yuletide

In the words of one of my favourite Christmas songs:

I wish you a hopeful Christmas
I wish you a brave New Year
All anguish, pain and sadness
Leave your heart and let your road be clear


(This is my favourite Christmas song though).

The candle I lit for my Little Stars this evening is also lit for Starchild, Bean, Snowflake, Eurydice and siblings, Baby Hurricane, Thomas and his siblings, lost ones and their grandfather and sadly so many more.

Wishing you all a peaceful Christmas.

because I can't say this out loud

Dear IRL friend,

I live in your world.  

I rejoiced for you when you met your wife and found yourself stepping in to a ready-made family.  I celebrated with you when your wife got pregnant with your biological child.  I read and replied your emails during your wait for fatherhood, I admired photos of your baby in utero and from across the miles I held your hand as you worried about whether you were really ready to be a parent.

I bought and sent gifts when your daughter was born, for her christening, for her first birthday.  I admired more photos, I asked the right questions, I responded to your letters which were all about your daughter and your step children in kind. 

I forgave you when you didn't write after I lost my precious Starchild, my darling Bean, my tiny Little Stars.

I live in your world.

I am struggling to adapt to a childless life.  I see pregnant women, parents, children, grandparents everywhere.  I concede summer and Christmas holidays to my colleagues who have children.  I cover for them when they need to take time off for plays and concerts and sports days and measles and tummy upsets.  My taxes help to pay for maternity leave and child support and free school meals.

I live in your world.  

I listen when people tell me I should just adopt or just relax or that some people just aren't meant to have children.  I laugh like it's funny when people tell me I can "have my kids for a day if you want, that'll change your mind", I agree I am so lucky I have more disposable income and that I can lie in bed on Sunday mornings and I can drink wine every night.  That I should get over it and move on.



I live in your world.

I remember your birthday, your wife's birthday, your stepchildren's birthdays, your daughter's birthday, your wedding anniversary.  I don't expect you to remember my exact loss dates or know my unfulfilled due dates, why should you?  They are just random days to you and I understand that.


But I wish that just this once, just this time, you had remembered that I lost my babies on Christmas Eve and you didn't send me a festive card made up of photos of your children. 

a year ago

A year ago today I was pregnant.

A year ago tomorrow I learnt my HcG levels were dropping.

A year ago on Friday I started to miscarry our Little Stars.

A year ago I still thought that this Christmas would see us as parents.

It was only a year ago.

But it was also a lifetime ago.

loss

If you have time, please go and give Elizabeth some love.

bittersweet

One day while pregnant with Bean I fainted at work and was tended to by Dr Lovely.  She asked me if I was pregnant while she took my blood pressure and when I said "yes" I saw something in her eyes I recognised - pain and envy.  A few weeks after Bean died a group of us went out for an evening and Dr Lovely and I found ourselves at one end of the table, tipsy and talkative.  She told me about the struggles she and her husband had had, how there was no chance of them conceiving without medical intervention, how none of their first cycle embryos had made it to blasts and how they were going to be sinking everything they had into a cycle done at a famous American facility.

Last November Dr Lovely had her embryos transferred two days after I did.  I lost my Little Stars on Christmas Eve, hers stayed for just one more week.  We had cycled together, hoped together, tentatively rejoiced together and then mourned together.

Today I had a gentle email from Dr Lovely who is currently working in Africa.  They had a last ditch, 4th IVF at the famous American facility and she is now almost out of the first trimester.  I am genuinely happy for her and rejoiced that her heartbreaking journey is finally heading in a wonderful direction and could send a sincerely joyful email back.  But if she had been in front of me she too would have seen something in my eyes that she recognised.

stunned

On Tuesday evening I nodded goodbye to Mad Secretary as she stomped off into the icy cold night, wrapped up warm from her sensible boots to a very dashing hat.

Yesterday JJ stopped by my office to say that Mad Secretary hadn't come in and wasn't picking up either of her phones.  We rang the agency (Mad Secretary is a temp) who hadn't heard from her and they tried ringing her ICE number to no avail.  JJ and I fretted for the rest of the day, with JJ intermittently trying Mad Secretary's phones.  We ran through possible scenarios: Mad Secretary went to visit her daughter in one of the Home Counties and got snowed in (best case), she slipped and fell on the ice on the way to work and was taken to her local A&E (JJ's worst case), she fell in the bath and broke her hip (my worst case - she is 71).

This morning the department PA came to my office and told me about the scenario we hadn't imagined.  That Mad Secretary had had a massive heart attack sometime either Tuesday night or Wednesday and had died instantly.  I know it's true.  We all know that it is true.  It's just impossible to believe.

Brrr and Grrr

It is quite fresh out here in England at the moment.  Today London, compared to the rest of the country, was a balmy 1 degree (Celcius) and by the time I had walked to the Lovely Therapist's office this evening I couldn't feel my feet.  It's cold for the time of year and it's cold for central London.  It is no kind of weather to be standing still outdoors.

I am labouring this point of how freaking cold it is so that I can share this story.  I got to the Georgian building which houses, among others, the Lovely Therapist's office and standing outside were a couple with a pair of not more than 2-month old twins.  Mum and Dad each had a baby in one of those B@byBjorn carriers and they were leaning against the railings chatting while Dad finished off a cigarette.  He threw away the stub just as I got to the steps and Mum pushed past me to get inside saying "got to get these mites in the warm".

I hated them both so much.

Anyway.  Today is World AIDS Day.