And just like that she was gone. It’s been 12 weeks today. I don’t know how I get through some days and others, shamelessly pass by as though it never happened. I never knew you could go from immense happiness over something trivial to sobbing uncontrollably. The nights are the hardest. I lay awake thinking of her. I lay awake thinking of all my failings and I’m drowning in my tears and sorrow. Then morning comes and I put my happy face on, I become mama to the girls I have with me and that role remains until the nighttime again. And so it goes on and on.

I failed her. I can physically feel my heart hurt when I read that. I see her everywhere. I’ve heard of people that symbolise their lost babies with butterflies or feathers. I’ve never symbolised them with anything. I didn’t want to. This time feels different, she was buried with a teddy bear. I was against burying her with anything but then when I saw her, they’d placed a tiny bear in her arms. She was hugging it, like she should have been hugging me. I couldn’t take it away. So now that’s her symbol, teddy bears. And they’re everywhere. I always buy teddy’s for newborns. I buy them for my earth side babies and now I see her in them all. She haunts me. I wonder who she could have been. Would she have been someone important? A political? A doctor? A nurse? Would she have been funny? Would I have babied her like I do her sisters? Who would she have looked like when she grew up? Did I take all that life she had to live away from her?

Complacent. That’s a word I would use to describe myself. I’ve found this year tough. I’ve struggled to face things head on, I’ve been complacent with my health for sure. I started off with so much, I fought and tried so hard. But then at some point the wind got knocked out me. I took my eye off it and before I knew it she was here, far too early. I should change but it’s made me even more complacent.

Lewis Capaldi summed it up beautifully.

So, before you go, was there something I could’ve said to make your heart beat better? If only I had known you had a storm to weather. So before you go, was there something I could’ve said to make it all stop hurting?

Was never the right time, whenever you called. Went little by little until there was nothing at all. Our every moment, I start to replay, but all I can think about is seeing that look on your face. When you hurt under the surface, like troubled water flowing cold. Well, time can heal but this won’t.

I am a miscarriage warrior.

I have been to war with this, I have lived, breathed it, I have survived it, with the only person fighting it being me, myself and I. Why must we suffer this pain in silence? Why do we not speak of it with others, does it hurt any less than other pain, than other deaths? Why has society cast our grief, our babies aside? How do we end this injustice??

Some years ago my dad passed away. It was horrific, it was painful, it felt like the world should end. In the aftermath I was surrounded by love. I had the love of my mum, my brothers, Uncles, Aunties, cousins. I felt like I’d been swept up in a big hug and just held, for as long as I needed it. And I needed it, so there I stayed. Yet those same people, say nothing of me losing my baby, nothing. Awkward silence fills the room, until the subject is changed and then everyone goes on their merry way. But why? Do they not feel sad for me? Do they not see this was a baby? At first I thought it was because I didn’t look pregnant, how could they be sad for something they didn’t/couldn’t see? They weren’t at the scans, they didn’t have the same dreams I had for this baby yet, it wasn’t real to them. But as if I needed the next blow, there it came, I carried the next baby to 7 months and then lost her too. You couldn’t miss her, I had a cute little bump and she kicked like a football striker. How could no-one mourn her with me? How was she not real enough? How was she not enough of a person? And yet I got the same silence.

As harsh as it is I realised you don’t know the pain of recurrent miscarriage, unless you’ve lived it. I don’t know many that have, not face to face people but there is a community of warrior women online who unite in their grief. We will not be silenced, we will not let the silence of miscarriage silence us too. We are in this together, we are bonded together.

I talk about it all the time now, I tell new hairdressers on my first visit. They ask how many children I have, if any and I say, I have 2 live daughters and I’ve lost 11 babies through 9 pregnancies. I’m used to the uncomfortable shock now, I’m quite an introvert so saying it aloud makes me cringe sometimes but I feel I have to say it aloud to get the message across. I’m amazed at how many people can relate, I’m also amazed at how many people ask me how I kept going? As if I should have committed suicide if this was my fate. Asking my why I kept trying, surely I should have given up (normally it’s people with multiple children in tow that say this). My own mum once said to me my life would be better without any children, as that was clearly my destiny. She had 4 children, suffered miscarriages too but clearly couldn’t relate to me.

