just love watching it, the little wobble the big smile the masses of excited dribble.this morning on my Facebook page I found a similar video of B taking her first few steps, it seemed almost funny to me that she too took her first steps in April.

When I was pregnant with Rhys I knew one thing amongst all the uncertainty, he had to be his own person he was in no way a replacement. Yet they are so similar, the toothy grin he gives me, the way he spits fruit out but adores even the smallest amput of cake. His facial expressions his stubbornness his laugh his sense of humour, he is such his own person but yet so similar. Some times those similarities sooth me sometimes they cut my heart like a knife

Being without

I just keep hoping, just keep on telling myself it isn't always going to be like this.

I'm going to miss B with an ache unless you have lost a child you will never understand. It's a loss I could always imagine but never understood, till I was there in that room. 'Darling your baby girl has died, she is dead' those words that feeling you won't ever imagine unless you have lost your child. I'm going to miss B forever, it's something I know. I also know that the times when it feels so raw, so emotional are getting further apart. The days where I can talk about her without dissolving into a million tears are becoming more frequent, so it isn't crazy I don't think to have some hope that things won't always feel like this. In a way I have proof already. This time last year things felt 1 million times worse than this.

I haven't written here for a long time, I guess the reason why is that I became afraid. I took a job I stuck on my normal face I stuck myself smack bang in the middle of life and I failed epically at it. I floundered and in some almost ironic way I drowned in the terror of it all. I left in February and the first few weeks took a massive toll on me, I felt like failure. I felt like I shouldn't even be here, I felt as if I had let so many people down. The feeling of being once again completely out of my emotional depth lead me to just want to hide. I'm not sure when the turning point occurred but The whole thing made me realise a lot about myself.

1. What doesn't kill you doesn't make you stronger either, it changes you.

2. Sometimes coping is about finding your limits and sticking to them.

3. Strength is sometimes knowing your limits and telling others to stick it if they don't like them.

4 the world keeps turning, but it's ok you don't always have to dance on it

5 It's ok to be afraid.

It's been a long time

I go through these phases of being compelled to write down every last feeling to just wanting to take a step back from it all. Read others posts and kind of pretend this hasn't happened.

In my world not alot has happened since I was last here. Leaving work has perhaps been the biggest. I knew pretty much as soon as I started that it was too much too soon. So at my 8 week review I said I wanted to leave but agreed to stay on until they had found a replacement. In the end I could only stay a couple more weeks though. I was asked on thebthursday to make a phone call and the panic that rose from it led me to burst into tears, I then called in sick for a couple of days, but when I went to go back I ended up having a massive panic attack in the car on the way. The GP signed me off but I realised I just could go back again. Since I've left the stress has definately reduced, sometimes I just forget how difficult the simple things can be sometimes like getting up.

It's Mother's Day in the Uk today and I did come on here to say how I feel about it, but I just feel so sad that I can't find the words anymore. It's one of those days where the fact that B isn't here is obvious and heartbreaking for me to the point I want to just pretend its Mother's Day but I have to force myself to remember and appreciate I have a mum and so do Jess and Rhys. I have to put my smile on for them and cope through it. I hope if your in the uk you have a peaceful Mother's day

Looking for the missing

I feel sometimes like I'm forever searching for B like she's just missing and any day now I'm going to find her. Sometimes I think I hear her laughing and I ache for her, sometimes I think I see her as a little girl with blond hair bounds off into the distance, lost into the crowd. Sometimes I feel like ill get not rest from the searching. I feel incomplete without her

Unsent

Dear Lyn

It's been along time hasn't it? No your right it hasn't really, six years in the grand scale of time is barely a whisper yet it feels like such a long time since we spoke, since I heard your voice since I saw you.

I've been trying to work things out and I wish I knew the answer. I'm sorry that you felt the only option was to leave it breaks my heart to know that wasn't true. I read the letters Lyn I know that for you this was a way of making everything ok. You didn't want to go but life had become so unbearable that you didn't want to be here either. I wish I could have helped you. I wish that you knew that I loved you and I wish you believed it. I would have done anything but in the moments when you just seemed to hate me I knew the best thing I could do for you was to walk away. I didn't want too.

