Day 8 - Jewellery

I have a few things I wear all the time now and these are very special to me.

Adrian bought 2 Crouches of Queen Cleopatra in Egypt when we were pregnant and had decided on Sophie's middle name of Cleo. There was one for me and one for Sophie when she was old enough. This baby one was for her and Adrian now wears the one he bought for me. We keep her close to our hearts.

The other piece I wear is her hands and feet in silver. I searched for a year trying to find the perfect representation of her prints.. well perfect enough for me anyway. I got this from the UK and I am lost without it.

Day 7 - What to Say

This seems to be a common theme among angel parents. For us it is always a hard one and a complete conversation stopper. You can see the air change in a conversation almost every time we mention Sophie and that breaks my heart. I used to be offended (and I still can be at times) but now I realise it's not me that has the issue it's their issue, their lack of knowledge and maybe even compassion.

We will always say her name loud and proud so don't shy away when we do. Sophie is and always will be our daughter.

Day 6 - What not to say

Well this is a tough one and probably not something I would have ever put into writing. Let's be honest there have been a few choice phrases said to us over the time but these are the ones that have stuck with me for almost 4 years. Some people should just not speak...

1. 'Don't worry, you can have another baby'
(Really? You seriously don't meant that... Our daughter died. I almost died... do you really want to say that? Yes we were lucky enough to but only after almost 4 years of struggle and a wonderful amazing surrogate to delivery him for us!! No we couldn't just have another baby!)

2. 'Ah, it's probably for the best'
(Best for who? Sophie was perfect and it was the medical profession that let her and us down. She should be here but they decided she was safer inside my uterus... how wrong they all were!)

3. 'Wow, she was a real baby' (after seeing her photos)
(Umm yes she was.. flesh and blood and absolutely gorgeous! I ask the question..at what age do people thing babies are real?)

4. Are you over it yet?? Or even better.. I'm sure you have moved on by now?
(Simply never ever going to happen. I miss Sophie even more now that I have Hamish! Every time I look at him I wonder how she would have looked at his age. How it would have felt to see her smile. Please know that I will never be over losing my daughter, not last week, not tomorrow and not next year. It was the worst thing that has ever happened to me, categorically the worst.. nothing will surpass her death.

I am sure there are others but for whatever reason my small and delicate brain has protected me and allowed me to forget them.

Day 5 - Memorial

We don't really have a memorial as such but when we visit Sophie's grave we make a big deal. Each birthday is showered with special cakes and balloons... but every time we go we take something special for her as if she were here and asking for toys!

Having no idea what the right thing to do was we chose a baby area at Rookwood in Sydney for her as we knew other mums, dads and family would visit the area and we found that comforting.  There are always toys, photos and special items left for the bubbas. One thing we did start was windmills and I love arriving and seeing all the colours moving in the breeze. It’s our special gift for Sophie.

Day 4 - Most treasured item

There are so many things I could show today. Our only Family photo at Sophie's funeral, the Bear we were given in Hospital 'Bluey' and the very few photos we actually have of our little girl. Memories we created because we didn't have her to take home and we didnt want to have any regrets.

I think this is a big one for me. In hospital while we were given a Bear of Hope we were not given any information on how we could create memories. We were fortunate a friend suggested we contact Twinkle Toes.. I will be forever grateful to her, thanks you Michelle... as they are irreplaceable. Sophie's hand and feet casts sit pride of place in our bedroom with her birth certificate and photos.  I have them on my blog a few times and i love seeing them.

Day 3 - After Loss

We chose to go away for my First Mothers Day in 2009 to Lake Munmorah. My puppies have been my non human life line and provide me with an unspoken understanding I cannot explain.

Adrian took this as I sat with my eldest Lab Sammy J on the wharf for what seemed like hours. We both wished she was there with us.

Day 2 - Before Loss

It's been a while.
A lot has happened.
I have grown in many ways.
I smile now, but I still miss Sophie more than anyone could ever imagine.

I am doing 'Capture your grief' or at least attmepting to in order to see how I am fairing. If I am healing... I am honestly not too sure.

http://carlymarieprojectheal.com/2012/09/capture-your-grief-this-october-2012-for-pregnancy-infant-loss-awareness-month.html

I missed day 1 and only got the moon at a distance last night. It was not the best so I am moving on to day 2. I think about this happy go lucky 'me' every day. I miss feeling like that.

Whoever said time heals didn't lose a child...

It has been so long since I posted last and I don’t feel like I can do Sophie justice at the moment. Life moves so fast…so much goes on, and I know I am not able to give her the attention she deserves or that attention I need to give her. I think about her all day every day, I just have not felt like writing about it for a long time now. Writing used to help me, make me stronger, pass the time and in some small way make her real and keep her closer, but there is something missing inside me. It’s been 2 years 3 months and 3 days and I still feel dead inside and I have realised there is just no way around it.

