Snippets

My birthday presents from the 14th: the turtle and the pink enamelled hearts bead. 

Next is George's little shoe and Little Poppet's flower bead. 

Ray thought "girl" and bought this the day after the hospital when he had to go shopping alone: cue torrents of tears. I still waver between boy and girl. 

Then a ladybird bead; just because.

 

A sunny birthday adventure.

Future Ray and Barb.

§§§§§§§

The saddest (and most drugged) itteh bitteh Kitteh in the world.
Poor sweetie.

"Yes I am absolutely and utterly  f i n e  now.
Please stop fussing and go away... or at least turn up with chicken."

"So, girl cat dude, you wanna, er, like, talk about it or sumfin?"

§§§§§§§

A teapot with a view.

Perfect sweet peas in the garden.

Synchronised chomping.

A very windy cup of tea. Look closely and you can see the wind rippling the tea in the cups.

Evening light.

In the back garden the sun kisses the sky goodnight.

Sleeptight.

Love is...

R: Love you my bootiful Poppet
B: Love you too my darling Pookie
R: Love you too my sweetness and light
B: Love you too my precious flower pot
R: Love you too my little compost heap...
*crickets*
R: ...er... that grows lovely flowers...
*crickets*
R: ...with really healthy roots?
B: *giggle*

Those people

Those people have been in love for four whole months.

Those people are excited by the life they are beginning together.

Those people are learning to fill their lives with love.

Those people have smiles and laughter that come easily.

Those people are full of hope.

Those people don't yet know the loss of a child.

I miss those people.

Because you are my treasure

...Tears



















Smiles...













...engineering














.love
..love
...love



Happy love day lovely people!

Taken for granted by the one I love

Ray made some flippant remark about our old age and where we might be living and I came over all warm and fuzzy and butterflies in the tummy-like.

I love the fact that he takes it for granted that my love is constant and that we will spend the rest of our lives together. I love the squiggly feeling I get at some of the things he says even though I'm 41 and quite possibly should be cynical and twisted about romance after years of crappy relationships and frequent bouts of singledom but I'm not! Whoopee for me.

Too many of the woman I know are in such an unhappy place with their relationships. Obviously drawing on her own experience, one woman at work thought that I wasn't "allowed" to go anywhere by myself any more because we always had lunch together and he often came to meet me from work... what? No, I like being with Ray, he's my friend as well as my partner and we like to do stuff together. Sheesh.

Generations

I found these photos today and I thought I'd share them.

This is my Dad as a boy on holiday with his father and grandfather and hidden sister in a rather wonderful perambulator. My Dad's father died at 60. Ray's Dad died at 38. Ray will be 38 in June and is apprehensive of how he will feel as he becomes an older man than his father. My Dad had similar feelings.



My Dad playing his fathers piano in the house where I grew up. Very spacey looking heater to the bottom left of the photo and is that an ashtray on a stand to the right?! My Mum cured him of that habit! My Dad's memory is not so good these days and he repeats himself quite a lot and often tells me the story of how he trained our dog to play that piano and also of how he used to terrify my brother and I by reading fairy tales. I remember Dad, I won't forget. The piano went to my cousin when they moved into a smaller place and he plays a keyboard now and does it beautifully.



My Mum looking beautiful and so happy and I believe, pregnant with my older brother.



My brother and I on holiday somewhere. Apparently I was quite ill on this holiday. I remember playing on that tractor. Neither of us grew up with blond hair.



Ray and me before we got pregnant, before we found sad and before we became even closer but right about the time when we realised that we two were already a family.



Our sweet George made with love and lost with sadness. I wonder if his hair would have started out blond and become brown. I look at that perfect little nose and I cry. I wish I had more and/or better photos. I wish I wish I wish.



Today I'm reminiscing with love.

A plague on both your houses!

Yesterday evening, whilst I was in the kitchen generously letting Ray snore through his turn to cook dinner, he woke up itchy and scratchy and covered in what looked like hives. "I'm covered in buboes!" He wailed, stripping off in the kitchen and dashing for the shower.

