"Le Chagrin"

The view from the window in my appartment.
Moksha's ashes are scattered somewhere in those hills, but off the right of the picture

Yesterday was very sad but not unbearably sad. We met my MIL and FIL at the little lake where Moksha's ashes were scattered. I laid three yellow flowers by the inflowing stream for Moksha's three months. MIL and FIL scattered rosepetals from their garden as we did on the day we scattered his ashes (hence my online name). We cried and walked around the lake. It's in a forest and the forest floor is now carpeted with fallen autumn leaves.

In my mind I said sorry to Moksha over and over again. MIL told me that she loved the place, that whenever she came she thought not only of Moksha but also of her mother. She said that she hoped one day Moksha would have a little brother or sister and that then we could come up to the lake with him or her so that we could all be together with Moksha.

Then we had a late lunch with MIL and FIL in a restaurant in a nearby village. Later on, DH and I released a balloon with a message to Moksha attached to it from each of us. The prevailing wind was different this time - the balloon went in the opposite direction from the previous two times.

On Saturday we had visited a little art exhibition in our village. One of the artists was exhibiting small to medium sized bronze statues. They were all of figures in different postures and represented emotions. The figures have heads but not faces - the interpretation is all in the way their bodies are positioned.

One of them was of a woman sitting on the ground with her legs drawn up and her arm around her knees. Her head is bent forward. A man sits behind her so that she is sort of sitting in the space between his legs. He looks like he just sank to the ground. One of his arms is around her shoulder; the other holds her inclined head close to his chest. His head is also bent forward, resting on the back of her neck.

I identified so much with this statue - the shape of the figures clearly represented sorrow, grief, sudden despair and loss to me. Whatever they are suffering, it has happened recently and it touches them to the core. And, after we had seen it, we found out that it was indeed called "Le Chagrin" - which would be translated as sorrow in English.

The paintings in our home are those we have bought on our travels in S. America, Africa and India and which are all relatively cheap compared to here. (For most of them the framing back here in Europe cost a helluva lot more than the art itself). I have never bought a bronze statue before but I have seen a few pieces of art over here in the past that really resonated with me, looked at the price tag and thought, hmmmm, pretty expensive, walked away and then regretted not buying it.

We went back the next day - Moksha's 3 month birthday - and looked at "Le Chagrin" again and we decided to buy it. It's not bank-breakingly expensive - we're not talking Van Gogh here - but it is the most expensive piece of art I've ever bought. Maybe the cost of a week's holiday involving short flights and hotels. I don't regret spending the money at all. It manifests how we both feel at losing Moksha. Something physical and solid, a translation of my feelings. I don't feel like the figures all the time, but I have felt like that and will again, many times. We only have it because Moksha was here and I like that we bought it in the village where Moksha was conceived, where he should be now and on his 3 month birthday.

In other news - more evidence of my perfect text book pregnancy. My hair has started to fall out. A LOT. I sweep it up off the floor, look behind me and there are strands of hair where I just swept. Looked it up with Dr. Google, yep it's supposed to start 3 months after giving birth. Is this the last physical thing related to my pregnancy that's going to happen?

3 months today

Dearest Moksha,

Today you should be three months old. You would maybe be laughing out loud and turning your head to hear people talk. Mummy and Daddy miss you. We are learning to be with you in ways we had never imagined. We will never ever forget you - your life had such a profound effect. Such a little person with so much impact! We think about you so often.

How differently we thought these last months would pass by! I so looked forward to seeing you change and grow, and cuddling your small, warm body against mine. You would have kept us awake at night. Our home is so quiet instead of being noisy and full of life, laughter and cries.

Maybe Daddy and I would have had arguments through being so tired. Instead we have become very close to each other - thanks to you. All of your grandparents miss you too dear Moksha. We all wish that we could have spent more time with you. But I will find you again one day. I promise.

All my love, as always,
Mummy

Foot in the office

I have calmed down a bit about my ex-friend. I haven't sent the email but writing the draft of it helped me calm down. Blogging is pretty useful like that. And having spent time drafting it also came in useful, as I mention below.

I had to go into the office for the first time yesterday to drop off my old laptop, and again today to pick up my new one (on which I am now typing this post). I had a meeting in a café with the head of HR first, where we discussed my forthcoming return to work some more, and then we went back to the office together as she knew I was not looking forward to it.

After dropping off my PC, I had a coffee with my team's assistant, who has been in touch with me already via letter and email. It was the first time I've seen her. We walked over to the café and she was trying to be her usual bright self when all of a sudden she stopped, looked at me and said, "You didn't deserve this, not you", started crying and hugged me in the middle of the street. Naturally that set me off.

We had a drink and I showed her a picture of Moksha. I've shown quite a few people a picture of Moksha, for reasons I mentioned here. I don't normally wait for them to ask - I don't think anyone would actually ask. (And if they did ask to see a photo and I didn't have one, that would also be upsetting). She asked me if I found it okay to talk about what happened or not and I told her it was much better for me to talk about it than for people not to mention it at all. I told her I had lost a lot of confidence and she asked why. I explained about the feelings of failure, of wondering what I had done wrong, of being unable to protect my own little, defenceless baby son - the most primal thing he should ever have needed from me.

I know that some people do not like public crying; I'm not one of them. I don't mind crying in public at all and I often wear my heart on my sleeve. I've done a lot of public crying recently, both the tears-silently-rolling-down-cheeks kind and the huge-consumption-of-packets-of-tissues-to-blow-very-snotty-nose kind. I have never had anyone seem utterly uncomfortable with me crying in public. I also am trying to tell people who seem interested what it feels like, so that they can try to understand.

Today I went back to the office to pick up my new laptop and had to wait around quite a lot. On the way in, I told the receptionist of the building that I was parked in front for a short time and she said, "Didn't you have a baby? Weren't you pregnant?" I said, "Yes, but unfortunately my son was stillborn." Without crying - I am somewhat surprised by that. It's the first time I've encountered someone that knew I was pregnant didn't know that Moksha was stillborn. Actually, no it isn't - there was that guy from our antenatal class, but I was with DH then and he did all the talking.

Then, in our office, a guy I worked with in my last role came up to me, happy to see me and asked how everything was. I had to tell him Moksha was stillborn, this time with tears - the silent rolling type.

And then, still whilst waiting for the laptop to be ready (was supposed to be ready yesterday afternoon, then this morning, and this was now the afternoon - thank god I didn't actually have any work to do!) my "boss", the husband of the ex-friend mentioned below, happened past. He was a friend before he was my boss - and then DH became friends with him too.