Time has not healed any wounds.. that is all bullshit. I have learnt to put the pain in a box when people are around and bring it out when I am alone. It still hurts like hell that we don’t have our beautiful daughter here because of a medical fuck up. It hurts like hell we will never hear her laugh or see her smile or even see the colour of her eyes… god I want that… I want so much more than we were even given and that just sucks and I really don’t know how or if that will ever be fixed. There is no good in any of this. She is not here and I am so sad, so lost and so not able to hug her. We are not the people we were.. I am certainly not the person I was when I was pregnant. I just hope that my husband still remembers the carefree wife he married because most days she is non existent.

When I wake up in the morning I see her photos, her hand and feet casts, her birth certificate on a special wall right all beside our bed. I still wish with everything in those first few seconds as I focus on the room that I have I could hear her cry and wake me up in my sleep 10 time... but I sleep through and nothing changes.

We go to the beach with our 4 legged children often and while I watch them play in the sand every time I imagine Sophie playing right there with them, giggling while the water catches her and shrieking at the puppies playing in the sand. When I go out shopping there are always a million 2 year olds running around and oodles of newborns I long for. I see Sophie at both ages now and I am not sure that helps at all. I see clothes I would have bought her and toys I know she would have liked but I can’t buy any of them. I imagine how her bedroom would have looked, the nursery we never had the chance to set up, the cot we had to hide, the cradle which now sits in our bedroom with sadness but a hint of hope. Why us? I don’t pretend to be Miss Innocent but my husband deserves the best of everything and I can’t give him any of it. I hate that I cannot carry anymore… I hate it and I hate myself because of it more than anyone could ever imagine. But I will take a breath…

Tuesday was the day we have been waiting for for what seems like an eternity. Tuesday as I wrote this this there was a committee meeting to decide if we are ‘allowed’ to use our embryo’s with our wonderful Surrogate. We hope to give Sophie a sibling to guide, to love and flicker her angel wings around when we least expect it. I am so nervous… nervous about the outcome and the fact that we won’t find out for another week if we were approved and this whole experience is probably why I have been focusing less on writing and treasuring my little Sophie Cleo. While I am still not talking to the man upstairs for obvious reasons I will be saying a prayer this week… please get us through.. not for me for my beautiful Adrian...he deserves a break.

Happy 2nd Birthday Hope!

I am imagining our two chasing bubbles around the garden today Sally.

Thinking of you today. xo

What constitutes a friend? I am running a poll...

In the world we live in today with email, blogs and Skype what is a friend? Years ago you had to know and see someone to consider them a friend because that was all we knew. But with technology how can you limit a friendship to psychical interaction. It is small mindedness at it's best.

I know people around the corner I have known for years less than I do some people I have met online...It opens up a world of possibility that generations ago never existed.. finding common interestes or understanding...that is friendship. It should never be about the lenght of time or the location.

Should relationships be discriminated against because much of it is online?

What do you think? Feel free to post this question as I would like as broard a view on this as possible. I will post in a few days as to why I ask this question...

PS - I even met Adrian online and 9 months later we were married. Thankyou RSVP :)

Statistics

After all that we went through we don't believe in statistics. I was 1:150,000 with my rupture... I had a 50:50 chance of survival... but I have since met a handful of other women in Sydney who experienced the same thing as me.

The statistic we keep hearing about babies in Australia is 6 a day don't survive. 6 a day... we are not a third world country.. we have the best of the best here so why is this happening? Why are babies still dying before they even get a chance.

6 a day...

In our great grandparents time it was a common occurrence for babies to be born sleeping or die in the first year of life.. but these days??

6 a day...

Adrian was listening to drive radio last week about home births and mothers rights. This topic gets me going especially the VBAC crazies out there (that's a story for another time). Callers including a few Dr's were talking about how rare it was for complications these days and how safe a home birth is. He felt compelled to tell our story and was given over 5 mins on air without interruption.

He talked of holding his warm limp daughter and being told his wife may not survive. (If was across the road from the hospital and not in it I would have died.) He also spoke of the 6 a day statistic and our OB's comment about it 'it is a statistic we don't want getting out there'. The announcer who almost lost a child 7 years before finished the call with 'well there is to say about that'.

6 a day...

I don't believe it is right that the Dr's want to hide it to 'protect women'. Of course I don't mean scare ever pregnant woman on the planet, but I would rather have known these were possibilites and not thought from week 12 it was all plain sailing. If I had known I would have asked more questions and yelled so I was listened to and Sophie would BE HERE WITH US... but we trusted and we lost, and Adrian was almost a Widow.

