A month has passed since we found out that you were gone. It’s been a strange month. Few ups; many downs. Trying to get my head around the fact that we wouldn’t be having a baby in April.
Then, listening to Kate Middleton’s announcement of an April baby.
When we found out she was pregnant in the summer, we laughed and joked about reaching out the hand of friendship to her; we always have babies at the same time. Now I just feel sad and even more aware of how difficult April will be, with every single news source on baby alert. Unable to escape the newborn photos.
I wanted to be on ‘baby alert’ too.
I wanted to be analysing every twinge, wondering whether today would be the day that you arrive.
I wanted to be sharing our joy with the world as well – just like Kate and Wills will be.
Now I’m thinking that camping, in a remote part of the Lake District, for most of April might be a good idea. Or perhaps a luxury log cabin retreat, where technology is banned?
One month on and my bump has deflated, I don’t feel sick, and I can drink tea again. There haven’t been many silver linings in this whole journey, and I’m not sure it can even be described as a ‘silver lining’ really, but I am very thankful that I can drink tea once more. It was a bit bleak without my cup of Yorkshire Gold first thing…
I’m still bleeding a little bit, but nothing like I was two weeks ago. It just seems to keep going. Relentless.
I am constantly tired. Every bone and muscle aches. I feel heavy and slow. I just want to spend each morning lying in, and every evening in the bath.
I am sleeping badly. Every sound wakes me. My thoughts tumble and surge in the darkness.
I am mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted.
At the end of last week I had to take a pregnancy test. It was the final stab in the heart. I had to make sure that I’m no longer pregnant. That all my hormones had calmed down, that the final pieces of tissue – of you – had gone.
I’m not sure that I have ever longed for a pregnancy test to be negative. Perhaps in my early twenties? But last week I longed for it only to show one line, because two would mean a return to hospital. Another ultrasound. Waiting in the partitioned room with happy, pregnant bumps just feet away. And then talk of intervention. Surgery.
Even though I so desperately wanted you to stay, I needed the test to be negative.
And it was negative.
A mixture of relief and sadness washed over me.
I guess a very small part of me hoped it would be positive, that we would have to have a third scan and by some form of miracle, you would be there, twirling on the screen.
Or perhaps, I hoped it would be positive because I am torturing myself by examining everything little I did, everything I ate, in the first few weeks of your life. Blaming myself because you didn’t stay – and the drawn out pain of another scan, and intervention, feels like a weird sort of justice, in case this is all my fault.
Or perhaps, I hoped it would be positive because I’m not ready for ‘normal’ quite yet. Not ready to move on. Not ready to say goodbye.
But now I must say goodbye. I must face the facts that you have gone. And we must decide whether we can put ourselves potentially through this pain and sadness again. Or whether we are happy with our lot.
I guess we’ll let time decide.