He said, "well, hi-eee!" in a too-happy voice, as if I'd just been away on an extended trip to Disneyland. When I didn't respond with a dazzling smile, he asked if I had a few minutes. We went outside and he said, "I want to give you a hug" and then attempted to do so. He said he was sorry and asked if he and ex-friend could drop by this weekend (GOD NO, I thought.) I basically said that

- I had been angry with some people who hadn't been in touch in the last 13 weeks and had had to deal with that in my own way and now it was difficult for me to just pick up where it was left off.
- that I didn't want them to try to contact me through DH as it was getting him unfairly caught in the middle.
- I said that I had been intending to send ex-friend an email and I didn't want to pass messages to her via him since that was what I didn't want them to do to me via DH. He asked anyway, and so I said that I hadn't found her messages helpful. He said he would pass that on. (I should say she left me another, rather pissed off sounding message yesterday which said, "Hi [Rosepetal], it's [ex-friend] trying to call you AGAIN, sigh sigh, I'll try again aNOTHER time." The whole tone was "how dare you not respond when I've been so gracious as to call you after twelve weeks and leave such kind, considerate and sensitive messages."

He said he understood, and that he understood he and ex-friend could call me directly and that they would and that they would love to see me whenever I was ready. I'm not sure I'll ever be ready, but I suppose it did clear the air a little. I'm also glad I managed to say, in a toned down way, what I was really thinking and that I didn't just brush it off and act as though I was the same friend as before when I'm not.

And it's good that I've crossed the bridge of actually going to the office. I didn't see that many people but I have a better idea of what to expect when I actually do go back.

I met up with DH for lunch today - we ate sushi (yay - sushi, didn't eat that when I was pregnant) in a town park in the bright autumn sunshine. I love doing that with him. And in other news - we're going to NYC for a week's holiday in November (before I go back to work). We're both looking forward to it - and I have been learning a lot about pri.cel.ine dot com na.me your own pr.ice hotel bidding.

Oh, and I just wanted to add I could not agree more! Does ANYONE understand what she is doing with him?

GRRRRRR!!!!!

***I edited this to take out identifying details about my ex-friend***

Yikes. I have written - but not sent - an email to an ex-friend of mine - one who I already mentioned in another post. She got wind of the fact that I wasn't impressed with her "friendship" after Moksha died. She has a baby son and works at the same company as me. She's just gone back to work.

She left me two messages yesterday and sent some text messages to DH. In both of her messages she basically said that she had spoken to another friend of mine - one who has spent hours listening to me cry and has been there for me almost constantly since Moksha's birth - and understood that I didn't want to hear from people with children. This is such bullshit, since this other friend has children! I'm pretty sure she spoke once to my good friend, probably 2 or 3 weeks after Moksha died and didn't bother asking again.

In her text to DH she said "I heard that [Rosepetal] is upset because we haven't called. But you know we have been thinking of her". That just PISSES ME OFF. HOW DARE SHE BLAME MY HUSBAND FOR HER INABILITY TO CALL, EMAIL OR WRITE TO ME EVEN ONCE.

She also went on about how difficult her life is as she is finding it hard to juggle motherhood, work and relationship with her husband and how it's hard to maintain things as they were before. WELL GUESS WHAT. IT WAS NEVER GOING TO BE THE SAME AS BEFORE!

I have already decided that I don't want to see her again. DH plays on and off in a band with her husband.

She isn't a bad person. She is just being insensitive and both her messages were me me me messages which PISSES ME OFF (sorry, did I already mention that?)

I have no problem at all if DH remains in touch with them. He does understand my point of view. I haven't sent this email to her YET but it's basically ready to go. So dear readers, what do you think?

"This is a personal email - it has no bearing on anything work-related.

I got both your messages. Please don't blame [DH] or [Really Good Friend] for the fact that you haven't been in touch. That really makes me rather angry. Those are two of the main people on whom I have relied very heavily for strength and support over the last 12-13 weeks since [Moksha] died.

I have been in touch with plenty of people who have small children or babies. Thank goodness, since people with children represent the vast majority of my friends. I don't suddenly hate all people with children. I haven't necessarily seen all of them face to face. But they have sent emails or cards and phoned and listened.

I'll writing this email to you this in case someone else you know has a baby who dies so you are able to help them better. This is just my view. You probably have a different view.

When I spoke to you just after [Moksha] died, you told me that

(a) you could "sense" I was angry with [DH]. I wasn't
(b) you talked about your abortion. I understand that you have feelings of regret and sadness about your abortion. But it wasn't a great topic for me at the time, less than one week after [Moksha] died. I still can't understand why you brought it up then.
(c) you speculated that [Moksha] died because of the heatwave because of some rumour you heard to that effect in Sweden. Thanks to your words, I spent several weeks afterwards thinking I had maybe killed him by going outside when it was too hot.

Now you call after twelve weeks of nothing and talk about

(d) how it's someone else's fault that you haven't called or that I haven't received your good thoughts
(e) how it's really really tough being a mother and how your relationship is suffering
(f) how you hope "I'm feeling better". I'm actually not recovering from the flu. I don't think I will ever recover from my son's death. I just have to integrate it into who I am.
(g) how great the team [at work] is now and how I should come back to it. I am dreading just setting foot in the office with the huge loss of confidence I have suffered. I certainly am not thinking about what move would be best for my career. But, since you haven't been in touch, I suppose you wouldn't know that.

As it happens, I have spoken to other people already about the topics in (b) and (e) with no problem at all. A friend who came to see me spoke about her abortions. I certainly don't think looking after a baby suddenly became easy just because [Moksha] is dead. I completely understand that going back to work, working long hours and leaving [your son] at home must be tough. But those people to whom I have spoken about these topics have also spent many hours listening to me, crying with me and talking with me and accompanying me as I absorb what has happened and change as a person. That is what enables me to hear it from them.

How to draw something positive out of this? If you ever know a friend who loses a child, please call them and listen. Call them regularly. Tell them that if they don't want to talk at the moment you call they just have to say so and you will understand. If you can't call, send emails or letters. Don't rely on other people to pass your messages on. Don't rely on your ability to send good feelings over to them without speaking or writing. Don't speculate as to the cause of death when you know absolutely nothing about it. In your very first messages, don't talk about how hard life is for you, especially because you have to juggle work, motherhood and relationships. I am not bitter or jealous that you have [your son], I certainly would not wish this tragedy on anyone else. But surely you must understand that it's sounds pretty insensitive to me that you talk about how hard it is for you when it's the first time you've been in touch.

I hope you never have to follow that advice.

I have read this article several times.

http://www.insightbooks.com/NewsEntry.aspx?id=33

You make it clear that your bucket is already full of your own problems. You haven't approached me as I'm holding my bucket. This just means that you have no idea where I am on my journey of grief and you continue saying things I don't want to hear - things from your own bucket. I am absolutely not questioning your right to have your own bucket. But I cannot accept anything from it.