Quick internet search: hives can be caused by an allergy to a cold or flu virus and usually appear after the virus has done it's worst. Poor guy has never had hives before and thought he had the plague, or measles or mumps or meningitis.

Ok, In full nanny mode now (more about the nannying another time) I took charge. I knew we'd find a use for that Sudocrem sample that came from the 12 week scan freebie pack. We covered him with said cream, ate a bit of dinner and then went to the midnight pharmacy and bought stupidly expensive antihistamine pills.

From the pharmacy car park the crescent moon shone beautifully through the clouds. We chased it home the long way.

Today he's fine. No more hives, no more itching.

But he's hatching another plot to get the person who infected him and attach thumbscrews...


Hmmm... today it's not all about me ... again.

In which I ramble, witter and burble.

Ray thinks he survived the "killer bird flu". He was running around like a headless chicken rearranging furniture and plants at midnight last night. And today we've been to the recycling centre, the supermarket, the garage and two beaches. I've been serenaded in the car and now I'm exhausted!

Physically I'm still not quite right but I'm getting there and more importantly I'm also finding hope. Just a little. And the occasional moment of pure joy. Mostly brought to me by my very own Ray of sunshine. I am starting to see the beauty of this world again and that means so much. I have my dark times, my crying days and my constant companion grief. But I don't believe we are meant to hang on to grief too tightly. I believe we must allow ourselves time to hit rock bottom but also time to heal and laugh and live.

I think of George every day and he is always with me. That hasn't changed, but the horror of the day we lost him is no longer just behind my eyelids.

I was so pleased yesterday to read that Antigone gave birth to her Perseus. And I'm so glad for myself that I am able to feel pleased for someone else having a baby when I'm not any more. Of course I'm hideously jealous, of course I am and I cried when I read it, but I'm also so very pleased that she got her live baby after loss and it gives me hope that I'll get mine. I'm also waiting for Newt to get on with it and evict her mini-newt. I need to hear good news these days. I don't listen to or read the news any more because it's all doom and gloom and mostly it gets me cross about how cheap life seems to be.

Anyway, Ray is snoring delightfully next to me on the sofa now so I think his excess energy is well and truly burned off. He stood in the middle of the living room last night, plant in one hand and lamp in the other and, wide eyed, said, "help". It's his turn to cook dinner but maybe I'll give him the night off. Oh I'm such a good fiancée.

Today I'm rambling.

Soppy and Mushy

I'm cooking dinner whilst grumpy lies on the sofa wrapped in my blanky and all of a sudden I hear the song which he chose as ours before we even got together blasting out from the living room. And there he is in the kitchen singing, "How wonderful life is while you're in the world" with his arms open wide, asking for a hug-dance. I, of course, burst into tears, "soppy cow" said he. "mushy git", said I.


Today I've posted three times!

Grumpy and Bitchy

The great man-flu epidemic of one is nearly over. The smell of medication is slowly leaving the house, the complaining, moaning and stinky bad mood have all nearly gone and the amusing wish to go-and-beat-the-crap-out-of-whoever-infected-him is abating (I blame pc shootemup games for that attitude). Yes dear, you've been in a lot of pain, your throat really really hurt. I get it, I do, but let me remind you about the pain I've been through; it was much worse than this... (as if you need reminding, you were there feeling it with me).

Oh hello, excuse me but let's get the attention back to me me me and my woes.

I ovulated yesterday, I think, I don't always feel it but there was some pain, aching and the timing was right, and all I was thinking was, oops there goes a wasted egg. For goodness sake we won't even be trying to make a baby until evilfibroidthings are tested and possibly zapped. But now, at my advancing age, every egg seems like a missed chance. I wish I could put them on hold until I need them. Just one good one. Just one.

And hey, if I'm healthy enough to not catch man-flu then why... no no, best not go there.


Oh yes, and happy new year again everyone! Really, I mean it, we all deserve a little happiness dammit.

2008

This was George's year.

The year of joy and sorrow.