I get so angry, I want to rip peoples heads off. I want to shake them and scream and shout about my grief. I want to explain to them what it feels like to bleed your childs blood, not just bleed but bleed your child’s blood and not be able to stop it. I want to tell them about all the nights I silently sob into my pillow so I don’t wake my husband up. I want people to hear the pain never ends, the feeling of being a failure never goes and that feeling of being helpless is etched into us forever.

I don’t need counselling. I’m not depressed. I don’t cry and say why me. I accept what has happened and what is likely to happen again. But I just don’t get the secrecy, I don’t get the silence and I don’t get the don’t talk about it.

So here we are, you have turned 2 my beautiful little Gruffalo loving girl. Your smile rarely leaves your face, how can you always be so happy!? I love picking you up early, so we can sit outside whilst you eat your dinner and shout at the cat, that’s what you do you see, you don’t speak to her, you just shout. It’s as if you believe shouting will get her to adhere to your instructions!

Your second year with us has been full of achievements and full of sass! You only refer to yourself as Bobbin these days, which of course we love. You’ve finally learnt to walk, we kept trying everything to encourage you to walk and didn’t get much back. Then literally suddenly you got up one day and off you were. You’ve been a dream really, we still have no stair gate, you still seem to listen to instructions quite well and will embrace and hug anyone that’s in need of a hug.

Your eyes have changed from blue to brown and I’ve given you an epic haircut this year… epicly bad!! I’ve tried to erase all photographic evidence but some lives on. I think it’s safe to say it’s a bowl cut, something that resembles dumb and dumber, look it up.

Baba Pink is your favourite doll and safe to say you’ve started to get Dada wrapped around your little finger. You’ve both discovered a love for water and on it goes, your WaterBabies classes with your Dada and a holiday to Florida cemented your love of swimming pools. And we had the best trip to DisneyWorld, you met Mickey, it was the sweetest thing for both of us, apparently I love Mickey as much as you do. It was unbearably hot at times but you didn’t winge or complain, in true Bobbin fashion you just got on with, albeit looking like a sweaty mess.

Christmas was a lot of fun, you were so pleased with your little play kitchen, Dada spent hours and hours the week before building it and making sure it was perfect. You dressed up as an elf and were truly adorable, the sweetest little girl. You did struggle to stay awake for the whole day and did sleep through most of it. We were still opening your presents weeks later!!

You also came across slides this year and boy do you like them, you’re a little thrill seeker, throwing yourself down any slide you encounter, whilst I stand back and watch through gritted teeth. The biggest discovery of the year was chocolate…. you cried for it, you performed for it, you’d literally do whatever it took for it. Long live chocolate.

There was a time during this year I thought I’d have to share my love with you and a sibling, it broke my heart to know I wouldn’t just be your mama. I wouldn’t be able to come running when you wanted me to, I wouldn’t be able to hold your hand when you needed me to. I wasn’t ready and I felt you weren’t either. I can look back now though and know I was wrong, you’re the kindest sweetest little girl. You’d embrace anyone who came into your life, you would share anything. My sweet little angel, who knows what you’ll grow up to be but right now we just want to keep you boxed up as you are.

Sentence of the year: “Dada gone werk”

So here I am. I felt there was so much to say but it all boils down to the same thing now, you are my greatest supporter.

Everyone has one, it should be your partner, your spouse. So what if that person, your greatest supporter, isn’t supportive at all? For 10 years I believed wholeheartedly he didn’t say the things other boyfriends, fiancés and husbands said to their partners because he was shy like that because he felt it but didn’t know how to communicate. I had a tough realisation yesterday, he didn’t say those things because he didn’t feel them, he didn’t mean them. As ridiculous as this sounds I saw a Facebook post a husband of one of my friends had posted, it read: “Happy Mother’s Day to the most beautiful wife, mother and woman I know”. Accompanying it were many photos of my friend. It’s true, she is beautiful, truly inside and out. I sobbed when I read it. I didn’t have that. I didn’t have anyone that thought that, believed it, said it. I never would. No one in the whole world, billions of people, no one would ever say it to me. Why? I’ve thought about it a lot since and the overriding answer every time seems to be because I’m simply not. I can’t be, otherwise my greatest supporter would think it, say it. Instead I got told over and over “you’re not my mother”.