I just don't see the harm in talking about it, I want people to talk about it. I want families to have the knowledge to change that. Imagine if it was 2 a day and not 6!

We all talk about Breast Cancer openly but did you know 'statistically' each year almost the same number of Women lose the battle with Breast Cancer as babies are born sleeping.

I hope we can change that someday soon.

Where did my confidence go?

My life is about to change for the better and because of this change I need to think about what I am going to do with it.. at least until I get the opportunity (and crossing everything I have) to be a mum here on earth.

The biggest problem is since losing Sophie pretty much any passion I had for anything has vanished. Getting excited about the future is a dream I wake up from. I see glimpses of things I like or used to like but I am flat about almost everything.

The old me, the person my husband married was 'a glass half full' kinda girl, the life of the party. As an angel mum my glass has almost dried up! You see, my body let Sophie die. She fought and I failed that's it. No if's or but's and I have to deal with that forever.

These demons I face also mean I have zero confidence. Was it not enough to lose Sophie? The confidence in myself has been removed like my uterus should have been. In fact I feel like my uterus... it's there and functioning just but it can never again do what it was meant to do. I go through the motions but it's all a cover!

I miss the old me but I am not sure I will ever find her fully again. What I do know is that I am scared of the unknown... something I would have grabbed head on in the past.

Sometimes the news makes me angry

Today is one of those days...

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/1070778/mother-caught-breastfeeding-while-driving

Why does an idiot like her get a baby and I don't have Sophie. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Mothers day

Was harder this year than last.

We went to the movies in the morning, Adrian won some tickets to a premier screening of 'Letters to Juliete". After getting warm and fuzzies in the movie we walked out into what can only be described as 'Family Heaven' (but our hell). I don't think I have seen so many families and children of all ages in one place ever. Note to self.. NEVER go to FOX STUDIOS on MOTHERS DAY!

We really should have gotten out of the city like last year and not mixed with the crowds. It's days like that I can really see we are not anywhere near being 'ok'.

I miss you so much baby girl. I ache for you more than you could ever know but I am trying to get by.

Thank you for making me a proud mummy. xo

The highs and lows

I am feeling highly strung today. I had to deliver some documents to a client a few blocks away and I was keen for the walk so I was happy for the distraction. The sun was beautiful, even among the tall city buildings you could feel the warmth. I must say the weather at the moment in Sydney is just beautiful. So I was in a good mood, letting the sun touch my skin and enjoying the rays when it hit me. My mood went from enjoyment to complete anger. By the time I got back to the office I had passed what seemed to be a thousand pregnant women all basking in their own glory. I remember that glow, that excitement, that innocence and I can’t help but feel completely jealous of them all.

Why did we have to lose out on that? Why does my gorgeous hard working, intelligent, wonderful husband have to get teary at what he doesn’t have? Never again will we look at children or babies without thinking about Sophie and all that we missed out on. It just sucks beyond words.

I wonder if I will ever stop being angry. Right now and after 16 months without Sophie I am not convinced.

Life is testing

Today we found out that Adrian's bets friend has stage 4 Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The news is not good and you know how he found out... he bowled a ball on a cricket pitch 3 weeks ago and broke his hip! Healthy, happy father of a 2 year boy (a God son to Adrian) may not live to see his sons 3rd birthday.

I am not talking to the man above as it is but come on... what is it with nice people being hurt ALL THE TIME! I try so hard to be positive, to overcome all life throws at us but none of this makes sense. Babies don't make it.. nice people get sick. Lets not even get into the fact that there is so much low life scum out there who don't deserve any of what they get in life but seem to thrive.

What do we need to do to get some sort of harmony is this life?

Our 3rd Anniversary

I love my husband so much. The more time that goes on I realise just how special he is. In this world of lost babies there seems to be a lot of men who just shut down and refuse to acknowledge or talk about their baby. Adrian has never been like that. I can't imagine being in a relationship with a partner who never spoke of their child, never remembered what joy they brought and never grieved openly about their loss.

Adrian, my rock, has faced losing Sophie in a very similar way to me which is a blessing. We openly talk about her, smile and cry at all we had and lost. When asked about children he is happy to tell the world we have a beautiful girl.. but she's in heaven. So many husbands don’t do this and I have met many couples in lost baby land who are struggling because of this inability to acknowledge.

I am again grateful.

Today is our 3rd Wedding anniversary. We are stronger though all we have experienced and today I wish I could marry him all over again. He brings out the best in me and understands when I cannot get to my best. Not once have I regretted being by his side, not once has he given me any reason to not want to be there. He IS amazing.