The year I learned about real love and real pain.

The year of love for Ray and love for our unborn baby.

The year of such great joy at making George and such incredibly deep deep sorrow at his loss.

The year Ray and I became parents and grew SO much closer through our loss.

The year that the worst thing in the world happened.

The year I found out what it was like to be a mother to a dead baby.

The year I found out there was no such thing as fair.

The year I found kindred spirits in you beautiful people out there who know.

The year my light went out but now flickers uncertainly.

The year that I changed.


I know that one day passing into another year won't take away the pain of grief but I'm hoping that things will keep getting better.


Today I think I'm going to be ok. Tomorrow might be different.

Missing from today...

... and every day...

George, Kai, Sam, Hope, Ezra, Alice, Christian, Emma, Douglas, Karis and Addison Isobel and Jovita, Sueb's twin babies, Morissa and Neilly's babytobe, Shilpa's baby, Martha's baby, and each and every one of the babies that should be here but are missing... and sorely missed.

xxx

Uncharted territory.

I have been battling with odd moments of anger and irritation for a few days and much of it has been directed towards Ray.

This man has been the biggest, best and brightest source of love and light in my life and yet I find myself snapping at him for trivial nothings. At times my heart almost bursts with love for him and yet I feel I want to be away from him and he won't leave me alone. I feel he isn't grieving enough. I feel he doesn't say George's name enough. I want him to cry with me and I search his face for sadness. When he gets irritated with something I want to tell him that it doesn't matter, the worst thing in the world has already happened, how can anything else upset him?

But of course he already knows that the worst thing in the world has already happened, it happened to him too and he hurts too. We're not secretive about our feelings and we are helping each other to feel whatever we need to feel. We never leave even minor irritation in the air and we both always apologise if we get snappy and I hate that I've been feeling like this. We don't fight and we don't argue with anger: what's the point, we talk about our feelings and we don't bottle things up for long. If one of us is sulking, the other wants to know why. Ray never tries to stop my tears and has spent hours just holding me. I don't want to tell him that sometimes I feel like this. I could not, would not, will not hurt him. I know that anger is natural and a normal part of grieving but bloody hell, it's quite distressing to find it directed at the one person who really understands my pain. (and no, he doesn't read my blog, but he knows about it.)

Sometimes the act of writing out this negativity dissipates it. I organise my thoughts, type them out, edit a little and try to understand myself a little better. I can feel my mood lifting as these words appear on the screen.

This afternoon he's been visiting his buddy who has just split with his girlfriend after years together and Ray has been telling him that it's ok to feel bad and grief takes a long time. He knows. He understands.

This evening I told Ray that I was feeling irritated and on edge with the world and I was sorry if he was getting the brunt of it. I got hugs. He understands.

And all that negativity has gone.


This evening I'm feeling loved, accepted and a little more peaceful.

Finish every day and be done with it.

My love and I finish each day with a kiss, a cuddle and an, "I love you".

We start each day in a similar way. This is what will fix us.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities
no doubt have crept in;
forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely
and with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with
your old nonsense.

This day is all that is
good and fair.
It is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on yesterdays.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I don't know about beginning each day serenely and with a high spirit, particularly not today but meh, you know, I get up, I get dressed, I breathe, I love. That will just have to do for now.

This evening I'm a little calmer. Breathe Barbara, breathe..... ok much calmer now.

Odd thought

Here's a thing.

After Cara's comment in my blog yesterday about anticipation I started thinking. (I don't do a great deal of it these days, bear with me.)

George was due at the beginning of march. Wow, that seems like such a long way off and oh hell it's going to be a bad bad time.

Somehow and for some reason that I can't quite fathom, I think I would really like to be pregnant again before this date. Pregnant with a new life when George should still have been safe inside me.

Making the loss of his life meaningful? I don't know. It's an odd thought that has just occurred to me. We were only planning on having one child so being pregnant with no.2 will already be a life created where none would have been.

Does that make any sense? Can anyone else fathom this thought?


Today I'm trying to be artistic. Also not crying (yet) and not bleeding.