You had good intentions and I don't think I ever said anything useful to people in deep grief before [Moksha] died. But it's too difficult and too late for me to explain to you, twelve weeks later, where I am now and how I have changed and am changing. What I am saying probably sounds very unfair to you. But there you have it, life is under no obligation to be fair or my beloved son [Moksha] would not have died. I don't have the ability to change the unfairness of it all. It's not my intention to hurt you, it's my intention to let you know how I feel so that maybe one day if it happens to someone else you know, you have a better idea of what to do.

Please remember that [DH] and I are separate people. [DH] doesn't think the same way as I do - he is a much more forgiving and positive person - and this email is strictly from me only. Please do not ask him to pass on any more messages from you to me or ask him what to do, or tell him that he knew you were thinking of us (thus placing the blame at his door) etc. It puts him in a very uncomfortable position. He is trying to go on with his life but [Moksha] was his son too. It's certainly not up to him to take on board things you wanted to say to me but didn't.

I hope [your son] is doing well and I wish you and [your DH] well in your personal lives.

[Rosepetal]

Who am I? ***Edited***

Marzipan fruit in pasticceria window, Sicily
I had a conversation with my therapist who wanted to see me once a week for a year. This sounded rather overwhelming to me and I told her that I didn’t think I had something to say to her once a week (and I secretly thought, my insurance is not going to pay for that either).

She told me that what we were doing was not psychotherapy. I can’t remember the name she gave to what we were doing, but she said that psychotherapy would be talking about me as a whole person, and not just me in relation to Moksha. What we were doing was talking about specific subjects in each session, and she said she was careful to make sure there were no loose ends to talk about at the end of each session, so that each one was somehow contained.

This is when I started thinking about me not being shattered into millions of pieces on the floor but more having hairline cracks and having to glue broken bits back on. (See my previous post). I don’t think I need to talk to her about my childhood and the like. I told her I wanted to see her less often, and that I thought I would need help at specific points, like when I finally go back to work, when (if) I get pregnant again, when Moksha should be one year old, when (if) another baby is born etc.

So that is what we’re going to do. I have to say I don’t really like my therapist as a person but it seems too much to change therapists now, and I have no guarantee that I will like the next one either. I am still able to talk to her about stuff but I suppose I am proceeding cautiously. If you have any advice about therapists, please do share it.

I suppose the good news is that no-one (me, therapist, doctor) thinks I am depressed. I have been depressed and on ADs once in my life, when I was at university. DH has also been depressed and on ADs twice in his life. I think I would recognise the signs of depression, both in myself and in him.

Anyway, this whole “talking about me as a whole person” stuff got me interested in those 100 lists that bloggers sometimes do. So here goes. It’s an experiment in “who am I?”

*** I decided to take the list down as I became paranoid about someone IRL finding my blog.***

Huh, looking back through the list of 100 things which came into my head, I don’t see many things I like doing in my life. Things I would like to do, yes. I do feel like my life is on hold until I can become a mother again. Everything else seems so much less significant.

So maybe I do need to talk to my therapist about who I am?

Motherhood

Aaargh - just typed a post and Blogger lost it.

Thanks for the comments on my post yesterday. For some reason, I want to write more about my mother.

My mother is a great mother. She and my father brought my brother and I up in a country in which they were immigrants. It's not easy to do that when you come from a culture of extended families, where mothers help each other through motherhood. If you haven't been brought up in an extended family, you would probably find the lack of intimacy in one difficult to cope with. If you have, and you end up living in the typical nuclear family instead, you would probably find it very lonely. She had to try to relate to who her children became as we grew up in a culture that she hadn't grown up in. How to make sure we felt integrated without being alienated from the family culture?

In addition to all that she had a successful career as an anaesthetist. She worked part-time in order to care for us and the family. She has just taken retirement, a major life change on its own, which was timed to coincide with the arrival of Moksha. She had already come over to help with stuff two weeks before he was born. She came to my last OB appointment with me. She heard Moksha's heartbeat and watched the needle trace out the perfect lines with me. She was at my side a few days later when we were told there was no heartbeat. She was at my side during labour. My husband held my hand. A midwife held one leg back and my mother held the other. She held Moksha in her arms and kissed him. Both DH and I failed to kiss him! I take comfort that he didn't leave completely without kisses from his family.

She looked after me and my husband when we got home from the hospital. She cried with us but made sure we ate square meals, supporting my husband by sharing the load of worry he had for my wellbeing on the days I could not even get up or dressed. She helped me shower in my postpartum state of physical and mental weakness. She did loads of laundry.

For just over a week after Moksha's birth I was covered in a raging red rash, which was eventually diagnosed as a stress reaction. I would wake up in the middle of the night in a delirious frenzy of scratching, breaking my skin and risking infection. I was already on the maximum dose of a powerful steroid and had topical steroid cream in addition. My husband sometimes could not stand the scratching and once burst into tears at the terrible sound of it during the night and at his own helplessness to stop it. He was so tired. He wasn't strong enough to hold my hands down when I was begging for them to be released. In my manipulative delirium (I took sleeping tablets for the first week but woke up anyway with the scratching), I told him to let go and promised I wouldn't scratch. Then I would scratch hard. He fell for it everytime. Not my mother. My mother stayed up during the night to hold my hands down and put cold compresses on my legs, my arms, my feet, my thighs. She didn't let me scratch no matter how much I begged.

She is 62 years old and will be my mother forever. I'm not sure if I can convey what I mean by that last statement. Sure, I have arguments with her just like everyone else. But I could not wish for a better mother and my son could not have wished for a better grandmother. Since I became a mother, I have understood on a different level my mother's unconditional love for her children.

My mother doesn't know I have a blog. I love her so much. She is going through a terrible journey, one which she never expected to have to go through, just like I am. She cannot draw upon her experience to help me. She doesn't always say things which I find comforting but she yearns to make my pain go away. Each of us is in our separate tunnels of grief. They're all shaped differently, have varying levels of darkness and unknown lengths.

I hope one day I can be half as good a mother as my own.

Him or someone else ***Updated***

The other day, I told my mother that I wish this had happened to someone else.

She was shocked that I would say that and said, "Now why would you think that?"

I was equally shocked that she couldn't understand. In my return shock I told her to imagine having either me or my brother in front of her and someone else's child next to us. Now she has to choose which child is going to die - one of them has to. Would she pick me or my brother, or the other child?

That is a really nasty thing to say to your own mother.

She said she would rather die herself first. I told her that wasn't an option, only one of the two children could die.

Now that I'm writing this, I don't think we even finished the conversation. My mother, understandably, got too upset. I did say that I wish it wouldn't happen to anyone now, not on top of Moksha already having died. But if someone else's baby had died instead of mine then I could feel bad for them, try to emphathise, and then go back to my life with my baby.

I admit it was a horrible thing to say to my own mother, but is it a really horrible thing to just think to oneself? To me it's bloody obvious that given a choice, I would prefer my child to have lived and someone else's to have died. Isn't that what mothers all over the world think?

