Notes from the couch*

*Actually it's not a couch but a sort of deep chair that you sink into and my psychiatrist sits in the same type of chair.

1/ In order to move forward in some way but without forgetting, which isn't my goal, what happened to us has to become my normal. My reality.

It could be argued that most people will at some point lose a parent, some suddenly and unexpectedly, and that by virtue of its commonness this is a normal experience.

It could be argued that many conceptions result in babies with severe heart defects and / or chromosomal problems and / or any other of the myriad problems that can occur, and therefore these are common experiences and somehow, if not normal, not completely abnormal either,

But losing your baby for undetectable reasons at full term after a low risk pregnancy is NOT normal. Neither is all three of these things happening in less than one year.

So how to move forward by integrating what has happened into my normality whilst listening to the voice that's yelling "that wasn't f***king normal!" It's not normal that all those things should happen to one person in such quick succession.

My psychiatrist doesn't have an answer. She just said that it seems acceptable that both of those opposite viewpoints are existing side by side.


2/ Last week I spent the session recounting a blow-by-blow account of what happened on the night of 28th July 2006 and the week afterwards. I have been over this in my mind countless times. Yet recounting it tapped into sources of deep, deep pain and anguish and I sobbed uncontrollably. It made me feel like it was just yesterday. It made me feel like I have now managed to create a shell around me which holds me together but inside the work has hardly begun.

I spent last weekend in total fatigue and exhaustion after that session. I had been shocked by my own story, just like when I go back and read my own blog archives I'm shocked as well.


3/ I spend more time, a LOT more time, thinking about V. than I do thinking about the little bean that is actually living inside me now (well s/he was living two weeks ago, anyway).


4/ The other day I spoke to the bean and said, "Please still be alive." Then I immediately felt that I didn't really have the right to ask that. A. was alive and it wasn't enough. A. beat the odds for T21 babies and survived the 1st trimester and it wasn't enough. When I recounted that yesterday in the psychiatrists office I was very upset. It was near the end of the session and she said we'd have to work on that next time.


5/ Yesterday I mentioned that my belly was already quite firm and rounded. My OB told me that the body has a memory, and that pg hormones the second or third time around make the muscles go, "Oh yeah, I know what to do, no point hanging around waiting, let's just give way now. Forget that she doesn't really want anyone to know that she's pregnant just yet."

In addition, I admit that I didn't make much of an effort to return to flat stomachdom after V. Plus I had an undetected hypothyroid problem to boot.

So there I was talking about how my belly was already relatively big and firm, whereas before it was big and flabby. The psychiatrist asked, "When you look at your belly, do you think about it being a pregnant belly or a belly that's been a bit neglected?" And I had to say that it was much much more the latter.

I don't have a mirror and I don't tidy myself up when I walk out of my psychiatrist's office. I do wonder what people think when they see me walking back to my car with what must be red face and puffy eyes, same time every Friday.

Vitriol avoided

At the weekend there were no explosions, although it wasn't easy. We arrived late on Friday which meant we didn't have to spend Friday with them all. On Saturday I managed to duck out of the afternoon by taking a nap.

Couple A were great as normal, taking the time to talk to us (both the male and female half), not shying away from pain or tears, difficult questions, asking about how my mother was doing, asking how we were doing.

Couple B - the male half of couple B talked to DH but not to me. The female half trapped me in her car and spoke her piece for about 10 minutes. She said that she was very ill at ease, that she knew we weren't impressed with them, that they had been very saddened by our story. She said she hadn't know what to say (mmhmm, for more than a YEAR, I was thinking) and had been scared of crying on the phone if she called me. She said she'd received the first box of maternity clothes and thought that she would call me, then never got to it, then received the second box and lost her nerve. She thought that I wouldn't want to talk about the maternity clothes at all. (Yes but just a text message saying that you damn well received them would have been something).

I just listened to her and then said that there were no words of comfort to give to someone whose child has died. That the people that had supported us the most were the people who cried with us, who acknowledged and shared our grief and had shown it. That we weren't given a guidebook with instructions on what to do when your child dies.

What ruined her effort was that after these ten minutes were over and we had arrived at our destination, she said, "So we're good then?". That pissed me off - yes, ten minutes of talk to relieve your own ill at ease feeling does not a year of silence mend.

Couple C - the male half spoke to DH (because he was perturbed by DH's phone call rather than because he was showing any support). The female half didn't say anything. DH generously but briefly asked her about her pregnancy and she told him that she had contracted toxoplasmosis and was taking medication for it.

I was glad when it was over and we went our separate ways again. I really went on this weekend for DH's sake. It was all couples and I couldn't let DH be the only one without either a child or a wife. I also realise that I often only write about DH when he's been annoying me. This weekend I felt like he really really understood me and I felt lucky lucky to have such a great husband.