Lucky me.

I have to say that I have the best guy in the world who will do an Irish jig combined with a Russian dance to make me laugh. Wow, he'll be such a great dad. It's so stupidly unfair that he won't get to be a great dad to George.


We were lying on the grass down by the seafront one sunny day not long after we got together and we started playing with our camera phones. There are hundreds of these!

Coo, two posts in one day.

This evening I'm daring to try on a bit of optimism to see if it will still fit.

Running on empty.

Well, this morning I seem to be bleeding less. A lot less.

I should be jumping... if not for joy then for the not so distant promise of not having another D&C. But I'm not. I don't think I trust my body any more. I stopped bleeding a week after we lost George and a week and a day after we lost George I was being wheeled down to surgery. The bleeding had slowed down, until a week and a day ago it started getting heavier. No, I don't trust my body any more.

I'm exhausted.

Wiped out, knackered, done in, pooped.

A lot of it is physical, because of the anemia I think. All this bleeding can't have helped my blood count but then again, frequently forgetting to take my second iron pill of the day can't be helping either. I have no breath for hills (we live on a hill) and my legs ache so much after the least exercise.

I don't even need to mention the emotional exhaustion...

I feel bleak.

But I laugh with Ray. It's confusing. One minute the world is crushing me and the next I'm giggling like a teenager.

Oh I love him so much, he got so upset yesterday with the them that haven't fixed my insides properly yet that he didn't know what to do with himself. A strange thing happens to me when he cries, no matter how distressed I am, I stop and start comforting him. He stops and starts comforting me. Ah we work well together. He once told me he hadn't cried since his dad died when he was 16. He's re-learning the art of crying now.

We miss our George.

Today I'm ..... confused.

Love

The anger I have been feeling over the last two days has dissipated somewhat and today I'm thinking about good things. More specifically, I'm thinking about love.

I don't like feeling angry. I'm not an angry person, it seems such a destructive emotion, but since I have promised myself to go with the flow of my grief I let it in and accepted it and then splurted it out in my blog. No, splurted isn't a word, my mac tells me so but I like it and it fits.

Today I'm reminding myself of the amazing love I share with Ray. My best friend, lover, fiance, fellow geek and partner in loss. I'm so lucky to have found him.

At 39 I was starting to think that I would never find anyone to share my life with and making plans to breed cats, collect brown paper bags and grumble loudly at people who passed too close to my house.

I knew Ray for about 5 months at work before he asked me out on a date. We chatted, laughed and joked together every day and I had no idea he was harbouring romantic feelings towards me. (His brothers let me know later just how much he'd been "going on and on" about me for months). At first I said no, it was a bit of a shock to be truthful but eventually I realised just how much we had in common and how easy it was to be with him. No games, no pretense, no macho crap, just a nice guy (with a decidedly dodgy past) who I could tell all to. He accepted me for who I am and I accepted him for who he is.

He'd practically moved in after a week and one night, after about two weeks together we were lying in bed and he just casually blurted out that he thought we'd probably get married at some point and I casually agreed with the idea which then turned into him asking me to be his fiance and me saying yes. He then casually mentioned that he thought we'd make good parents...

Telling my parents was a bit odd as they'd only met him once before and since my Mum still thinks of me as a hormonal 16 year old plus she's seen the aftermath of the gory mess of a couple of my relationships I wasn't sure how she'd take it. She was shocked, went very quiet (totally out of character) and eventually congratulated us. I'm sure she thought it wouldn't last. She loves him to bits now. My dad just grinned and congratulated us.

Around a year later, my period was late and I told Ray we needed to buy a test. When we got it home off I went to pee on a stick. Ray turned purple at this point. His face was such a picture! It's all very well thinking you'd like kids but faced with the reality panic sets in, "oh my god, can we really DO this?!" Yes we can!" The test, as you know, was positive and although we didn't realise it, George had been created. Made with love.

It's hard to believe that we've only been together for 16 months when it feels as if I've loved him a lifetime.

Today I'm ok.