Edited to add:
I remembered another thing my mother said to me in a different conversation, which probably belongs with the theme of this post.

My mother: "It could have been worse - there are worse case scenarios."
Me: "How could it have been worse? My son died."
MM: "You could have died as well."
Me: "That's your worst case scenario, and I understand why that is, as your own child would have died. It isn't my worst case scenario."

Me dying is also DH's worst case scenario. He has wept with relief that I didn't die, even though my life was actually never in any danger. But me dying isn't my worst case scenario. I suppose mine would be both DH and Moksha dying. I really cannot see what I would have to live for if that ever happened. Unless I was pregnant or had another child already.

Like Kate said in the comments, these are thought experiments and we don't have the power to decide who lives and who dies. They do help me rearrange some of the pieces of my mind though.

Very upbeat update, don't you think?

Smashed pieces and glue

Park Güell, Barcelona
DH is away on a business trip and rather than spend the whole time on my own feeling sorry for myself, I pre-arranged with a friend to go to Barcelona for a few days. I think I spent more time laughing than crying although I definitely did some of both.

We saw a lot of trencadís work, mosaics made of pieces of broken tile, and found all over the city, especially in works by the architect Antonio Gaudí.

A few weeks after Moksha died I had a tearful lunch with a friend and told him that I hoped the person I would become would bear some resemblance to the person I was before. He asked me if I thought I was completely smashed to pieces as I didn't seem that way to him. Delphi's blog title, eight million pieces struck a real chord with me, as did her words "picking up the pieces one by one".

Since then I have often thought about his question. And now I'm wondering whether it's more like I was totally covered in hairline cracks, but now some of those hairline cracks have sealed up again. There are still some large portions that couldn't be saved and are smashed on the floor and I have to pick those pieces up one by one. But what's on the floor doesn't represent all of me.

I feel guilty about writing that and don't really understand how some of those hairline cracks have sealed up again. I do wonder whether the sealing-up is structurally sound. I don't understand how I am still able to function. But every now and then I feel like I picked up a piece and glued it back on.

Here are some of the pieces I feel like I have picked up. They seem blindingly obvious now. They weren't though, not to me.

Understanding that having a reason doesn't make it easier
I am in limbo of having and not having a reason. It could have been my Factor V Leiden which caused Moksha's death and it could just as easily not have been related at all. A few weeks after Moksha died a work colleague got in touch with me and said he and his wife had lost a full term baby four years ago. They both kindly came to our place to talk to us. His wife had a placental abruption and before she came, I thought, well at least she has a reason. But after talking to her I realised that all she knows is the how not the why. There is no answer to the why. She only asks why the placental abruption had to happen to her and why did it have to kill her baby.

Understanding that there will always be regrets
Thank you for the nice comments on the photo of Moksha and his Daddy. I have a grand total of 14 photos of Moksha. The hospital didn't encourage us to take pictures - DH just instinctively took some. And even he felt a bit paparazzi-like when he was taking them and so didn't take that many. I don't have a single picture of me holding Moksha or an equivalent photo of the one I posted with my hand instead of my husband's. I regret this.

I regret not holding him more and more closely. I regret that we went to sleep in the few hours we had alone with him. I regret I didn't play with his little arms or look more closely at his face, his ears, his hands, his feet, his elbows, his back. I regret we didn't take a lock of his hair. I regret that we didn't ask for footprints or handprints. I regret that I didn't dress him myself. The midwife dressed him. The pathologist undressed him. The undertaker dressed him. The crematorium flames undressed him. But I didn't. These regrets were all lying in smashed pieces of me on the floor.

A local grief support group put us in touch with a woman who chose to terminate her pregnancy in the second trimester due to a chromosome problem. Her biggest regrets were that she felt like she had murdered her baby in making the termination decision and that she didn't have any sort of goodbye ceremony. The hospital disposed of her baby's body.

Those are two regrets I don't have. She helped me realise that it doesn't matter if I had done something differently and didn't have the regrets I listed above. Even if I had 100 photos of Moksha in 5 different outfits that I dressed him in with my own hands, I would still have the mother of all regrets which is that my beloved son is dead. So I'm slowly coming to terms with those smaller regrets.

Recently I saw a new doctor (I didn't have a generalist doctor before and I can't keep seeing my obstetrician for everything). I explained to him what had happened. He asked if I was able spend any time with my son. I sobbed that yes, but I had wasted that time by going to sleep. Most people have said, well of course you went to sleep, you were in labour during the night, you were in shock, you were pumped full of drugs. All stuff I knew already with my head, but somehow it wasn't comforting. But this doctor said, "How do you know that isn't what your son needed? A family sleeping together is the most natural thing in the world. You, your husband and your son spent some hours asleep together in complete peace." This made so much more sense to me and he gave me some glue to start sticking that piece back on.

Playing in the big kids' playground
This one might sound a bit silly. And like so many things, I think it about myself, not about other people. Since Moksha died, I have felt like I tried to play at being a real adult and I had my knuckles severely rapped. Who do you think you are, trying to play at being a real grown-up? Did you really think you could have a baby? Nope, that's for real adults only. You should have known better. Go and sit in the corner with this pointy hat. Face the wall while you're at it.

I said this to my friend when we were in Barcelona and she said, "Going through a child's death is the most grown-up thing you will ever have to do." Like I said, sounds bloody obvious but it really hadn't crossed my mind before. She gave me some glue to stick that piece back on.

I don't know how many more pieces there are to stick back on. Some will be messy, visible joins and will always be ugly-looking. Some will fall off repeatedly until I can find the right type of glue. Some will be impossible to fix and I will have to learn to get along without them. The dust of those pieces has to be swept up. But there are some which I may be able to fix.

Holding hands

Moksha and Daddy holding hands
29th July 2006

Perfect fingers, perfect fingernails.
You started as a tiny ball of cells, invisible.

What a miracle! How many miracles!
Why did nature go to so much trouble to get everything right,

down to your unique fingerprints made of tiny, tiny perfect grooves,

only to get the very last thing so wrong?

Mummy loves and misses you, Moksha.

Remembering

I remember my own dear, darling son Moksha, stillborn on 29th July 2006, every single day.

Today I also remember in particular:

C., son of Delphi
Nicolas, son of Kate
Thomas, son of Anam Cara
Thomas, son of Msfitzita
Alex and Travis, sons of Catherine
Nate, son of Laura
Kate, daughter of Sarah
Audrey, daughter of Michelle
Gabrielle, daughter of Artblog
Finn, son of Sillyhummingbird
Charlotte, daughter of Whatthef*ck
Hans, son of Lauralu and Justinian
Julian, son of Julian's Mom
Joseph, son of Nervouskitty
Lydia, daughter of Bronwyn

I don't know the parents of these beloved children in real life and they don't know me. Some read my blog and choose to comment. Some don't even know I exist and may never read my blog. But I have spent many hours reading all of their blogs and I must thank them for their writing, which has helped me so much and made me feel less alone in my time of need. This positive impact that they and their children have had in this world is one which stretches across time and continents.