By the way, DH and I both agree that men-only weekends, at least for a while, are probably the best way forward at this point. DH is also by nature much more forgiving than I am. It just remains to convince the others.

Weekend of potential vitriol

It's Friday, my day off and I have a ton of things I'm supposed to be doing but instead I've been surfing the internet.

I'm dreading this weekend.

My husband is part of a group of four friends who have known each other for fifteen or twenty years. For a long time, they have been putting money into a pot every month and once a year they go away for a nice weekend which usually involves wine tasting and Michelin-starred restaurants. Then, as they all started having girlfriends, they started inviting them every other year. The friendship however, remains between the four men.

Then they started getting married and having children. Two of the couples have two little girls each - let's call them couples A and B. One had a baby boy one month before Moksha was born. Let's call them couple C.

Couple A have been really good friends to us. The cried with us when Moksha died, they called, they supported us when they found out we had lost A. and my father died. They sent a card for Moksha's first birthday. They have not tried to ignore the tragedies of the last year in any way.

Couple B have done nothing. They sent a card when Moksha died. That's it. They found out in July that my Dad died and didn't contact us. They sent nothing for Moksha's birthday. She had lent me a whole load of maternity clothes which eventually I couldn't stand the sight of anymore, so I posted 2 big parcels back to her with notes thanking her for lending them to me and apologising if they arrived a little crushed. She didn't even contact me to say she had received them.

And Couple C? Couple C I hate most of all. Couple C sent us a birth announcement card for their son one full month after Moksha died. On the front, a nice photo of a living newborn. Inside it said, "Hello you three." I ripped it up.

DH made a supreme effort to go to a party celebrating their marriage and the birth of their son, I think it was in early September 2006. I didn't, couldn't, go. What did she say to DH? "It's really hard looking after a baby. At times I wonder why I ever wanted to become a mother."

Then, radio silence for months until DH finally went to dinner with the three other men where he shared his pain and wept.

"Oh let's organise another weekend," says the male half of couple C. "We can all go away and bring the children with us!". DH stared at him. The other two also stared at him in disbelief until DH said, "If you're going to go away with the children, you can just forget it for us. We won't be coming." "Oh, yeah, of course, right," says idiot male C. "Just couples then."

And said weekend is - hooray - this weekend. I am attending purely for DH's sake. But I have been seething about it all week. I have been thinking of retorts to all sorts of imaginary remarks. Couple A I am looking forward to seeing. I feel as though anything that Couples B and C say will cause me to explode and spew a mouthful of hatred and vitriol. I don't want to see them. I am physically repulsed by them. I am not looking forward to this weekend at all. (Couple C is also 4 months pregnant).

DH understands. He feels the same way about Couples B and C but in a more mild manner. In addition he has the fifteen - twenty years of friendship with them as perspective and feels it's worth trying to salvage something. I can understand that. He has called them all this week to get some things off his own chest so that he doesn't explode this weekend.

But I hate Couples B and C. I hate them for not acknowledging our pain like we are some sort of dirty shameful secret. I hate them for not having the courage to send a text message or make a phone call or anything. I hate Couple C especially for their insensitivity.

It's the music that does it

I'm sorry I'm not posting much anymore. I just feel like I don't have anything to say that I haven't already said.

For those who didn't see my extremely low key announcement buried in the comments of a previous post, I got a positive HPT in August. I've had my first check up, at about 6w, and am having my second next Friday. I'm feeling very neutral about the whole thing.

I continue to see my psychiatrist and she said we would have to work on making sure this baby had a place in my life. It really struck me. I spend my time diligently not thinking about being pregnant, when in actual fact this baby shouldn't have to do something, like live outside my uterus, in order to "deserve" or "win" a place in my life. S/he should already have that, s/he is not responsible for what has gone before.

We were away for a long weekend and I felt quite dizzy throughout the weekend. I have also been tired and a little nauseous. As I type, my right ovary, which is the one I ovulated from, is hurting a quite bit. I have to call my OB for some test results tomorrow anyway so will ask her about all this. Maybe this 3rd pregnancy in just over a year is just taking its physical toll.

I still think about Moksha every day. Whilst flying to our long weekend destination, I cried for him again. How hard it is to let go of the should have beens. He should have been sitting on the plane between us. We should have been in the early boarding line of people with strollers. People should have been cooing at him and asking how old he was. Instead I stared at the tops of the clouds listening to the iPod with tears rolling down my cheeks. DH whispered, "Are you thinking about V.?" I nodded. "It's the music that does it," he said.

Updated: this is the song I was listening to.