He’d be there during all the sleepless nights with the baby, he’d want to be there to make sure I was ok. He’d want to know I was ok. He’d want to cuddle me when the tears wouldn’t stop falling. He’d want to tell me I wasn’t alone and he was with me every step of the way. But he’s not and I am alone. I often fantasise about my own death, finally an end. This isn’t depression or mental health issues. This is me stuck with no way out.

I have 2 beautiful girls, I want them to grow up and be strong women. But here I am their role model, they’re better off without me. I can’t change things, I can’t change him no matter how hard I try. I can’t make him love me. He’s here wanting the picture perfect family and I’m here desperately needing love. His love.

I still feel terribly sad for widows, how lonely it must be to have had a great companion and then to have lost him and to be left by yourself. But now I see they were lucky, they had a companion.

It’s tough to win every little battle life throws at you without a supporter on your side.

Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.

Bertrand Russell

Maybe the toughest of all to write about.

Our first few months were difficult. Worse than that, at times they felt impossible. The blissfulness of wanting a baby and actually having one were clearly 2 very different things. You weren’t easy. You wouldn’t take a bottle and I was left literally holding the baby! There wasn’t any let up, You were awake 3-4 times a night every single night for 6 months, you tested my patience to the limits. But already we could see your personality shining through. You smiled for the very first time at 3 weeks !! And you’ve not stopped smiling since !!

When you were 7 months old we had a crazy thought to take you on holiday, we went to France, La Rosiere with friends. For the first time since your birth I left you for more than an hour, it did us both good. You started to sleep through the night and frankly you’ve not stopped since. I had a new found love for you, my love grew and we really started to enjoy you. You were the happiest little girl. You were happy to have cuddles from anyone and even on the flights and very long bus journey (4 hours!) you were good as gold, my perfect little Pwincess !

The next few months went by so quickly and before I knew it I had plans in place to go back to work. We’d found the most amazing childminder for you and you seemed very happy with her. Beginning of April I went back to work, albeit working from home, whilst you went to the childminder. We missed you lots but you seemed happy and it worked.

Then the awful part of that year began. My dad (your grandad) got really ill. I took you with me to their house and the next month or so was a haze. I didn’t know who had you, I didn’t know if you’d been fed or were sleeping ok. I didn’t even ask. I detached myself from you so I could help look after him, so I could tell him all the things I’d wanted to say for so long. So I could try and absorb that he was letting go infront of my eyes and there was nothing I could do about it. I took you in to see him a couple of times. He even smiled in his sleep when you slapped his forehead and I told you off.

He left us all and what he left behind was the biggest void that’s yet to be filled. I spiraled out of control. I didn’t believe your heart could physically hurt like that but mine did, I felt it break. I felt it break to beyond repair. He hadn’t just gone, he’d taken me, all that I was with him. Those moments after he went, more than anything, I wanted to go with him. I felt like that again and again. Who knows what may have happened. But then I came home to you. My beautiful little girl, oblivious to it all. Happily just getting on with it. You’ll never understand how indebted to you I am. How you raised me back up from the ashes, how you taught me to love again. How you made the worst year ever end on a better note. You needed me, I couldn’t go anywhere. With each day I was able to smile, even if just for a few seconds at your giggle or watching you sleep. But you gave me an escape each day and without realising it, your tiny shoulders were carrying the weight of the world it seemed but you handled it like only an angel could.

Physically your first year was actually quite funny. You weren’t in a hurry to go anywhere, no hurry at all. I think you get that from me, a bit of a laid back attitude but you get your determinism from your Dad, once you set your sights on doing something you get it done. By your first birthday you weren’t crawling, you weren’t walking, you only had 2 teeth and you were barely able to sit up on your own !! BUT you were talking, you were saying all sorts of things and we were in awe of your ever changing personality. We also had a few firsts, you had your first haircut just after your first birthday, it was a disaster, I’ve never cut it since but let’s just say bowl cut and little boy come to mind !!

Your blue eyes changed to hazel but your gorgeous porcelain skin remained, you turned into the cutest little girl that loved being cuddled and kissed and always gave back more than you go from everyone. Quite simply it was clear from your first year on this earth you were going to be someone amazing and we were and still are the proudest parents in the world and so very thankful to be a part of your life.

 

 

A letter to my darling.