It's strange it's something that I struggle with. Your not here. I'm not sure where you are, I don't know what comes next, but if B is with you even if there is the tiniest possibility. Tell her I'm sorry

Tell her that if I could I would be with her. Tell her I long to see her, to here her too feel her next to me.

Tell her that in that moment I made a mistake. Tell her I'm sorry. Tell her that I tried to bring her back to me. Tell her I love her.

It's been a long time Lyn yet in other ways just a moment and all these moments ahead of me engulf me sometimes. All the things I have to do without you, without her. I wish I knew what the answer was. I miss her so much Lyn I miss her smile her giggle the joy she brought in my life my life is different without you both. It's difficult it's hard it's crazy it's shit it's not what I wanted, it's difficult and I don't like it.

I never said goodbye to you Lyn I never did once you became ill I always said see you later xxxxx

Sometimes

Sometimes I just want to pack my bags and walk out sometimes I don't even care if I even take my bags. Sometimes I just want to be off the planet. I just dont want to be here at all. Sometimes, not all the time but definately sometimes.

Naughty

Every month or so Tom and I go out for dinner alone, it's the only time that we really talk about B and Jess and Rhys and where we are going with it all. It's also nice to eat my dinner whilst its still hot! To be honest at home we are like ships that pass in the night. Rhys sleeps very little and so I try and get a couple of hours early evening I then look after him whilst Tom does some work on his software business before Rhys goes to sleep round about midnight then we go to bed but Rhys wakes usually a couple of hours later. That's him awake then ready to start the day and its always me up with him. Anyway last night we opted for a quick meal and then we did something really naughty we checked into the premier inn. And I slept for 3 solid hours with no chance of being woken by Rhys and then we checked out. It was lovely and it was exspensive and slightly nuts. But it was the best 3 hours sleep I have had in a long time

How can it be so?

I'm tired, I'm functioning barely on 4 hours sleep over the past two days thanks to teething and although my boys asleep now snoring next to me I'm very much awake.

I think I will lay here all night watching the time tick away into tomorrow. This isn't my first tomorrow without B but I will buck the tread here and say last year didn't feel nearly as bad. I cannot see the reason why tomorrow will happen and my girl won't be here see it. There won't be a big celebration or gifts or cards on the mantle. There won't be candles and cake and singing It will just be tomorrow and I'll just be without her.

Happy birthday my gorgeous girl for tomorrow. Mummy loves you

A question of culture?

I know that after B died a massive portion of blame fell on me, if I had waited to get my drink if I had insisted she stay with me instead of running ahead if I hadn't done a lot of things she wouldn't be dead. To be honest I accept that blame but I also see now that blaming myself absolutely won't bring her back so I try my hardest to not dwell on that part of it, to not focus on the what ifs.

The only person who has actually come out and said 'you should have gone with her' or questioned my actions on the day to my face was an American friend of mine who swiftly followed it with I would have never had put my child in danger like that despite the fact she has a 1/2 mile pond at the bottom of her garden and let's her children play out alone. I accepted her critisim of my parenting at the time because to be honest I accept that people may have that view as a way of saying I would never do it therefore my child won't ever die, it's a sort of false protection. We still communicate via Facebook and in her own way she has been supportive since B died, alot of the disagreements we do have are over our polar views on racism homosexuals God Obama and guns. . But that I think is partly down to the countries we live in, in my opinion the USA is so forward thinking in alot of ways and so backwards in others.

So for Christmas Day she buys her son a BB gun probably in length the same as his height, a gun that although isn't designed to kill can if used incorrectly and can harm. Her boy is two months younger than B, so approaching 4. I have to be honest I can't help but think I turn my back I'm a bad mother, you buy your son a gun and that's acceptable?

It's hard not too

As Christmas approaches its hard not to be caught up in the merriment. I have to say these days I feel like I'm two different people- the one who carrys on who does her best to appear as a normal mum, the one that's done the shopping is planning the meals, the one that's done the wrapping and the card making, supervised letters to Santa, removed the bra from Jess's list in said letter to Santa and is in some way looking forward to seeing the kids faces on Christmas Day, celebrating Rhys' first Christmas. But then of corse there's the other, the one that misses her daughter so much, I should have been watching her first nursery nativity. I wonder if she would have done as her sister did whilst playing the angel and wiping a bogey on the head of the donkey I wonder if she would have refused to put her penny in the old mans hat or got into a pushing fight over who was first to go on stage. It should have been me sat there last week watching her. That's how I feel my life is though split between what I have and what I don't and having those two different existences almost I think is the only way I can do it at the moment because everytime I begin to see the two merge I'm reminded of the time that Jess said 'don't worry mum I'm still here' and she is and if she's excited about Christmas then she deserves for me to at least pretend that I am.