I love you with all my heart honey. Thank you for 3 wonderful years. Thank you for being open and honest and for riding this wave with me.

Her Prints with me always

I spent a lot of time last year looking for something special to have done for Adrian and I with Sophie's prints in gold. There were losts of beautiful options around but I wanted something classic that I could wear eveyday. I finally found one from the UK that was right for me and she did a fantastic job Alexandra's Angel Gifts ! Adrian now wears cufflinks (he has a hand on one and a foot on the other and mine is shown below.

So pretty :)

2010, hormones and disasters...

If the Dr's had listened to my body in hospital we would have Sophie here and I would still have the use of my uterus. The cards we have been dealt are so not fair, but after a lot of research and soul searching we now know Surrogacy is the option for us and we are moving towards it.

A chance to have Sophie's sibling is exactly what we want. So we are now trying to get some eggs out of my ‘sleeping ovaries’. When we went to Ireland last year we travelled with drugs in an esky and started the process but after all the injections they just wouldn’t wake up. We got 5 follicles but they were too small and the cycle was cancelled. The cycle was what??

Devastation is the best way to describe that outcome. I was so unprepared that this would happen. NO NO NO.. this was meant to work the first time… no strings.. we were meant to get eggs and freeze them so we can implant next June and then have a baby 9 months later! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Evidently when you are on the pill for so long ovaries go to sleep. So this pill which has been saving my life (and not letting me fall pregnant) has also been halting our chances of getting good embies. What a catch 22! Why were we never told any of this?? Suffice to say now that I am on no contraception at all there is little action in our household. Thank goodness I have such a wonderful husband!

This month there were blood tests, the results of which I really don’t understand. I am now on some hard drug called DHEA for menopausal women to help them liven things up.(I call it the Popeye drug because it can make your voice deepen!) Not that I am menopausal.. those words are far from being used, they are just not used to people at IVF having been on contraceptives.Let's face it most women would have not touched them for years by the time they get there!

So at this point I am willing to try anything but all I want to know is I need to turn up the day of my next period for more drugs of a different kind and hopefully we will wake ‘em up! The rest is too complicated. We know we are fertile... we have proof of that… just give me the correct does of drugs and lets get these eggs happening.

Ohhh if it were that simple. The wait is painstaking...

A list of the all the things that they dont tell you about loss...

Just wanted to share something that was sent to me by a friend the other day and it rang true.

They don't tell you..

• That when you first lose your baby, there will be days where when you wake up in the morning, for a split second you forget that you have lost your baby, and then the blinding realistion hits and its like losing your baby all over again
  
• That most people in your life just don't and will never 'get it' but if you're really lucky, you'll find a great online forum to talk about things you'd never dare discuss with people in real life, and the women just 'get it'
  
• That your instincts are generally right and should be trusted
  
• That your world has changed forever and you are now part of a club you never wished to be a part of
  
• That until your EDD it'll feel like you're somewhat in limbo - you'll probably know how many weeks you were meant to be at any given stage
  
• That your EDD will either be a very sad day, or you'll feel numb - and that the lead up to the day will be worse than the actual day
  
• That even after your EDD you'll still be counting - "my baby would have been x weeks, months, years old now"
  
• That every anniversary of the loss and EDD you'll remember
  
• That every mothers day you'll feel like screaming from the rooftops "But I'm a mummy too!!!!!" and every birthday and Christmas you'll feel like someone is missing
  
• That all of a sudden there will be an abundance of pregnant women and babies everywhere you go
  
• That you'll be looking at the pregnant women and babies and think how you would've looked if you hadn't lost your baby, or how big your baby would be now or what they would've looked like
  
• That every time you hear about a friend or relative getting pregnant or having a baby, you'll feel a stabbing in your heart and its just so hard to fight the pangs of jealousy and emptiness that you are feeling because it just feels so unfair
  
• That you'll hear news stories about abused children or see them in your neighbourhood and it'll just rip your heart out and make you feel so ripped off that people like that are able to procreate and do that to their child when you would never have been like that to yours.
  
• That you'll feel so annoyed and frustrated (maybe even a little jealous) hearing women complain about their pregnancies, even if they're justified in complaining
  
• That you'll always wonder "why" and find ways to blame yourself. If you're really lucky you get an answer, but most sadly don't and somehow you just have to live with the why's but they never tell you how to live with that
  
• That suddenly a simple question such as "do you have kids?" can lead to all sorts of dilemmas and feelings
  
• That there are just not enough tears - that you can cry until you can't cry anymore and still feel so empty and sad because of your loss
  
• That there are just no words that adequately describe how you feel when you lose your baby/babies