I remember in addition many other children who are not laughing and crying with their parents today. Some of them are the brothers or sisters of those above. Others are from other blogs I have read, and still others from people I know IRL. In this sad reality, they are too many for me to mention each.

I believe that all our children live in another world and in another form and that one day we will greet them with love and familiarity in another life many years from now. I do not know how or when this may happen. I do not know anything for sure. This is just my own belief.

With love and compassion,
Rosepetal

Fear versus gratitude

These days, when I walk down a busy street or in any place where there are a lot of people, I find myself looking at their faces discretely and wondering if there is a tragedy hidden behind each face.

I see people having a coffee with friends, shopping, smiling, laughing, seemingly enjoying life. But in that life, is there a loved one gone too soon? A life-threatening disease? A rape? Fleeing from danger leaving everything behind?

Are the people I see going on with their lives despite their grief and sorrow? Or have they been able to maintain their innocence in life?

Maybe they have a different definition of tragedy. Maybe something happened to them which they consider to be tragic but I don't. Or vice versa, maybe something happened to them which I would consider a tragedy but they don't.

If I was living in a poor village in a famine and poverty-stricken part of the world and I had a baby that died, would I see it differently? Would I consider myself supremely lucky that I didn't die as well? I certainly don't think such a woman loves her child any less than I love mine. I'm just wondering whether her circumstances would bring (or force?) acceptance of her fate much faster. If you're the twentieth woman in the village this year to give birth to a dead baby, then I suppose you're prepared in some way for that to be a possible outcome for you. And so is the society in which you live.

I suppose what I'm trying to say (yes, what are you trying to say, Rosepetal?) is that every experience is relative and none are objective. The word tragedy cannot be objectively defined, in the same way that pain cannot be objectively measured. So for some in the world, I should indeed consider myself lucky for my loss to be given any recognition at all.

Or is recognition prolonging my grief? Does it make me more likely to wallow in self-pity? My experience should bring the good things in my life to my attention. And it has. So why don't I feel more grateful for them? Instead of feeling grateful for having them, I feel more scared that they are going to be taken away. I'm scared my husband will die in a car accident or get stabbed on a train. I scared my father is about to die.

Am I thinking that these good things are mine? And Moksha was mine? I have to try to let go of the concept that things belong to me. They don't. They are just gracing my present. I suppose that once a person is able to accept that, they are no longer scared of them being taken away.

Yep, much easier said than done. Another meandering, thought-dumping post. Sorry.

The carrot, the egg and the coffee bean

Yesterday I found the blog of a mother whose son committed suicide. I have added it to my blog roll. I found one of her recent posts quite thought provoking for my situation and have reproduced it below:

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil; without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.

“Carrots, eggs, and coffee?” the daughter asked.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg.

Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma. The daughter then asked, “What does it mean, mother?”

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

“Which are you?” the mother asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?”

Think of this:

Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a break up, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavour. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.

When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

More untimely death

Yesterday I found out my friend's younger and only brother has died. But I didn't say everything. It would appear that he committed suicide. But since my friend lives in Europe and her brother lived in North America, they don't have all the details yet.

The police in North America called the police in the UK who went to her parents' house to give them this incomprehensible and shocking news. My friend flew out to be with her parents yesterday and they are all flying to North America later this week. Neither her nor her parents, nor, it would appear, her brother's friends in North America had noticed any sign of him being depressed or knew about him having any sort of problem. It is completely out of the blue.

I researched the internet yesterday for what family members of a suicide victim go through. I found it to be strikingly similar to what parents of a stillborn baby go through.

Shock. Guilt. Incomprehension. Denial. Sadness. Anger. Disconnection. Social stigma.

The following words are copied directly from an online pamphlet I found for families of suicide victims:

• You may “backslide” from time to time. You might have a few days in a row where you feel better and then find your sadness return suddenly—perhaps even years later.
  
• You will encounter painful reminders unexpectedly.
  
• Friends and relatives may not offer the support you need. You will truly learn who your friends are during this crisis.
  
• People may make insensitive remarks. Suicide is generally misunderstood, and people will feel inept at offering you comfort.
  
• Your fear of people’s judgment may haunt you needlessly.
  
• Others may tire of talking about it long before you do.
  
• You may feel bad about feeling good.
  
• Holidays, birthdays, and the anniversary of the suicide are often difficult.
  
• New milestones may bring feelings of guilt.

Sound familiar?

My forced condolence training came in useful. I have called my friend, sent flowers and a card to her and her family and, after doing some research on Amazon, sent her a book for families who lose a loved one to suicide. I will continue to call my friend as I know that even if I say she can call me anytime, she may not have the self-confidence or energy to actually do it. I will ask her about her brother (whom I did not know) and about what happened. I will listen instead of offering meaningless advice. I will visit her as soon as she comes back.

I hope that his soul will find peace in another place.

Cruel world

I just found out that my friend's younger brother has died. I am so shocked. My friend has been so supportive and understanding to me. I just called her and she said "How are you, I think about you all the time."

Why?

"Enjoy" and non-linear progress

Our television is not connected to any TV network. We only use it for watching DVDs. I have not watched TV programmes, except at my parents' house or in hotel rooms, for just over 5 years now. When I last had a TV, I used to waste hours watching crap I wasn't really interested in. I had no self-discipline (and still have none - one evening when we were resting in our hotel in Sicily, we got sucked into watching Miss Italia 2006. And neither of us even speak Italian). With DVDs, I can at least say I'm always watching something that I actually wanted to watch instead of mindless zapping.

That's not to say I don't waste time watching DVDs though. At the weekend, DH bought the first series of "24" on DVD. We had never seen a single episode before. It's a little too easy to get sucked in when the answer to this episode's cliffhanger is a mere few remote control clicks away. And there are no ads, you can skip the titles and the "Previously on 24" stuff (you definitely don't need a reminder when you saw it a few seconds before).

So DH and I spent large portions of this weekend's evenings watching episodes of 24 Season 1. And I enjoyed it. Yes, I can use the word "enjoy" again. And I have made some small progress. I couldn't sit through the first film I watched on DVD after Moksha died. I couldn't concentrate and I felt unbelievably guilty about watching it. My parents were still here and they had gone out to let DH and I have an evening to ourselves. It was a disaster.

The progress is definitely not linear. Friday night was also a disaster. We had dinner with DH's parents and his visiting aunt and uncle. No-one mentioned Moksha, not once. After an hour or so of meaningless chit-chat, I couldn't take it any more and started crying at the end of the table. No-one knew what to say and so no-one said anything. There were two classically pink elephants in the room that no-one mentioned: Moksha himself and the fact that I was at the end of the table crying.