Whilst watching some rubbish (he loves it I think it's rubbish) on tv last night of the moon my husband suddenly said 'its hard isn't it? Missing her all the time' and I think that's the first time since she died and since the immediate aftermath that he's actually verbally acknowledged that he misses her. And now I have heard him say those words I don't feel so alone in this, I know he's not a big emotional talker but to actually know that he still misses her that he finds it hard too gives me some kind of comfort.

In other news and which may have prompted the conversation Rhys has been poorly, he started with just a wheeze which turned into a cough which has turned into broncolitis (I cannot spell) he ended up in hospital on a nebuliser yesterday and they have changed his inhaler to something else. They are pretty sure also that he has asthma so I have to see the GP about that. He's fine apart from the fact the last few nights he hasn't slept, but when I got the call yesterday from my mum to say he was going to the hospital all I could think was omg he's going to die which prompted an emotional phonecall to my husband - I'm pretty sure that work think I'm nuts now!

Work is something I'm still struggling with but I'm trying to hold out a but longer - it's bloody hard work though

Christmas post 2

I actually must confess that last year Christmas wasn't too bad. The food was good, it was good to see j happy when she got her new keyboard, the company was good and although it was plainly obvious that b wasn't there despite the horrendous feeling of dread as the day approached it wasn't that bad.
This year though I'm struggling to even get the strength together to get an advent calander

The best friends I have

Are on the Internet. There's the ones I met through a holiday wish list appeal some 5 or so years ago who probably know more about me and what I'm thinking than my husband does. There are the ones that I speak to alot on Facebook who live minutes from me who I rarely actually see and when I do see them it's just a friendly hello and move on. Then there's a select group of people who I have met since B died who may not know that my favourite colour is purple and I am addicted to stationary especially mini stationary, but they at least have some idea of what this is like. My husband thinks I'm a little crazy that I go for weeks and weeks without talking to real in the flesh friends that I reserve contact with them for special occasions and the unexpected moments where I bump into them in the shops because I haven't had a chance to hide. The task my CPN has taken on is to encourage me into situations where I may make a new in the flesh friend - we shall see how that goes!

Feeling a little deflated

Funnily though it has nothing to do with B. I decided that I would have a go at making keepsakes of my own using a pattern available online. I didn't want to make bears and bunts and memory quilts I just wanted to make ducks. I was quite excited about it, and didn't think it would be stepping on anyone's shoes really as although other people make the ducks no one else makes them exclusively and the women in the local area who I was going to make them for doesn't make them - at least she didn't until she announced today that she was going too. Now I'm not sure what to do, do I just give up on the idea? Or do I go ahead with it anyway it may not even go anywhere and really what's life without competition- I really don't know

Sorry 2 updates 1 day

If I just splurged and said exactly what's on my mind right this minute it would be this - I want off the life train, I've had enough, I can't do it, I'm done with being a grown up a mother a wife I want off I want out I want done. How come yesterday was so fine yet today feels so desperate, so done so final?? How do you put one foot in front of the other when all you want to do is be swallowed up by it? Is tomorrow going to be a stronger day will it even come at all?

What goes up comes down

The last few weeks I have felt like some big fat fraud, Ive actually been on quite a high and coping really well.  I was kinda tapping myself on the back for taking this massive leap forward in this whole process.  I got a job, I decided to start my own keepsake business, my house was tidy and clean, I passed my exams and put in for my final two - all was going so well.

Today though I feel s massively deflated and so far down that if it wasn't for the fact I had to get up to feed R I dont think i would have bothered.  I just miss my girl crazy amounts today

This picture

An hour after this photo was taken the cascading events of that day that left me without my girl were about to unfold - the kids were having lunch and i was just watching the water thinking what a great time we were having wondering if the go karts would ever arrive.

If I could go back in time this is the point where I would return. To the point in time just before the world changed.