Before you, I never believed I could be lucky. I sat at this keyboard, I typed messages, thoughts, hopes but luck wasn’t something I ever expected. I didn’t believe it would happen. I wanted it to so much but I was so scared to hope for you. And then as I sat here and felt each kick, I couldn’t be closer to anyone else in the world and felt a love I never even knew existed.

We diligently bought all the things you’d need, many trips to John Lewis to see if the pushchair we were debating over was the right one for our soon to be here bundle of joy. Getting a new mattress, going over lists over and over again. Making sure it was all going to be perfect and then occasionally getting to see your little button nose and huge ears (yes you had huge ears even in the scans!). You made it as easy for us as you could, you kicked ALL the time, so we couldn’t forget you were there but you didn’t do much else to make it difficult to have you with us always.

There were times when we doubted. Times when we were scared. I’ll always remember waxing and getting some blood on my towel. I remember your dad walking in and his face dropping. All he said was “not again!” I knew what he meant, he didn’t want to lose another one, he wasn’t ready to lose you too. He was so relieved when I told him, no it’s not the baby, the baby’s kicking ass !! We laughed together. I realised in that moment, although he didn’t say much, you meant the whole world to him already too.

We did so much from the moment you were conceived till your first day here. It was a tough journey to get you though. We lost babies before you, it hurt but not as much as the one we first tried for after we got married. It was April 2013, we’d just moved to a new rental house at the end of March, I somehow convinced your dad we were ready for a baby. I felt so lonely moving to a new area and I missed my family so very much too. I wanted us to create our own family. He agreed and lo and behold the first month, the first test we did, positive. Your dad was shocked, he never quite took it in. I was elated, I was pregnant, we were having a baby. But then within a flash at 8 weeks, it was gone. Waiting in that waiting room I already knew. I felt my heart break, like crack a little. All our hopes and dreams were gone.

Part of a song that I played over and over again and still reminds me of that terrible loss:

“And I don’t even know how I survive
I won’t make it to the shore without your light
No I don’t even know if I’m alive
Oh, oh, oh without you now
This is what it feels like”

I bought a little box, I put silly things I’d already got that baby in it, I sealed it up and I moved on. We moved onto trying for another. We lost more but we were hardened by then. It was all about the fight to have one now and the interim losses felt more like smaller losses to get to the end goal.

We went to Florida on holiday in September, soon after we’d been to Venice for my birthday. We had the most amazing time, we were happy, ecstatically happy and in love. We had a very important appointment with a fertility specialist upon our return and felt like it was all in hand, that specialist would help us to have a baby, that’s what we thought. We went for that appointment, we had a scan and my beautiful beautiful baby, there you were.

We were shocked. I was sad. Scared. I felt on the cusp of losing another but this one felt more important somehow. This one felt like a miracle and I didn’t want to mess things up. I had scans every week from 5 weeks to 13 weeks. I loved those few minutes each week, I loved the bus journey, I used to talk to you in my head. I used to thank you for hanging in there, thank you for not breaking my heart, thank you for picking me.

We told all our friends and family over Christmas, I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t notice the looks. The looks that said “oh here we go again”, “she’ll lose this one too”. But I couldn’t care less, me and your dad we were a family with a plus one and that’s all that mattered. As our bond grew I felt your dad was maybe feeling left out. I took to talking to you on occasion and he didn’t feel part of the conversation. But in his own typical way he took hold of as much as he could, he made sure we had everything we could need after your birth and he planned as much as he could.

When I was 7 months pregnant we moved into our beautiful first home together. My parents (your grandparents) always told me children bring luck and here you were bringing us the luck to buy this house that was out of our dreams. Within the perfect little village, one you’d come to grow to love too.

I’m not going to pretend and say labour was as easy and straight forward as the pregnancy had been, there were moments the doctors, the nurses looked a little scared but not me. I knew you were a fighter, you hadn’t come all this way to let go now. And within a flash you were here, those few hours you lay against me, all quiet in our hospital room was amazing. We both just stared at each other’s faces. Taking in the face behind the voice, absorbing every tiny bit of you and you of me. The stillness, the silence in that room and your searching big eyes, I’ll never forget. You gave me something no-one had ever been able to before you, you made me something no-one could ever take away, you made me your Mummy.