I felt as though Moksha was a topic of which everyone was ashamed. Eventually I got up and went to sob uncontrollably in the car outside on my own. DH came to find me. He said goodbye to everyone on my behalf and his aunt and uncle were destroyed that they had unwittingly made my pain worse. They just hadn't known what to say to the extent that they didn't once acknowledge that our son had died and been born since we last saw them.

It is the hardest thing, this non-linear progress. For one or two days I can feel okay and then BAM, it all comes back again. It's hard seeing people for the first time since Moksha was born. I often feel like people want to sweep him under the carpet. And yes, I am also upset when people say the "wrong" thing. But is, "I'm so sorry that your son died," so difficult? People (unless they've lived through it themselves) don't need to offer advice or reasons. Just express some compassion.

Don't forget

*Sorry that my posts are so long. I need to write this stuff down to structure and process it for myself.*

I do feel less angry with some of the people mentioned in yesterday's post, so I guess venting did help. I want to let go of this anger so I don't waste time dwelling on it.

I also need to start picking myself up and try not to fall too much deeper into the vat of self-pity. It's just not constructive. On the other hand it's really difficult to clamber out of the vat once you're in it and much easier to just stay there.

I want to spend more time thinking about Moksha himself and not about me. So given the starting point which I unfortunately cannot change, what do I want for Moksha?

1) I don't want him to be forgotten
2) I ultimately want his short life to have a positive effect

Okay, it was going to be a long list of things but they boil down to these two. What can I do / am I doing to make these things happen for Moksha?

1) I don't want him to be forgotten.

I think there are two ways in which this can happen since Moksha isn't here. One is in people's minds and the other is through tangible, earthly, durable things which can serve as reminders, information and focal points.

In people's minds: clearly I will never forget Moksha as long as I live and maybe for sometime after that too. DH will never forget Moksha either. But even my memories fade. If I didn't have pictures of Moksha I would have already forgotten what he looked like. When I think back to my actual memories of the birth, I don't find his face in them. I wept about this to my therapist this week. It's through the pictures that I know what he looked like.

My mother was present at Moksha's birth and she will never forget him although even she finds it hard to know what to say to me as she is scared of hurting me. But in the spirit of this being about Moksha and not me, it shouldn't matter whether she mentions him to me. I know that she will never forget him. My FIL and MIL came to the hospital and held Moksha in their arms. They will never forget him. I am not as close to them as I am to my own parents, but this I am sure of.

These were the people that actually saw Moksha and for whom he is not an abstract concept of "Rosepetal's baby". On the other hand sometimes even I struggle with the question of did he really ever exist? This is one of the things I need to resolve.

Actually, the doctor and midwives also saw Moksha. I don't know how much they remember him and who he was. Sure, they probably remember him as an event but maybe not his name. (Well my OB does, but the OB is by definition more concerned about me than Moksha). I can't help but think they see so many babies every week, why would Moksha stand out? I have been toying with giving my OB a small picture of Moksha so that it can be put in my file. Has anyone else ever done this? I'm not sure how she would take it.

Then there are other close family members did not actually see Moksha except in the form of ashes or in pictures. My father said, "He was 25% me". My brother will also never forget him. He basically flew into Europe from the US for the weekend so that he could be at Moksha's goodbye ceremony. My SIL couldn't come but she will also never forget. She wrote a poem to be read at Moksha's ceremony in her physical absence.

So I think these people will never forget Moksha, whether I talk about him or not. There are a few friends who I think will not forget him either.

In terms of tangible things:

- Show other people Moksha's photograph so that they can realise that he existed, he was a baby and not an abstract concept. Hell, I need this reminder myself, so I can't expect other people not to.

- Before Moksha was born, we had already chosen, ordered and paid for birth announcement cards. We were just waiting for him to arrive to fill in the details (name as we didn't know the sex, weight, size) before the cards were printed. The cards had a space for his name on front and some text inside. They were relatively sober cards to start with. So we decided to get them printed anyway.

They still have his name on front. Inside it now says, in French and English:

"We thank you for your message after the unexpected stillbirth of our dear son, [Moksha], on 29th July 2006. We ask you only to remember his name and to speak it freely."

We are sending them out to those who sent us condolence cards. Yes, it's bittersweet to put these cards in envelopes - it should have been a happy moment announcing our future with Moksha. On the other hand I feel glad about doing it. I'm glad to see his name in print. I feel as though trashing these cards would mean that Moksha wasn't good enough for them. I also feel as though I am speaking my heart - please remember his name, that's all. I know, that even with that, not everyone we send these cards to will remember his name. But maybe some will.

- Moksha does not have a grave - we scattered his ashes in a small pond in the forests near our home. There isn't a plaque or tombstone which commemorates him and I think I need this. So we are going to try and get a memorial bench placed in the village my husband grew up in. We found a spot facing a large lake with the Alps as a backdrop. It's a very beautiful place. My MIL and FIL still live there and it's only about a 30 min drive from where we currently live.

Yes, kids may carve stuff onto the bench and put grafitti on it. I was worried about that and how I would cope if it happened. But DH said that Moksha himself would have scraped his knees and got hurt every now and then. We wouldn't (and it's painfully obvious that we couldn't) protect him from everything. I think it's a good analogy. I still may not cope well if someone damages it but I'll try to draw on this analogy for strength.

I hope this project of a memorial bench will see the light of day. We have to get all sorts of permissions to do it as the bench would be in a public place, and I now live in a very rules-oriented country! It's not really a tradition here to have memorial benches.

- Where I live, when you get married, you're issued with a family certificate on which your future children are officially inscribed. After some hassle, we were able to get Moksha's name inscribed on our family certificate. So officially he is in some computer database somewhere as our first born son.

- I am going to get a plain wedding band. Yes, I already have a wedding band, but this one I will wear on my right hand. I'll get Moksha's name or initials and his DOB engraved inside. I think this will also help me move forward in my grief - to always have something intimate with me which represents Moksha may help me feel less guilty if I don't think about about him for a while. As Kate once commented, some people get memorial tattoos and I guess this will be my equivalent. But (maybe this is morbid) I can also hand it down as a sort of heirloom (I am assuming I will have heirs....). Maybe someone will remember Moksha after I'm gone?

- When Moksha's birthday rolls around each year I want to do something to mark it. Not only for DH and I. I don't know what that is yet, maybe it's a simple announcement in the paper or maybe it's a get-together or a donation or I don't know what. But I know I want to do something. (At the moment I am still marking each month but in a more private way).

- I will for sure tell any future children I may have about Moksha. My brother already said that once my niece is old enough, they will tell her about Moksha too. (And here I was going to type.... and my nephew but since he isn't due until Christmas, I now cannot assume that he will be born alive :-( and so I couldn't type it...)

So this is already too long and you're probably bored to tears. So number 2) I ultimately want his short life to have a positive effect will have to wait for another time. I'm not so clear on how to achieve this anyway.

Get it out to let it go

To those who haven't been there
I just don't want to see you if you were conspicuously absent in the worst weeks after Moksha's death. I am doing a little better now than then but I don't want to satisfy you with a "thank-god-she-seems-alright-now" feeling. You don't deserve it. I am not interested in fair-weather friends. I am not alright and if you had bothered to stay in touch you would know that.

To those who don't know what to say
Just because you find it difficult to know what to say, it doesn't
(a) make me feel any better knowing that it's difficult (really - I mean it must be sooo hard for you. Tell you what, you try being me and I'll try being you and then you can tell me which one you prefer)
(b) mean that I miraculously know what to say to you - my son dying didn't make me into some sort of wise all-knowing sage
(c) I don't see why on top of everything, the onus is on me to "understand why it's difficult for you". Just fuck off out of my life and don't come back. I don't have any time to waste on you.

To an ex-friend (not sure if you realise that you're an ex-friend, but I don't want to see you ever again)
When I called you less a week after Moksha died because I thought you were a good friend, the guilt feelings you have about the convenience abortion you had at 12 weeks when you were going through bad times with your ex-husband were NOT a good topic. I understand you may regret your abortion, but seriously, why did you think I wanted to know about it less than a week after my wanted son died at 4 days past my term?

And telling me that you could "sense" that I was angry with DH (I was not) was also not what I wanted to hear. I'm angry with YOU. Can you sense that?? If not you need a tune-up.

When DH came to your house a few weeks later, why did you tell him that "everyone has to go through something really bad in their lives"? Really? Is that life's logic according to YOU? Do let us know what other rules we have to follow and what constitues "really bad" in your book so that we know we're doing it right. I'm sure the benchmark is from your own life so it should be easy for you to let us know.

To my ex-cleaning lady
The main reason I fired you is because for weeks you kept showing up on any day you felt like it whilst giving me a few hours notice (if I was lucky). This despite me telling you to pick any weekday and time you wanted but just to stick to it. You made me angry every week when I had plenty of other emotions to deal with.

But I also fired you because I got progressively angrier about the fact that when Moksha died you said, "That one was for God, it wasn't meant for you". Really? How many children does one have to give to your God? How many have YOU given to God?

And the fact the one of your excuses for not showing up one day was that you also looked after some children for a family and you couldn't refuse them if they asked you to help on the day you were supposed to be coming here because of their baby. Well, I can't compete with that, can I? I don't have a baby. So fuck you.

To the neighbour upstairs
I don't know you, yet when I was pregnant and bumped into you in the lift, you were all over me. Great! you bellowed, how fantastic you're pregnant, when are you due? Congratulations. When I saw you a few days before Moksha died, you said isn't that baby born yet! You should take the stairs not the lift!

So why is it that when I see you now, you cannot even bring yourself to say hello to me? I still get to hear you laughing like a fucking blocked drain when you walk to your car with your two children, though.

To the two people who sent condolence messages followed shortly afterwards by a card announcing all the exciting stuff that has happened since your babies were born.
One of you sent a card showing pictures from your two-month old's life to date just to remind us about all the things we're not going to do with our son. One of you sent a card which you obviously wrote in mid-July but couldn't be bothered to remember to stop it being posted in late August which said "Hope you three are doing well".

Well guess what, there are only two of us. DH thinks you're just including us still in your life, but I rather think you could not be arsed to think one step further about how those cards might be received and it was an oversight rather than a carefully planned move to include us in your life despite our dead-baby disease.

To my BIL
I mean seriously. You couldn't call your own brother once in the days after your nephew died because you were too busy having fun on a sailing trip? Where your mobile phone was working?

I hate the fact that you were present when we scattered Moksha's ashes and that you're in so many of the pictures. I hate the fact that you were mentioned in the newspaper as being in "deep sorrow" when the death announcement was published. The only reason those things happened were because I love your brother and didn't want to upset him by making a fuss over it. So I chose to keep the upset for myself. You don't deserve the honour of being associated with my son.

I hate the fact that over one month afterwards, after total silence, you sent us an email saying "you're not alone". Really? If we're not alone it's certainly no thanks to you.

To my aunt and uncle-in-law
You didn't know what to say when we saw you for the first time since Moksha's death. I get it. But you could have at least acknowledged that we have had a baby and he died. All you have to do is say, "We're so sorry about [Moksha's] death." I have to have dinner with you on Friday but I hope you're not expecting me to be in a fun-going-out-for-dinner mood just so that you can feel relieved about your own inadequacy. Why should I feel guilty for being sad?

To DH.
If you ever read this, I love you. I started this blog to express my feelings, whether they be "nice" or "nasty". You are my D H and my son is half of you. Like that onesie we saw which said, "50% Mummy, 50% Daddy". Even though the steps forward I am making are very small, I could not even do that if you were not here. I'm so sorry if you're hurt by the two points above. I have to get it out in order to let it go.

Dreams *Updated*

Dream 1:

Old friends I don't see much: "How are you?"
Me, sadly: "Well, I guess you know my news."
Them: "Yeah, we're so sorry."

I woke up, and for 2 nanoseconds thought, thank goodness, it was just a dream! Then I remembered.


Dream 2:
There are variations of this type of dream. What they have in common is that I am doing something which has nothing to do with pregnancy or babies and the dream doesn't acknowledge that part of my life. I wake up and for 2 nanoseconds I've forgotten. Then I remember.


Dream 3:
I've had this dream a few times. In it I am at university in my final year. The term started a while ago and it's a big year for important exams. For some reason I don't know where my lectures are and haven't been to any since term started. I have even forgotten my way around the department. I just have this huge feeling of anxiety that I've been wasting time and should have put in more effort at the start of term. Now I have no-one but myself to blame when I fail my exams.

I haven't thought much about my university years for a long time and haven't even kept in touch with a great many people from that time. But it is true that when I was younger I used to get majorly stressed out by exams and potential public failure. So my brain must be making some sort of stress connection back to the past.


I wish I could dream about Moksha. I wish he would "come to me" in a dream and tell me he's okay.

Updated 5th October
I had another dream last night. I was in the position of observing myself in a flashback. The flashback showed me taking a picture of my mum with my baby. I don't know if it was Moksha, but he was my baby. The baby looked fine in the flashback - all wriggly and a bit fussy - but me-as-the-observer knew he was going to die. For some reason I also had a kitten that died (I don't have a cat IRL and never have had one). Me-as-the-observer had this stunning realisation that I wasn't sad because the kitten had died, I was sad because my baby had died! In my dream it was, ohhhh, that's why you're feeling bad.

No shit Sherlock!!