So the husband has gone into the office for the day, I thought I wouldn’t today, thought I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t take this opportunity of working from home on my own to let the tears flow, but that they have, like they always do when I’m on my own.

There is so much to cry for, there always has been but I’ve always exceeded expectations, other peoples expectations and my own. I’ve always been strong, not believing I was strong but realising when looking back I was as strong as an Ox !! I didn’t waste time on tears, I thought of ways to make things better. Then April 2015 I was given my dad back, I’d lost him through circumstance but Allah had gifted him back to me. Everyone says I was lucky to have those few days with him before he slept for weeks and then was gone. How is this luck, how do I make it better? I still mourn him. I’m still ashamed of all the mistakes I make, wondering if he’s looking down at me. I take each step with an unsteady foot, not knowing if I’m placing it in the right direction, not knowing if the ground beneath me will give way and consume me as I fall? From the moment my Dad left to this very moment now, each decision I make is with uncertainty, I’ve realised my dad was my anchor and without him I’m drifting aimlessly. I want to make him proud, this year I know I’ve disappointed. The next year I want to be the best person I can to the rest of my family so he can see I’m happy.

One of his last conversations with me, he said he was going to keep fighting, he was going to pull through because he didn’t want me to be sitting at home on my own crying with no shoulder to lean on and no-one to talk too. He said it broke him up thinking that’s what would happen if he left. I told him to get better but that I was strong, I’d be ok. I sit here wishing I could pretend I was ok when I was on my own, so he could know I was ok. But the silence is consumed with my aching sobs. I cry out for him but he can’t reach me. I fall apart but he can’t fix me anymore. I can’t believe the person I’ve become this year. Does this really happen to people when they lose a loved one? Do they really become monsters, shadows of their former selves?? I’m ashamed to write down the things I’ve thought, the things I’ve done, the people I’ve trusted and the people I stopped trusting.

I’m 33 years old, surely I can’t still be making stupid mistakes, I’ve lived a hard life to here, my 33 years have been filled with more upset and turmoil than I suspect most face in a long lifetime but I should have learnt from that past. I should have learnt how to protect myself and others around me. And yet I didn’t. It’s become apparent I don’t know myself at all. I don’t know what I’m capable of and I can’t see what others are capable of either. So where does that leave me? Limbo. A lost place where I’m not here and I’m not there. I need to stop relying on others to fix me, I need to stop turning to people I feel will help, they won’t. They were never there to help. I now accept my errors, I accept I made wrong choices, I hurt people that didn’t deserve it and the blame solely lies with me. The next year I’ll build a cocoon. A shell around the people that matter the most, the ones that have been silently here and will continue to be so. I’ll build a perfect little world for my perfect little family. 2017 is going to be a good one, one of the best yet, that shining star in the sky, my Dad will look down and feel proud again, proud I’m his daughter.

So a little bit about me:

I Love…. (obviously not in order of preference!!)

To Talk – Could be a winner if there was a competition, because I love to talk…
I Love to Write!
God and my faith
My beautiful Little Bob
My Angel Babies
The Bear
My husband (sometimes – his words not mine! :winkwink:)
My mum, dad, brothers and family
My job (weird I know, not many people say that!)
Chocolate – Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut if we’re being specific and of course Bounty’s… love love love them!
The colour Green
Laughing lots

So that’s some of me.

For the last couple of years I thought I’d had 4 miscarriages in total and lost 5 babies before I fell pregnant with my Rainbow Bob but in fact recently found out from medical records it was actually 7 miscarriages and 8 babies lost. It’s so sad to think I couldn’t remember all of them. I got to a certain point and just stopped counting, stopped registering, I feel guilty I did that but some of those miscarriages seem to have been more poignant in my memory than others.

I have a boring job I love to do, it’s ok to be boring you’d think. Just wish the rest of my life wasn’t so interesting !! I am like a walking whirlwind of random things. I’m THAT friend that always seems to have some crazy thing going on. I don’t choose it that way, it happens that way, what can you do?!

So a little bit about me… I’ve always been a firm believer of there being a somewhere over the rainbow. There must be hope, things must get better one day, there must be a place where dreams really do come true, right??

As I was sat at my desk crying into my hands for the millionth time ever I decided to start this blog. Somewhere to vent, write about me and my life and talk things through with myself. So here I am and here it goes…!