Seriously, what was the fucking point of this dream? It served no purpose other than to make me wake up feeling panicky and anxious with a nervous pit in my stomach. And what's the point of that? There's no point being nervous about it! It already happened!

Present, past and future

I'm writing this post to help myself process information.

*I've written a little about autopsy results so sorry if it upsets anyone to read.*

On Friday I saw my OB again. DH left work early so that he could come with me. We both cried during the appointment. I didn't have any physical examinations, but we talked a lot. I had three topics I wanted to discuss:

1) Getting two periods within ten days
2) Going over the autopsy and other tests again
3) Mangement of future pregnancy


1) Getting two periods within ten days - nothing to worry about. (I will worry if it happens again, though). I should expect the next one to be of a more normal timing.

2) Going over the autopsy and other tests again
Moksha had an autopsy from the head down. The doctor didn't think there was anything to gain from a brain autopsy. They checked all of his thoracic organs. They weighed them and took transverse sections for microscopic checks. His heart was perfectly normal with all the right valves and vessels. They checked his bones using a radiology exam. There was nothing wrong with his genitals, his oesophagus or his diaphragm. The pathologist determined that his size and weight was within the normal range for a baby in 41st week of pregnancy. They were able to eliminate trisomy 13, 18 or 21. He showed no sign of infection. He was perfect.

Of course, I asked to go over these results, so I've no-one but myself to blame if I now have images in my head of Moksha lying cold on an autopsy table with his thorax being opened and his organs being weighed. DH and I held hands very tightly throughout this information relay and also when the OB pulled out the chart from the last fetal heartbeat monitoring whilst explaining how they showed normal heartrate and movements. I remember lying in her office, the day after my due date, watching the needle scratch out that same perfectly normal trace. My mother was sitting with me.

I didn't see Moksha again after he left the maternity ward. I debated with myself for a long time before deciding this but EVERYONE advised me against it. I could have gone to see him in the morgue, which was at another hospital, or chosen to have his coffin open before his cremation, but I didn't. Afterwards I struggled with this decision, as if it meant that Moksha wasn't good or pretty enough for me to see. I've since read parts of this blog, which I found on Catherine's blog roll, and I suppose it wouldn't have brought me any peace to see him like that.

The cord was 35cm long. They found no thromboses (but Michelle told me this doesn't necessarily mean there weren't any). It was a normal three-vessel cord with no narrowing of any of the vessels. It was wrapped loosely around his neck like a scarf, but not in tight loops.

The placenta was a tiny bit smaller than the norm, but apparently this is inconclusive information as plenty of healthy babies are born with the equivalent size placenta. It wasn't inflamed - no infection - and was not calcifying anywhere. It had a slightly raised level of fibrin (substance used by the body in blood clotting).

There was plenty of amniotic fluid and it was clear. I asked the OB if the absence of meconium meant that Moksha hadn't been distressed. She said that meconium isn't always present during fetal distress. Great.

I had skin biopsies taken to make sure my PUPPP was indeed PUPPP and not indicative of anything else. (After the birth, I had a severe rash spread all over my body for one week. It was diagnosed as stress related). I had liver function tests. I was tested for antibodies. All my bloodwork was redone (for infections like CMV, rubella, listeria, toxoplasmosis, parvovirus etc.). My urine was restested. I had normal glucose levels.

All that has been found is my Factor V Leiden. It remains unknown as to whether Moksha dying had anything to do with it. But as the doctor said, now we know about it, we have to manage it. Which brings me to:

3) Mangement of future pregnancy.

• Induction at 37 weeks at the earliest. They prefer to wait until 38 if I can cope.
• Elective C-section can be discussed again nearer the time but in principle not recommended (for the same reasons as pointed out in the recent article in the NY Times that Kate posted).
• Low molecular weight Heparin shots for the Factor V Leiden during the 3rd trimester. I will have to learn to give myself the shots which I think would be daily
• Regular fetal blood circulation monitoring using Doppler at a specialist centre, starting at 20 weeks.
• Regular blood coagulation tests. In general I will be followed by both the OB and the hematologist, who I will meet on Wednesday. She'll give me more information about the Factor V Leiden.
• She said again that we should wait a total of 4-6 months before TTC again. Last time she said 4 months when I asked her how much of this wait was for physical recovery. She had even mentioned that if we had an accident earlier than that, there was always the morning after pill. God, if I get pregnant, the last thing I'll want to take is the morning after pill! So this time I asked if it would be a disaster if I was to get pregnant next week by accident (whilst reassuring her that I wasn't actively planning it that way). She smiled and said no. So I'm sticking with the 4 months.

The OB reiterated how we shouldn't feel bad if we change our minds about wanting her to follow a next pregnancy. She's said this a few times, so I asked if she minded following us for a future pregnancy. She said no, that she would follow us with pleasure. DH thinks that she just wants us to feel free about our choices and to let us know she understands that we might change our minds in the future.

So that's that. I'm not seeing her again for another two months since there is nothing else to discuss with her related to Moksha's death and birth.

October

Autumn is my favourite season. I wasn't really expecting this October feeling.

October was the month Moksha was conceived. A whole year ago we planned to start trying to conceive and we prepared to try for one year before getting disheartened. We were surprised and oh-so-happy to find that Moksha came into our lives immediately.

Now it is a year later and Moksha was here and isn't here. I feel like I dreamt these past 12 months. Whenever I find myself doing a "normal" activity, like watching a film at home, I start wondering if it really happened. Did I imagine it all? Here we are, still just the two of us watching a film just like a year ago. Where did that year go? WHERE IS HE? WHY ISN'T HE HERE?

We saw the husband of a woman from our antenatal class today. The Saturday before Moksha was born, we had visited a friend in hospital who had just had a baby. On our way out, we bumped into this same guy and it turned out his wife and newborn daughter were in the next room. We dropped in to say hi. She had been induced a few weeks early as her baby wasn't growing anymore. Their little girl was underweight and quite jaundiced. The nurses came to take her away and put her under lamps whilst we were there. I remember feeling bad for her mother and at the same time thinking, I'm so glad that our baby already weighs more than that and I won't have the worry that she has. God I was naive.

Anyway, today her husband was picking up a prescription for something or other. He saw us and said hi. I think he was a little confused as we didn't have a baby with us. He said, "How's it going?". DH said, "I guess you haven't heard....uh, well, how could you have heard, our baby was stillborn". Shock and sorries. We asked how they were and he said, "uh... ok, it's not easy" and vaguely waved his bag from the pharmacy. I got the distinct feeling that their baby still has some problems but he couldn't top our baby being dead, so felt he couldn't say anything.

So much for my attempt at being less negative yesterday. It's like being attached to a stake in the ground by a piece of elastic. Stray too far and the elastic will eventually snap you back. I suppose that with time all that happens is the elastic gets a bit longer.